I've again been very busy and engaged in a variety of things over the course of the last week:

On Wednesday evening I went to the Czech Film Club to see the film "Loners" (Samotáři), "a story about seven Prague-based characters, all in their mid twenties. Each reflects a part of the chaos in our own lives, and the mess in our heads. Almost all of them attempt to forge and sustain "serious" relationships, which in turn become a series of clashes and lead to disappointment, and finally back to loneliness."
I found the movie a bit... let's just call it different ;), but I'm glad the International Office offers activities like this, so I'm not going to complain and I will probably go there again next week. :)

This week was "Das Filmfest" on, a festival with more that 40 acts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as guests like Corinna Harfouch and Hauschka (if you're interested in the films etc. that were shown you can check http://www.goethe.de/ins/cz/prj/fdf/deindex.htm ).
Together with Marta from Poland, her roommate from Slovakia and Steph from Australia I wanted to see the movie "Was bleibt" (German trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAphxmktzO4 ).
I had checked the available seats on the internet beforehand to see if we needed to reserve tickets, but there were lots of free seats, so I thought we would be fine.
When we got there half an hour before the film started, we had to discover that the movie was sold out and we couldn't get in... :(
Therefore we decided to go to another cinema that showed the film "Tabu - Es ist die Seele ein Fremdes auf Erden" (German trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxNkONlZCBo ). I have to admit that I didn't really like the film - to me it seemed full of nudity, drugs and violence.

The cinema itself looked quite pretty though:



On Friday Marta, Joris and I went to the operating room and as you can see we had a lot of fun just fooling around:





In the afternoon I went on a Free Walking Tour through Prague together with my Czech buddy Thereza and Joris, one of my German fellow students.
It was really interesting and even though I knew most of the things they told us, I learned some new facts as well and it was nice to just go for a long walk through the city centre.
Afterwards Thereza showed us "what has to be Prague's best ice-cream shop" and we went to the Franciscan Gardens to enjoy our ice cream:



I had to get up early on Saturday as I went on a day-trip to Kutna Hora that day (I'm going to tell you about that in a separate blog entry).
When I came back in Prague in the evening, I quickly went home to get changed and then met up with some of the Erasmus students I knew from my intensive language course in Brno as well as some of my fellow students from uni:



On Sunday I enjoyed a delicious brunch at the Globe Cafe and Bookstore with my former roommate Maria from Estonia and I also showed her around the city:



At Wenceslas Square

Yesterday I went to the Erasmus Welcome Party where we were officially welcomed by the faculty and also got a lot of nice gifts including pens and mugs with the logo of the faculty and a postcard and map of Prague.
As you can see here, they also prepared some nice appetizers for us:



Joris, me and Marta from Poland

Last Monday I started with my first course: Surgery, which will continue until the end of this month.
I also had "Czech for Erasmus students" (where I'm in the advanced group after taking part in the Intensive Language Course, only 7 students showed up and I'm afraid I'm going to be the only one this week...) and "Tropical Diseases" as an elective subject.

All my subjects are organized in blocks, so I only have one subject every day for a couple of weeks, then I take the exam and after that I start a new course.
In Surgery I only have lectures on Monday, all the other days are "practical days" and on Friday uni starts later than usual "because it's a Friday" ;).
Every day we can choose whether we want to go to the ICU, the ambulance, the traumatology ward or the operating room - depending on our choice we either have to be there at 8 or 8.30 am.

On my first day I went to the ICU (= Intensive Care Unit), the standard is about the same as in Germany - in fact they use a lot of German products, too.
Unfortunately the doctor's English wasn't very good, even though he kept trying, it took him several minutes to form a single sentence which I found very frustrating.

Therefore I decided to go to the ambulance on Wednesday which proved to be a good choice as the doctor who was assigned to us explained us a lot, he also kept asking questions and seemed really enthusiastic about what he was doing. :)
We were even allowed to perform single tasks like taking the stitches out, cleaning wounds or assisting in day surgery - one day I even got a cast (see attached photos) ;).

Today I went to the operating room, but just as I expected it to be there were about 20 other students and employees in a tiny room, so we couldn't see anything at all and therefore concluded to leave after about 10 minutes.
We then strolled to the ambulance, but again the doctor's English wasn't extremely convincing and there were some Czech medical students there as well, so he kept talking to them in Czech for quite long periods of time. :(

Much to my surprise I found that the hygiene standards are quite different compared to Germany and on my first day I thought I was going to faint (would have been the first time in my life at the hospital and I've already seen quite a lot of operations ;) ): they don't have a lot of single-use products - e.g. the linen on the stretcher is not a paper roll that gets exchanged after every patient, but rather a sheet that is replaced once a day (if at all).
Moreover, they have something they call the "sterile box" which in my opinion is not sterile at all - they take the instruments and band-aids out without wearing (sterile) gloves, mostly even with their bare hands.
Then they pass them on to the doctor who also doesn't wear gloves most of the time - once we had a patient who suffers from Hepatitis A, B and C and the doctor just said "Normally we don't do that, but now I'm going to wear some gloves." - Niiiiiiice.
Last but not least it's not very common to disinfect the hands - sometimes you can't even find disinfectant in the room.
I also believe that even though the disease patterns are about the same, the stages are often much more advanced and money plays a bigger role, too - e.g. they use bandages instead of compression stockings as a prevention of thrombosis ("It's a lot cheaper.", one of the doctors told me).

My Czech Class was not really interesting as the pace was rather slow, but since I already bought the text book I think I'm going to stick to it. Our homework is to write an essay about our family - that is to state the names and talk about their professions.

In contrast to that, "Tropical Diseases" really sparked my interest in the course - we talked about the differential diagnosis of fever after returning from the tropics.
Since I would like to go to Africa for an internship I think the knowledge I will hopefully gain in this course could really come in handy. :)

As I didn't feel like I was working to full capacity with just two days of afternoon classes ("Tropical Diseases" is just once every two weeks), I added another course called "Clinical Empathy" to my schedule.
This course concentrates on the proper rhetorical and body-language techniques and is meant to teach us how to treat our patients empathically without getting emotionally involved as well as how to improve our communication skills in general.
It's a brand new course and the instructor is a communication skills expert, corporate soft-skills trainer and coach from the United States, so I think it could really be interesting. :)


I've also planned quite a few trips / activities for the next couple of days and weeks which include going to the Czech Film Club tomorrow night, an activity that is organized by the International Club - tomorrow they are going to show a movie called "Samotáři" (Loners); taking part in a trip to the town Kutna Hora this Saturday and attending the "Erasmus Welcome Party" next Monday where we will be officially welcomed by the faculty.
In addition, I will go to Český Krumlov, a small city in the South Bohemian Region that's also a Unesco World Heritage Site from the 2nd - 4th of November.



the lecture theatre





Oh, I just remembered a nice compliment I got the other day:
When I went out for dinner with a German and a Spanish guy, an American couple that was sitting next to us interrupted our conversation: "So whereabouts in die US are you from?" I just grinned at them and said: "Try again, I'm not from the US..." They seemed extremely surprised and asked: "England? Australia?" Naaaaw.... It's awesome to hear that English native speakers actually think I might be from their country! That really made my day! :)

What have you all been up to? I'm looking forward to hear from you! :)

Last Sunday my parents arrived in Prague!
It was so good to see them again, I think I only realized then how much I had actually missed them...
We met at my flat as I had asked them to bring some things over from Germany for me (a big pillow, a bar of my favourite chocolate and some photos to decorate my room).
I didn't expect them to bring over anything else, but then I realized that they brought me a lot more than I had asked for: a digital frame with lots of photos on it, all the calendar sheets until September of the calender my sister and designed last christmas, German cheese (the cheese you get here tastes like rubber... :/ ), German bread rolls and LOTS of German chocolate!!! Oh my god, I nearly cried, I was just so overwhelmed by that!



...and this is just a part of it! :)

Shelley (my Irish flatmate) and I then accompanied my parents to their hotel to check in and afterwards we showed them around the city centre.
We ended the day with some delicious traditional Czech food called Svíčková (Marinated Beef Sirloin) with houskové knedlíky (bread dumplings).

Monday was my first day of uni (I will tell you about my first week there in my next blog entry), so I had to get up early, but met up with my parents in the city centre after my surgery lecture. Together we walked Karlův most (Charles Bridge) and looked at some of the main sights. In the evening we went to a Concert in the National Museum where songs of Mozart ("A Little Night Music"), Bach ("Air"), Vivaldi ("The Four Seasons: Summer, Winter"), Liszt ("Love Dreams"), Dvořák ("Humoresque", "Waltz in D major", "Slavonic Dance No. 8"), Smetana ("Vltava: My Country"), Tchaikovski ("Andante Cantabile") and Brahms ("Hungarian Dance No. 5 and 6") were performed.
Usually I don't react too emotional if it comes to music, but when the orchestra played "Air" in this amazing setting, I had tears in my eyes - that's how much I liked it. :)

On Tuesday we got together at the Castle area where we enjoyed the great weather, the free entry to Katedrála svatého Víta (St Vitus Cathedral) and the grand view over the city. Afterwards we walked through Valdštejnská zahrada (Wallenstein Garden) and discovered the John Lennon Rememberance Wall which I found rather disappointing, the photos are quite nice though ;).



















Can you see the TV Tower in the far left corner? I live quite close from there... :)



the Castle Gardens





Wallenstein Garden



Charles Bridge

John Lennon Rememberance Wall:















Wednesday was spent with a long walk through the district Hradčany:



Písecká brána (Písek Gate), a former city gate of Baroque fortification



Cubist Houses designed by Josef Gočár

In the Royal Garden:







Belvedere - Queen Anne's Summer Palace and a prime example of Italian Renaissance



Ball Games House



Castle Square:



the German and the Czech flag in front of the official residence of Czech President Václav Klaus as part of President Joachim Gauck's inaugural visit to the Czech Republic

Link to a German article regarding his stay: http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article109749417/Bundespraesident-Gauck-setzt-in-Tschechien-Zeichen.html





a statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia



Archbishop's Palace





Kostel sv. Jana Nepomuckého (Military Church of St. Jan Nepomuk)



Nový Svět (New World), a country lane of quaint cottages dating back to the mid-14th century





Pražská Loreta

view from Strahovská zahrada:





It was great to see my parents here in Praha and to show them around all the places I like, I'm already looking forward to see them again for Christmas (as well as the rest of the family of course :) ) - if you want to visit me, feel free to ask me about it, I'm sure we could work something out! :)

I have been very busy (and also sick...) over the last two weeks, therefore I didn't have the time to write another blog entry.

But now I will fill you in on some of the things I did:

Last week was Prague Design and Fashion Week, so I decided to go to one of the exhibitions together with my Czech buddy ( = someone who is meant to help us with problems, show us around the city, etc.) Tereza. I thought it was really interesting and also inspiring to see all those designers presenting their work, here are some of my impressions from that day:



































After spending about six hours at the exhibition, Tereza and I took a ricksha to a Puma store (it was part of their sales campaign) where we designed a T-shirt for ourselves. It was so much fun to do that ride through the city centre, we had a blast! :)






Last Thursday Eric, a German guy I met at a activity organized by the International Club, asked me and Shelley, my Irish flatmate, to accompany him to the Europe-League game AC Sparta Praha - Athletic Club Bilbao.
Needless to say - Praha won (3:1) and since there were nearly 14000 fans in the stadium (400 from Spain ;), the atmosphere was really good, too.











By the way: My German mobile number doesn't work anymore, I only have a Czech number.
So in case you want to reach me just ask me for my number or send me a postcard.. ;)

I'm also really excited that my friend Sarah from Bonn will be visiting me in December for five days, it's going to be great, I can't wait! :)

Just in case you were wondering - I finally moved in to my flatshare after staying at hotels, hostels and sleeping on other peoples' couches! :)
Oh, I also changed the settings for leaving a comment, so you should be able to comment without having to register first now! :)



the view from my room on the first day of uni! :)

I used the last couple of days to discover some more of the city i will be living in by following the advice in my Lonely Planet and taking some of the walking tours suggested there.

The first walk I took is called "Around Wenceslas Square" (Václavské náměstí) which is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town.
It starts at the neo-Renaissance National Museum, which dominates the upper end of Wenceslas Square. From the steps you have a grand view down the square:



There is also a pavement memorial to student Jan Palach and Jan Zajic who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest, a symbolic event often taken to be central to events which led to the fall of the Iron Curtain. Jan Palach set himself on fire in front of the National Museum, the memorial marks the spot where he broke down:



If you cross the street, you stand in front of one of Prague's famous landmarks, the equestrian statue of Saint Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia:





Here you can see the National Museum in the background of the statue

Below the statue is a modest memorial to those who died for their resistance to communism:





beautiful view over Wenceslas Square

If you wander down the middle of the square, you can admire grand buildings on either side - the finest is the 1906 Art Nouveau Grand Hotel Europa at No 25:



Across the street at No 36 is the Melantrich Building, from whose balcony the obituary of Czech communism was pronounced by Alexander Dubček and Václav Havel on 24 November 1989:



Nearby the Grand Hotel Europa is a shopping arcade that leads to the central atrium of the Lucerna Palace, graced by David Černý's ironic twist on the Wenceslas statue in the square outside:



If you follow the arcade to Vodičková and enter the Světozor arcade, you'll see a stained-glass window dating from the late 1940s that's actually an advertisement for Tesla Radio:



At the arcade's far end, you can turn left into the Františkánská zahrada (Franciscan Gardens), a hidden oasis of peace and greenery:



Follow the exit to Jungmannovo náměstí and go past the arch leading to the kostel Panny Marie Sněžné (Church of Our Lady of the Snows):





Keep to the right of the Lancôme shop, and you'll come to what must be the only Cubist lamppost in the world, dating from 1915:



Turn left and walk through the short Lindt Arcade to return to Wenceslas Square at its foot. If you look up, you'll see the last stop of this tour, the Art Nouveau Koruna Palace with its crown of pearls:



I'll tell you a bit more about the latest discoveries in my next entries and leave you with a Czech song that's in the Top Single Charts right now and which I really like (have fun trying to figure out what he is singing about... :D ):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVTVJ4WGURo

(unfortunately the official video is blocked by the Gema, so this is the link for everyone who is not in Germany right now ;) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rNrTWquayE&feature=related )

I used the weekend to explore the city centre, the Castle area and its surroundings together with Vaida, a girl from Lithuania who I got to know in the intensive language course in Brno.
So here are some of my very first impressions:

As the caption already suggests, something really good happened: I finally found myself a place to stay!!! :)
But let's start from the very beginning: I found two interesting flatshares on the internet I wanted to look at and scheduled an appointment for last Thursday...
So I went from Brno to Praha and back (which took me 5 hours) to check them out.
The flatshare I will be living in is located close to the metro station called "Náměstí Míru" (Peace Square), the deepest station of the Prague metro. Its platform is situated 53 metres below surface. As a consequence the station is equipped with one of the longest escalators in Europe (length 87 m, vertical span 43 m, 533 steps, taking 2 minutes and 15 seconds to ascend or descend without walking).
The apartment is only 2,8 km away from my faculty and my flatmates are three girls from the Netherlands, Ireland and Austria.
Unfortunately it won't become available before the 27th of September, so I decided to use the time to do some more travelling together with a friend (I will tell you more about this in the next entry).
On the photos you can see the escalator of Náměstí Míru metro station and the facade of the house where I will be living in.
Pictures of the flat can be found on https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.187037907990653.48637.124262154268229&type=3 .