Travelling the World: 2011

Thursday, May 12, 2011

CANADA VS. NORWAY

3-2

Monday, May 9, 2011

Prague, Czech Republic to Presov, Slovakia Republic

May 6, 2011

This morning the group met up for our trek to the train station. The train ride was about 9 hours to from Praha (Prague), Czech to Kosice, Slovakia. The official train stops are Praha-Liben, Kolin, Pardubice, Ceska Trebova, Olomouc, Hranice Na Morave, Valasske Mezirici, Vestin, Horni Lidec, Puchov, Povazska Bystrica, Zilina, Liptovsky, Strba, Poprad-Tatry, Spisska Nova Ves and Kysak before arriving in Kosice We were happy to have a car with an extra seat and lots of room for our luggage. The halls were packed with standing passengers for some parts of the trip, so we kept the door closed and sometime the curtains too. It kinda made us feel like snobs but it was weird to have them staring in at us. The bathroom floor smells pretty bad and is covered in piss. The food card is about 3 cars away from us. It’s a bit cold in their but its there’s a pretty good selection.

We got our proposals back for our final paper for this course. I wasn’t excited knowing that I have to deal with more school work. I am studying food while I am here, which you would think would be a very easy topic but it’s much more complex then talk about flavours. I am still trying to get a good grasp of how I am look at the social phenomenon that occurs around the consumption of food. I still have half a book to read, a couple articles and some studying to do for my exam. I am so over school at this moment, and wishing this trip had nothing to do with it.

We finally arrived in Kosice and then jumped on another bus for about 20-30 mins to Presov. David (the teacher) treated us to dinner, with the money left from being over charged for the course.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Free Day in Prague

I was a total ass to my rommie this morning. I definitely pulled a Denver, by setting my alarm an hour before the time that I actually got up. Letting it go off every 10 minutes and pushing snooze every single time. She must have gotten sick of it, because when I finally got it she was already gone, at least I thought she was.

The way that the security system works in the dorms is that there is a key for each room, which has two bedrooms, a mini fridge and sink, a shower room, a toilet room and a little free space. Each bedroom has a separate key as well. As you know from before I shared my room with Renee and Emily and Aimee were in the other bedroom. The last person to leave the room is supposed to lock up and drop the key off at the reception on their way out. None of us have been sleep been sleeping very well in the morning. We’ve all been waking up around 3-4 am trying to fall back asleep and sometime giving up by 6 am and just getting up. Renee has been getting up pretty early and leaving in the morning to go check her email and chat with the boyfriend, so I figured she had done the same this morning. I heard someone in the shower and just assumed it was the other girls getting ready and didn’t put much more thought into it. I did my regular thing, got ready to go on my run, locked up our room and headed out, handing the key in at the front desk, figuring that Renee would just pick it up when she got back from checking her email.

I ran along the river again this morning. I went the direction away from the tourist area to start, but when I started coming across sketchy looking buildings that looked like they were still being lived in I was worried that I was crossing in to the ghetto areas. I turned back and heading into the tourist area, where I had run the day before. I was gone for about 40-60 minutes, so probably about a 7-9km run. When I got back Renee was in the room and she filled me in our events from the morning. It turns out it was her in the shower before I left and I had locked her out of our room with nothing but her towel. This was even more exciting when she had to go visit the reception in her towel (located in front of a big open window that looks out to the street) and he said he didn’t have the key to our room. When I left no one was at the desk, so I just slipped the key window opening onto the desk. Thank God we were only on the second floor so she didn’t have to run down a few flights of stairs or take the lift down in her towel. The employee went up and opened our room door for her and later found our key and brought it back up for her. I was pretty thankful that she is very light hearted and even though I was very apologetic we were both able to find quite a bit of humour in the scenario.

We had a free day today to check out the city. By this point there was a little group formed with some decent ideas of places to check out and were ready to take off. I told them if they were willing to give me a few to get ready. After everyone waited for me to get ready quickly, who would have guessed a group of us headed out a day of adventures in the city. In all fairness they said that is was good that they had to wait for me because more people joined onto the group because of it.

Nathan our self appointed himself as the group’s tour guide. He led us along city’s the popular tourist route to Charles Bridge. We were thankful to escape the tourist trap when we found a little staircase off of it that took us to a beautiful empty street that led into a park. We followed it still be came to a art piece that represented the end of the communist era and the tram that would lead take us up the hill towards an old mosque.

We also came across a Labyrinth (mirror maze) that we got to act like little kids in making our stomach hurt from laughing so hard,

a lot of ridiculous pictures were taken while walking through the castles mote

and we also saw couple older historic buildings along the way.

The 5ish hour walking tour ended at the groups popularly visited Pizzeria on the same block as our hostel.

The evening was used for catching up with a few people back at home and through around some ideas for travels after the course with Renee. I am still very indecisive about my after course travel plans. I don’t think I’ve ever been so on the rocks with what I want. One day I am convinced the best thing to do is to go home and then the next I convinced to stay and keep traveling. Now that others people plans are dependent on what mine are the pressure is really on and time has basically run out. I’ve been waiting for something to happen to simplify the situation and will make me 100% convincing on what should be done but like I said it hasn’t come.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Class Walking Tour Day & Exploring the Castle

I was committed to go for a run this morning and I did. A few people in the group had said they were interested in coming with me previously but they all weren’t that up for it when the morning came. I told Renee the route I was thinking about taking in case I didn’t make it back in a decent amount of time and they needed to come look for me. Without realizing I started running the opposite way I had hold Renee and quickly turned around on

ce it clicked in. It pretty hard to run on large cobblestone, you feel like your ankles are going to roll all the time but it fe

lt great to be out and moving.

Our class schedule started at 10 am this morning. The lecture was pretty overwhelming with all kinds of dates and names of historical figures throughout Europe’s history. After the lecture we headed out for the big city walk heading toward the castle. We made a food stop off along the way, picking up for greasy potato pancakes and sausage but they were really good. David (the teacher) parted ways with us at the castle and we stayed to tour through the buildings and the surrounding areas for the next 5ish hours.