Czech Republic Finale

Hey everyone-

I'm back in Ann Arbor after a hellish day of multiple 5 hour layovers, an incessantly screaming toddler on my 10 hour flight, and nursing a bad cold. But it's the 4th of July, and I'm happy to be back in the States celebrating it.

I visited Prague my last weekend in Czech Republic. I was told to expect great things from the city. After all, out of the many Czech travel books I looked at, Prague took up at least 50 pages of them while Brno got maybe 4 pages.

Our hostel was in an ideal location, just minutes outside of Wenceslas square, the traditional setting of demonstrations and celebrations and named after St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia (Prague is located in Bohemia, Brno is in Moravia). Emily and I got acquainted with the city by hitting up the Lonely Planet's Top 14 Things To Do in Prague. Prague is smaller than I had previously thought and everything was fairly close, but we were nevertheless proud of our accomplishments. My favorites were the Charles Bridge and Mala Strana (shown below). Mala Strana is a quaint and charming section of Prague that sits on the other side of Charles Bridge. We also had breakfast at Cafe Louvre, where Albert Einstein used to sit and have coffee. At night we found ourselves at a 80's and 90's dance party. I think it was Will Smith's Men in Black that drew us in. Speaking of dance clubs, the playlist at a "disco" club in Brno included Dirty Dancing, Grease, and Uptown Girl and all the locals were very excited about the songs. I explained that American clubs play a lot of hip hop, which they thought was weird.


Prague has these excellent pastries called trdlnk (once again, the consonants). Trdlnks are essentially dough that's wound around a metal pole, roasted, and covered with cinnamon and sugar. I got mine with nutella on the inside and it was heavenly.


During our last week or so in the pharmacy Emily and I were shuttled back and forth between coworkers who were back from summer vacation. In Czech, everyone gets a 5 week vacation per year - with 2 weeks vacation taken during the summer and 3 weeks at a later time. We were taken to visit the University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences for the pharmacy school graduation (shown below), which was pretty cool. Watching the graduation ceremony made my own graduation seem more attainable.


Pharmacy school in Czech Republic uses more of a pass/fail grading system. They do have A, B, C, D, E, and F, however students I spoke with seemed simply excited to have passed their course. Students take 5 classes per semester but if ambitious, can take up to 7. There aren't exams during the semester, just an oral exam at the end. Students schedule their own finals sometime during the month following the end of their courses.

Some other differences between American and Czech pharmacies: OTC ibuprofen only comes in 400 mg and you need a prescription for ranidine. Prescriptions are called receipts in Czech. Vitamins are for the most part in the form airborne effervescent tablets, which I don't mind because I think it makes it more fun to take.

Čau,
Kristin