Day 16 - 17th July, Poděbrady

The multicultural evening took place in one of the castle’s larger rooms (N.B. I think I’ve neglected to mention that summer school takes place in a castle. It’s quite cool.). Including the UK, there were thirteen countries giving presentations. 

The couple from Argentina went first, and mostly talked in English as they were beginners at the start of Summer School and speak even less Czech than I do. They didn’t mention to Falklands (haha) and handed round this really nice chocolate biscuit. The French followed them. Unfortunately, they all speak really good Czech, so I didn’t understand much, but they did have beautiful slides of French towns on their presentation, which is fairly typical. I don’t think I’ve seen a French town centre looking anything less than postcard pretty. Even in the rain. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s forbidden in their constitution. The Latvians were up next up, explaining in three languages (English, Czech and Russian – impressive or what?) that their country was divided into five regions, each with its own dress, dialect, dance and food. They also kept reiterating that they were not Lithuanian. I sense they have been asked what it’s like to live in Lithuania one too many times. I can sympathise, if someone ever calls me American, even once, I think I’ll flip. 

The Poles showed an amazing animated film about the history of Poland and Ildiko, who comes from Hungary, gave us a quick lesson in the Hungarian alphabet and pronunciation. She was followed by our very own Misha (aka German!Mike) who gave us a quiz about the differences between Germany and the Czech Republic. They have a lot t in common, and the answers to his questions surprised a lot of people, even the Czechs in the room. Since there are so many Russian people on the summer school, they decided to split their presentation into two, so more people got a chance to take part. For their first one, they sang a Russian folk song, and handed out soup. I took one sip, and then it “accidently” fell into the bin. However, the fish and garlicky hors d’oeuvres made by the French were really nice. And I think Team GB, as I nicknamed us in honour of the Olympics, drank a bit too much of the sect that was going during the break. Sect is Czech champagne. It’s really, really good. The trouble is, it gets you drunk quite quickly…

After the break, the Swedes took the stage and to the dulcet tones of ABBA did a sort of lottery, giving everyone a number and then giving out prizes when numbers appeared on certain slides. Jones won a plastic Viking helmet, whilst someone else in our class won an “Absolut Sweden” t-shirt. The Slovenian team (including T, S’s roomie) followed, and told us quite a lot about their country, including some famous poets who lived there. What I found most interesting about the presentation was the origins of Slovenia. Despite only being founded in 1991, it has evidence of human habitation over 250,000 years ago. Next on where was Ukraine, who showed some absolutely stunning pictures of Ukraine in both winter and summer, and then the last team before us, Taiwan, hit the stage. Both Taiwanese girls are tiny, so it was a shock to find out that one of them, who is also Sheffield!Nic’s roomie, teaches Kung-Fu! Then it was us! Our presentation went well, with people enjoying the strawberries and cream, and laughing at the videos of our “weird” sports.

Afterwards several people said they had enjoyed it, including our teacher Zusanna. We were not the last presentation though. The presentation from Saudi Arabia was delivered by one guy (which must have been nerve-wracking) in English, since he was a beginner.  It was fascinating to find out so much about a country that also seemed so shrouded in mystery, and it cleared up a few things for me, such as the fact that it’s not just the women who have to cover up in Saudi, the men have to wear long, white robes as well. However, given Saudi’s not exactly amazing record with women’s lib, especially in regard to driving and letting them take part in the Olympics, the guy was given a bit of a grilling in the Q & A section following. The Russians gave the second half of their presentation after Saudi Arabia, handing out vodka and gherkins, which were surprisingly more popular than the soup, and then dancing to this year’s Eurovision entry from Russia. The Russian!roomie was involved – she danced amazingly!

After the evening was over, we headed to the corner shop, to grab some dinner (I avoided the microwave meals and grabbed a pot noodle instead – Yeah I know, not exactly healthy, but it was late and I was hungry). We headed back to the kolej, and sat in the corridor talking until the lights got officially turned off by the woman on duty and we decided to call it a night. It was an amazing night!

Day 15 - 16th July, Poděbrady

Most of today was spent planning the Multicultural evening that was going happen the next day. After meeting up again with S at lunchtime, we spent the afternoon thinking of ideas we could use in our presentation to showcase British culture. Because everyone has heard of the UK, we decided we could just focus on British culture, since we didn’t have to explain where the country was or what languages were spoken there as some of the smaller countries would have to.  

In the end, we decided that Sheffield!Nic would do the introduction and conclusion, I would talk about British food, S would talk about the Royal Family, Jones about British monuments and Mike and Het (the other British girl on Summer School who kept herself to herself, she and Sheffield!Nic had a past) would do weird sports. We also decided to hand out strawberries and cream and cups of tea during the presentation. We spilt up for a while to work on what we were going to say, then met up again to grab dinner from the supermarket, Albert. I love the fact it’s called Albert. It sounds like a butler! Upon discovering that there was indeed a microwave in the kitchenette at the end of my corridor, I grabbed a microwave meal. 

When I tipped the meal on to a plate about 15 minutes later, it say it looked unappetising was an understatement. It looked like an exact square of pink mush (it was meant to be vegetable risotto). However, once it had heated up, it looked a bit better and I ate it because I was hungry. It tasted okay, but I wouldn’t recommend the Albert branded vegetable risotto to everyone. There are probably things that taste nicer in the same aisle. After dinner, we finished planning the presentation, decided to add some videos of the weird sports Mike and Het were talking about, as after a picture describes a thousand words. It would also make the sports we were talking about, polo, cricket, hurling, curling, conkers, Gaelic football and cheese rolling easier for Het and Mike to explain. I mean how do you describe cheese rolling? No one will believe that people seriously race down a hill in Gloucestershire after a cheese until you show them a video doing it. Whilst watching in the video of these crazy people, I felt so proud to be from Gloucestershire!  

Day 14 - 15th July, Poděbrady

Today we went to a Medieval Village in a nearby town. None of us were particularly keen to go, and so there was quite a lot of grumbling on the train. However, that all stopped once we arrived. Everything in the village, including the houses, dress and the roads, was designed to look like it had come straight from the Medieval era, so the roads were cobblestony and uneven and the door jambs were very low. You even had to change your money for old money, which I thought was quite cool!

There was also a beautiful garden and a small zoo attached to the village, and we spent quite a long time feeding the goats and the ostrich before heading back to the village for lunch. Lunch was amazing – chicken and potatoes cooked over massive open-air ovens and, a rarity in the Czech Republic, as much as salad and sauce as you wanted included in the price. Usually you have to pay extra for sauce or salad, and it can get quite pricey. For desert we had palachinky, which are traditional Czech pancakes served with jam which were delicious. I also tried some medovina, which turned out to be a bit like port.

On the way back from the village to the train station, we got absolutely soaked. Sheffield!Nic and  I had both been tricked by the early morning sunshine and were wearing short sleeves and thin fabric, meaning our clothes were almost transparent by the time we reached the station!

Day 13 - 14th July, Poděbrady

This afternoon the usual gang went to Prague, minus S of course, who was already there. The train journey was rather boring, but as we had got one of the modern three-tier trains, we got to sit on the top part of the train which was exciting. For about five minutes. When we got to Prague, we grabbed the metro to Vyšehrad, where the settlement of Prague first began. Getting the metro in the Czech Republic was rather simple, a bit like you do in France; you pay for how long you are on the metro, rather than the journey to where you will end up, as you do in London. As such, you can get a metro ticket for 25 minutes, 2 hours (I think…) or a whole day one. I’m also guessing you can get commuter ones too. 

It was lovely and sunny by the time we got to Vyšehrad, which was a bonus as the majority of it is outside. We had a nice wonder around the old castle bit, which leads you up a hill to the Vyšehrad Cemetery and the Church of St. Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad. The Vyšehrad cemetery is like a who’s who of famous and wealthy Czechs. Amongst those buried there are Karel Čapek (a famous Czech author) and Alphonse Mucha (a famous Czech artist, who I talked about a bit in one of my earlier posts). We wandered around for a bit, looking for our favourite famous Czechs before going over to the Church. Whilst I was walking round the cemetery I noticed that the Czech VIPs were buried with their families, usually spouse and children. I was thought it was quite sweet that your family got to be buried in the graveyard with you, as if the Czech government was honouring the families that quite often support and encourage the authors, artists etc. and not just the famous person themselves. 

The inside of the Church of St. Peter and Paul at Vyšehrad was beautiful, with icon-like paintings of various Saints (most of whom I’d never heard of, so I’m guessing they were Czech Saints) adorning the pillars. As with all churches, it was beautifully peaceful and calm. After taking about half an hour to actually find a way down from Vyšehrad, we decided to walk along the river towards the centre of Prague, where we were meeting S and her boyfriend for dinner. Following about 40 minutes of walking, we split up, with Sheffield!Nic, Jones, Mike and T heading towards the Karlov Bridge and German!Mike and I heading into the shopping district, as I wanted a big Czech dictionary, and German!Mike wanted a specific book of poems by a Czech author he is studying next year. After getting rather lost in a one particular bookshop, I found what I was looking for and German!Mike and I went to join the others. We met up with S and her boy, and headed to the restaurant.

The restaurant specialised in Afghanistan cuisine , which turned out to very similar to Greek . Sheffield!Nick, Jones, S and Mike all had the restaurant’s signature cocktail…which turned out to be exactly like tzatziki , the yoghurt sauce you usually get with lamb at Greek restaurants! All apart from Sheffield!Nick ended up ordering another drink, and Mike was whining about the 50 kc he had spent on the drink for quite a while. When our food turned up, almost all of it was covered in yoghurt. Nick had however, ordered a korma. And his face when this tiny little dish of what looked like one meatball covered in sauce was placed in front of him…

After eating, we headed back into the centre to check out an ice-cream parlour that S and her boyfriend were raving about. I had a pistachio ice-cream, which was delicious, and huge! We wondered through Prague city centre, taking the scenic route back to the station whilst eating our ice-creams, meaning that we got to see Prague at its busiest and most exciting. This did however involve a guy dressed up in medieval gear spraying water at our legs for no apparent reason. As you do. 

Instead of getting a modern train back to Poděbrady, we hopped on an old-fashioned one, complete with leather-style seats and compartments!! We didn’t manage to get a compartment, but the whole feel of the train as we headed back was a lovely ending to an amazing day.

Day 12 - 13th July, Poděbrady

Rather embarrassing Russian moment today at break time. I went over to ask the Russian!roomie about the party she’d had gone to the night before, generic “Did you have a nice time?” sort of thing. Only, when I opened my mouth to speak, it wasn’t Russian that came out, but the weirdest mixture of Czech and Russian. Causing both Russian!roomie, and French!Nick (who was actually also Russian, but speaks French quite well) to give me weird looks. I tried to correct myself several times, until French!Nick put me out of my misery, saying “We understand” in that calming tone of voice one uses on small children and those with concussion. Talk about embarrassing and awkward.

S, T and Sheffield!Nic were off to Prague, (T and Sheffield!Nic to go shopping, and S because her boyfriend is visiting for the weekend and the pair of them are staying in a hotel in Prague. It’s really sweet that he came to visit her :) ) so I had lunch with the boys in the kosel, a Czech pub. The food was delicious and really cheap, but it was a tad unnerving when we noticed a small sign above the door stating that the previous manager was in jail, and the pub workers were campaigning for his release. Especially as it didn’t state why he was in jail. 

After spending the majority of the afternoon asleep, skyping or eating chocolate (I have a hard life I know), I joined the boys again for dinner. As we were walking to the restaurant by the lake, German!Mike was complaining about Mike (seriously, I saw in summer school there are only about five different boys’ names!) “knocking him up” in the afternoon. Cue the three Brits cracking up, and when we explained what he had said, German!Mike joined in. What he was actually complaining about was Mike waking him up earlier that afternoon by knocking on his door. Later that evening, whilst we were waiting for T and Sheffield!Nic to join us, German!Mike had us all in stitches again as he knocked his beer over whilst explaining something. I think the funniest thing of the whole event was German!Mike’s face when he realised what he had done to his beer!

Day 11 - 12th July, Poděbrady

Disaster struck at break-time today. The corner shop that keeps the summer school caffeinated, and high sugar due to their coffee and pastry duo, ran out of coffee. It was especially annoying I was feeling kinds out of it and was relying on coffee it keep me awake through the second half of lessons. However, all was redeemed when Zusanna walked in after break with a patisserie box in her hands, containing homemade apple strudel. It was the most delicious pastry I’ve ever tasty, moist and sweet, without being sickly and the lack of puff pastry stopped it from being dry. In order to get strudel though, we had to write a story in groups, including several words Zusanna had written on the board. The unofficial leader of my group, Lun, (basically the one who could actually speak Czech) decided that we were going to write a philosophical rambling about life. Lun studies Philosophy and Czech in Slovenia, and has the coolest hair I’ve ever seen – it’s a massive afro that sticks out everywhere - you can’t help but see him in a room. 

I missed the afternoon lecture, since it was on Semafore, not something I’m really interested, and went on a walk by the river instead. Whilst on my walk, I passed a primary school on “Pirate Day”. It was sooo cute! They were all dressed up with skull and crossbones and eye patches! They then climbed on to massive canoes and proceeded to sail up and down the river, calling out “Yoho!” and “Arggghhh!” on a fairly regular basis. When I got back from my river, I joined the usual gang for a pivo (beer) at the local kosel (Czech pub). I tried Honey pivo, which was surprisingly nice, and the only beer I actually like! On the downside, it was listed as limited time only – and I haven’t been able to find it since. Sod’s law. For dinner, we headed to a restaurant next to the river that we had spotted whilst on our boat trip earlier in the week. We had to wait almost an hour for our food, but like the thunderstorms, I’m starting to get used to this, and the delicious salad I had more than made up for it!