Study Abroad: Czech Republic

Your typical Wisconsin weather. Not even 2 weeks ago it was 70+ and today there are snow flurrieIs. I was getting all excited since we gained some more day light and the weather was getting warm, but that came to a quick halt this morning. At least it did make me feel so bad about going to work. Some interesting things have happened in Jon and my life since we last wrote. We got a puupy! Last Friday Jon and I went and got a 7 week old yellow lab from Wausau and brought her home. After much thought we named her Ceska. Where did we get Ceska from you ask? Good question. Since Jon and I had the most amazing experience in the Czech Republic we never wanted to forget all the good times, friendships and lessons learned while we were across seas. Ceska Republika is how you say Czech Republic in Czech so we shortened that up a little bit to Ceska with her middle name being Elbe (pronounce L-Bee), which is the river that runs through the largest mountain in the Czech. Now every time we say her name we can think about the Czech Republic!

Nothing too much is new with work or school for Jon or I. I am continuing to search for a job I can enjoy and not take the first thing that comes to me. I am still debating about taking a job in Milwaukee if I am allowed to work 4 10 hours days so I wouldn’t have to drive there as much, but we’ll see how things go. It has been something that has been on my mind for the past 2 weeks ever since I got the offer. It would be an amazing job with great benefits, salary, and everything you could ask for, except for the fact that you have a cubical and it’s in Milwaukee. I don’t want to turn the job down and then regret it later. I am trying to work something out with them, but we’ll see how it goes. Jon is still continuing with First Weber and school 2 days a week as he has been for a while. Having the new puppy has really been controlling our lives outside of work and school so we haven’t done too much else, besides lose sleep! The only other thing Jon and I have been trying to do is write on the back of pictures and put them in photo albums for our Europe trip. We printed over 1000 pictures from all the times we spent in Europe! Thats a lot of writing! I am also making a scrap book of our adventure. I saved a lot of train tickets, receipts, hostel cards, pamphlets and just about anything you can think of to put in this book. And the last thing I am making is a flag of all the countries we visited in Europe. We bought a 3 foot by 5 foot (approximately) EU Flag and then each country we visited we bought a patch to sew on the flag. We also bought a small Czech flag and a couple extra Czech patches to put in the middle of the flag. It should look pretty good once we get it done…..if that day ever comes.

Besides that our lives have pretty much gone unchanged, just work and school and of course the new puppy. She’s like having a little kid you always have to keep an eye on her. Well now its just after 9 oclock and its time to take care of Ceska and go to bed. Us working folk have to get up early for work in the morning! I hope everyone enjoys their Easter weekend. I know Jon and I will. We will be going to the Brewers game and then heading down to Illinois to visit my family. Until Next time!

Lynsey and Jon

Where do I begin?? Yes, it’s been awhile since our last update and I blame that partially on how fast life’s been flying by since we returned back to the states nearly 2 months ago. We’ve had a lot of fun these past three weeks and I don’t even know where to begin. First off, I want to congratulate the Wisconsin Badger Men’s Basketball team for a fine season, even though I’m glad I don’t have to watch them struggle anymore the rest of the tourny. I guess the most important update of the entry is that Lynsey finely got a job here in the Madison area. She is working for Associated Bank as a temp in the Wealth Management department. It is great job experience for her and she is meeting and working with a lot of nice people everyday. And due to her first week or work last week, she missed a presentation we were to give to the group of International Creditors Executive Group that was kind enough to award us both with $1,000 scholarships for our study abroad adventure. I flew solo and enjoyed a wonderful lunch and gave a 10-15 minute presentation and short recap of our 5 months in Europe to nearly 100 people. I think they really enjoyed hearing the presentation, seeing the pictures and recieving a thank you in person for their donations. Oh, I almost forgot. After the Career Fair several weeks ago where Lynsey and I both spoke with the VA Regional Office in Milwaukee and the State Department here in Madison, we both recieved phone calls back from the VA in Milwaukee. We both had interviews last week (she was 2 Friday’s ago and I was right after the presentation on Tuesday). We both did a good job and they seemed very interested in hiring us so we’ll have to see how that goes. The only problem is neither one of us would be to excited about moving to the Milwaukee area and working in a cubicle for 8+ hours a day! We’ll see! Plus, she just had an interview with the State today and she just told me they seemed very interested as well! All these job offers coming her way!! Congrats Lynsey!

As far as my work situation goes, I’m still working with First Weber and loving it. I enjoy going to work everyday and don’t mind working extra because I enjoy everybody there. I’m working anywhere between 24-40 hours a week right now which is fine for me because I still value my free time and have enough coals burning that need putting out too! I’m studying for my real estate license so who knows, I could possibly be selling (or trying to) houses here around Madison in no time! Need a realtor or looking for a house? Let me help!! So that’s the latest on both of our work lifes! As far as school goes for me, I’m still chugging right along in Securities and finished up scuba diving last Thursday. It is a great class and I’m glad I took it but man, am I happy I have my Thursday nights back again and don’t have to drive to WW another day of the week. Hopefully, I will get certified this summer and we’ll be able to do some diving soon!

Speaking of Whitewater, we spent the past weekend back there visiting and seeing a lot of friends we might not otherwise get the chance to see. I miss the town and the whole college atmosphere but in the same breath, I’m glad I’m almost done and getting ready to turn the page to a new chapter.

So on that note, check back in soon and see if that page is any closer to being turned. Take care and enjoy the warmer weather that is slowly making its way in to this great state we live in! Unitl next time, CIAO!

Jon and Lynsey

We’ll we survived the blizzard last weekend and are ready for some warm weather to come our way. My college roommate got married this past weekend which was a real eye opener to a new chapter of life starting. She was the first girl I met when I was in college and have been best friends ever since. That day seemed liked it was just yesterday. It really starts to make you realize that you are no longer a college student and have no responsibilities. You can’t sleep in until whenever you want or skip a class just because you don’t feel like going. Wow, I wish I could do that again. We are now becoming “adults” and entering the real world.

I’ve been continuing to keep up the job search. It is definitely harder than I thought. I’ve graduated college and I still don’t know what I want to do as a career for the rest of my life, so if you don’t know either, its ok. Throughout college I thought I knew what I wanted to do, but then doing some research about companies and benefits and just about everything a job can entail I realized I don’t know what I want to do. It is especially hard just coming back from Europe and starting fresh with no job. It was hard while in Europe to have internet access to start doing some research and get my resume out there so when I came back I had a little bit of base to start with, plus I was enjoying my travels a little too much to worry about that. I lot of the employers I have been interviewing with are interviewing for May hires because thats when everyone graduates. Problem for me because I am done now and need a job before May comes. But I’m doing my best to continue and apply for jobs. A couple things that I did find that were really helpful when apply is this: 1)NETWORK NETWORK NETWORK!!! I can’t say that enough. so many people apply for these jobs and you are just another piece of paper in the stack. If you know someone in the company your resume won’t just be another in the stack, it will be the resume of Lynsey Dew or whoever it may be. 2) Write cover letters. People don’t know what you want or who you are, you have to tell them. And quite frankly if you don’t, they really don’t care and will move on to someone else who did take the time to explain themselves. 3) Follow-Up. These people have lives too and aren’t concerned that you find a job. Like I said before you are in a stack of resumes and if you don’t call back to follow up on an interview or an application you placed most likely you won’t get another call. It just shows that you really are interested in a position and that you are professional. On top of following up always send a thank you card or email after a interview thanking the individual for their time. Not only is it professional, but it is also polite and they will remember that.

Other than that there isn’t too much new in our lives. I’m just continuing to search for a job and Jon is keeping busy with school and work. Hopefully by the next blog I will have a job that I can tell you all about! Let’s keep our fingers crossed!!!!!!

Until next time,

Lynsey and Jon

Is it ever going to warm up here in the great state of Wisconsin? We’ve been back for well over 3 weeks and have yet to see temperatures over freezing! This is crazy. The only day we saw snow and sub freezing temperatures in Europe was the last night we were in Prague the day before we flew home. I wonder what the weather is like over there now??

Like the last update, it’s great to be home even though we miss Europe a ton! Since we’ve been home we’ve been extremely busy getting everything back in order and continuing the job hunt around the greater Madison area. We’ve managed to spend a lot of time with a lot of friends and family as well. We have a lot of coals in the fire so everyday, even though we aren’t working yet, we keep ourselves very busy.

As far as the job search goes, it is going very well for both of us. I’m going back to work for First Weber Realtors here in Madison next Friday which I am very excited for. I missed everyone there at the office and believe it or not, I can’t wait to work again! Lynsey has been busy filling out applications and having interviews both in person and over the phone and is waiting to here back from the perspective companies. She is very excited and ready to start working again as well! My two classes, scuba diving and Securities Analysis are going well. Both are extremely interesting and I am learning a lot in both. Living in Madison and driving to Whitewater 3 days a week is completely different then what I’ve been use to in years past. I’m still adjusting but will adapt and learn to enjoy it. It’s weird growing up. I just recently turned 25 and now I feel like an old man that’s for sure! Everyday brings me one day closer to graduating and having to join the “working” world. While I’m excited for a new chapter in my life, I’m also a little nervous of how everything is going to go. We’ll just have to see and you’ll just have to check back in to see how everything is going! Stay tuned and check in often. Until next time, CIAO!

Jon and Lynsey

You guessed it folks, we are back in the good ole US of A and freezing off butts off thus far. The first question we were asked when we returned was whether or not we missed Europe and the answer is of course YES, but in the same breathe, we are both extremely glad to be back home with all of our family and friends we’ve missed the past 5 months. After spending just under 5 months living, working and traveling in a completely different way of life compared to the life all of us Americans take for granted everyday, our eyes have definetly been opened to the way the rest of the world percieves America and how Europeans live there day-to-day lives. Overall, it was an amazing experience that we highly suggest every student who has every thought about studying overseas to do. Time figurtively stood still back here while we were gone, while the time traveling absolutely flew by. Yes, you’ll miss stuff that happens back here and you’ll miss your friends and family, but you have to remember where you are and remember that studying abroad is a LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE and we mean that in the best possible way. So get off your butt, talk with Harlan or Kevin in the international office and get some information on studying aboard and DO IT! We’ve had so many people tell me how jealous they were that we took the oppurtunity to live in the Czech Republic (the majority still call it Czechaslovakia) and then be able to travel and see over 15 countries around Europe! DO IT!

So we’ll give a little recap of the whole 5 months aboard and then we’ll give you a little insight to what it’s like to get back to the US after being gone for so long as well as what it’s like to be finishing up my last semester and the always tough, job hunting! We’ll start from the begining and work our way to the end giving you a little info about each trip we took! Enjoy the recap!

-Arrived in Frankfurt, Germany by plane the morning of September 8,2006 and eventually arrived in Brno, Czech Republic early on the morning of September 9, 2006 after a tough train ride across half of Europe, but we made it!
-Spent two weeks in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from September 11-24. Visited Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, Gotenburg, Kristinsand and Copenhagen.
-Traveled to Bratislave, Slovakia and then to Milan, Italy and then to Rome for 4 days (October 12-16) to visit my aunt and her best friend for the Canonization of the founder of their college. We visited all of the major sites in Rome and even saw the Pope!
-Visited some beautiful caves just outside of Brno, Czech Republic with all the exchange students.
-Traveled to Salzburg, Austria for a long weekend the end of October to see Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, climb a mountain and see the largest ice caves in the world!
-Visited Prague for a long weekend. What a beautiful city!
-Spent 4 days in Krakow, Poland in November. The weather was beautiful. Saw Auschwitz and an amazing Salt Mine.
-Went to Budapest, Hungary with a group of exchange students for the weekend. Saw a lot of the city, including the Parliament building. Another beautiful city!
-Spent 3 days in Vienna, Austria touring the beautiful sights. Absolutely beautiful.
-Went to the city where “Hostel” was filmed, Cesky Krumlov. The weather wasn’t to nice but the city was one of the nicest we had visited.
-Took a week long trip to Slovenia and Croatia where we saw some of the most beatiful lakes and waterfalls we had ever seen in our lifes!
-Spent 6 days in Paris over Christmas. What an amazing and unbelievably expensive city.
-Spent 3 days in Cologne, Germany with a trip to Luxembourg and Dusseldorf. Cologne is home to the largest catherdal in all our Europe.
-Spent New Year’s in Belgium with our newly found Belgium friends we made in the Czech Republic. What a great time with great food, beer, chocolate and hospitality.
-Left Brno for the last time January 5th for our last 3 weeks of traveling. It was a sad day -Spent two days in Munich, Germany and of course ate dinner and drank beer at the famous Hofbrahous!
-Traveled south to Garmisch, Germany where we would spend 3 days and eventually be meet by my father, grandfather and cousin to spend 1.5 weeks traveling together.
-Traveled to St. Caterina, Italy where we spent 2 nights with distant relatives and even enjoyed a day skiing in the beautiful Alps of Northern Italy.
-Traveled south through Italy to a small town of Cassino, Italy where my grandfather began his WWII tour. From there worked our way back to Pisa and of course saw the leaning tower of Pisa!
-Spent two days on the French Riveria in the town of Cannes and even swam in the Mediterreanian Sea. It was really cold!
-Worked our way north through France and stayed in a town called Vesoul, France.
-Headed in to Switzerland where we stayed in a town on the Swiss/German border by the name of Konstanz. Beautiful city that did not get bombed during the war.
-Back to Munich to spend the night and see my dad and grandfather off before heading to Prague for our last few days. It was my cousins first time there. Toured the city and had a great time.
-Took a train back to Frankfurt and flew home and arrived in Chicago at 1730 on the 24th of January, 2007. It was great to be home.

So that was a quick recap of our trip in Europe! Now we are back in the states and enjoying our lives here. I’m taking my last class at WW, while Lynsey is done and begining her job search. We’ll keep you posted as far as the class and job search goes as the semester goes on. I hope you still continue to check in and read the blog because while it may not be exciting travel entries, we can give you some insight to what lies ahead after graduation! Take care and keep checking in. Until next time, have a little fun everyday!

Ciao,

Jon and Lynsey!!!

Well, well, well, it’s been a while but we’ve been seeing as much of Europe as we possibly can before we leave in less then one week. So, Christmas and New Years was a blast and now we are traveling Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France retracing my grandfather’s WWII invasion route he took back in 1943 and 1944 all the way to where he landed and eventually got wounded. We have done an extreme amount of driving and averaged somewhere around 75-90 MPH on the autobahns! It’s a blast! They arrived on the 10th and they leave in 2 days to go back home. My cousin is staying for an extra week so we get a couple extra days of traveling with him and plan on traveling back up to Prague to show him the beautiful city! It’s been a great 5 months or so but it’s gone by way to quick but we are looking forward to getting back to the US and friendly people. Sorry this is so short but internet time is limited and we are heading out the door. See ya back in WW in a week!

Ciao

Jon and Lynsey

Sorry it’s been so long since the last posting but we’ve been busy traveling and enjoying the holidays. So we’ll give you a little recap of the last 2 weeks or so.

We started the trip off with a 16-17 hour bus ride from Brno to Brussels, Belgium where we spent a night in Gent and then got up birght and early and headed to Paris for 6 days to spend Christmas there. The city is absolutely beautiful and there is so much to see and do but everything is so expensive! We went to midnight mass at Notre Dame which was amazing! We packed our bags and left for Cologne, Germany the morning of the 27th where we spent 3 nights. We toured the city and surrounding areas all 3 days and then headed to Antwerp, Belgium to meet up with our Belgium friends Filip, Caroline and Kristof who we spent 4 days and New Years with! It was an absolute blast. We drank so much Belgium beer and so much Belgium chocolate and ate so much good food made by both Caroline’s mother and Filips parents. It truly was a great time. From there we headed to Amsterdam for the day which was an eye opener for sure. Such a liberal and open minded city. We spent the day touring around before boarding the train and heading back to Brussels for the evening. We will tour the city for the day before jumping back on the bus and head back to Brno on the 15+ hour bus ride. Once in Brno well grab our bags and get back on a 9 hour bus ride to Munich. From there we meet up with our visitors and then it’s 2 weeks of more traveling!!

Stay tuned for futher postings and possibly some more pics if we can find some time to get them posted!!

Unitl next time, Ciao!!

Jon and Lynsey

Sorry its been so long since we’ve written. Jon and I have been wrapping up with school and our internship so we have been extremely busy the last few weeks. As of Monday, December 11, we were finished with school and our internship. Let’s go all the way back to our last entry and start from there………

The week after we got back from Hungary was a busy one. We had to each write 2 essay papers, do a project for our Applied Informatics class, as well as write a paper and do a presentation for our internship. Any time outside of class or work was spent trying to get all of our papers and presentations done. We wanted to go to Vienna the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd, but we had so much stuff to do we decided that it would be better to stick around Brno and get all of our stuff done. These papers and projects were our life for almost 2 full weeks. It wasn’t until December 9th that we actually came out of our room to do something.

Saturday, December 9th, we decided to take a short trip up to Cesky Krumlov. If you look on a map it doesn’t seem too far northwest of Brno, but it took us over 6 hours by train! That is because it is in the middle of nowhere. This town is actually where the movie “Hostel” was filmed. Jon and I spent part of our train ride watching the movie so we could find some of the landmarks when we got there. For being such a small town in the middle of absolutely nowhere, this place was amazing! I felt like I was walking though a movie set the building were so cool. The colors and architecture were unlike anything I have seen before. Many of the buildings were masterpieces, the artwork on them told a story in itself. Jon and I spent the whole day touring the city and then going up to the castle to get a panorama view of the town. It was breathtaking. That night we spent the night at a nice little hostel right outside of the main square. We got up early Sunday morning to do a little more walking and head out on the 12 o’clock train back to Brno. Sunday night we got back a little later and did some unpacking and repacking as well as touch up our papers and presentation for Monday before heading to bed.

Monday morning was yet another early one. We went over our presentation that we had to give for our internship and made sure we had everything packed and ready to go for our next adventure we were about to set out on.

We met with the Dean of the Business School as well as another Dean and the head HR lady for Moravia(where we interned at) at 1PM. Jon and I gave them our papers and did about an hour presentation on our internship and what we have learned. Everything went really well. They did ask us some questions afterwards that kind of threw us a curve ball. We were expecting to get some questions, but not like the ones they gave, but between Jon and I we took care of it. After our presentation we headed down to the Brno city center to hop on a Student Agency bus to Vienna.

After our couple hour bus ride to Vienna we finally arrived. Now we just had to find out hostel. It wasn’t hard, but we had to tale a tram from one side of town all the way to the other. It was about a 20 minute tram ride, but it was easy to find. We stayed at the Wambat hostel by Westbanhof. It turned out to be a very nice hostel and was reasonably priced. Everything was pretty new too since the hostel had just opened in July 2006. We dropped our bags off in our dorm and went out to see part of the city and grab a bite to eat before coming back and heading to bed so we could get up early Tuesday morning and enjoy the day.

Just as planned we woke up pretty early Tuesday morning and set forth to see Vienna. Wow is that city big, especially when you walk every where! We have tried to make it a point while in European cities to try and walk every where instead of using public transportation so we can see more of the city. I couldn’t tell you how many Christmas markets we saw. Around every corner there was one. We saw the parliament and many of the other major attractions and then decided to go out and see the famous Vienna castle. We had to take the subway for that one because it was so far out, but it was well worth it. We didn’t go inside and see the palace, but we did go out and see the beautiful gardens they had. I can only imagine what they look like in the summer. It was cold when we went and there weren’t any flowers or leaves on the trees, but it was still really pretty. It was huge too! I can only imagine the upkeep it takes to keep all of the bushes trimmed and all of the beautiful garden plans looking good. After about 2 hours we headed back to the city center and went to the grocery store to get some food to make dinner. We headed back to the hostel and cooked up some grub and chatted with a couple from London. They were both originally from New Zealand but moved up to London a few years ago. They have traveled all over the world and it was really nice talking with them. After dinner we cleaned up and went down to the bar in the hostel and met up with the couple again and had a few beers. After that we called it a night so we could get up early Wednesday morning and head out for Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Wednesday morning we caught a 7AM train to Ljubljana. It was a 6 hour train so we spent a lot of our time taking naps or enjoyi8ng the scenery on the train. We arrived into Ljubljana early afternoon and went to the tourist information to ask them what we should go see while we were there and set off to the hostel to drop off our bags and see the city. We were told that Ljubljana has the only bridge in Europe with trees growing on it, so of course we had to go see it. It was just what it sounds like. A bridge with some trees growing on it, thats it. But it was still pretty cool to see. We then took a hike up to the castle (we like our castles as you can tell) and got to go up the clock tower and see the city. It was foggy out so it was hard to see it all, but it was still fun. The castle was covered in Christmas lights and was so pretty!!!! After a tour of the castle we walked back to town and did some more exploring. By that time it was dark out and the entire city was filled with Christmas lights! I have never seen so many lights in my life, maybe except in the movie “Christmas Vacation”. Every building and tree in the city center was covered with lights . The bridges as well were lined with lights and it was so pretty. We did some more walking and went through some of the Christmas markets grab some food and went back to enjoy a relaxing night in the hostel.

Thursday we slept in until 7:30…..it was great!!!! We caught the 9:50 train to Zagreb, Croatia. It was only a little over 2 hours so it we got into Zagreb around Noon. Just like the last few days we toured the city the whole day. The main reason we came to Croatia though was to go to Plitvice National Park. It is a set of 16 lakes that are connected by waterfalls. It was the bluest water I have ever seen in my life! I thought that parts of Mexico had really blue water, but this place puts it to shame. We were 80 meters above the lake and could look down and see schools of fish swimming around! The sound of the waterfalls were so peaceful too, I definitely want to go back and visit this place again. It took us 6 hours to walk around just part of the lakes before it got dark and we had to head back to the bus stop to catch a bus back to Zagreb (2 1/2 hour bus ride). After we got back we were so tired from a long day we grabbed a bite to eat on the way back to the hostel, showered up and headed to bed.

Saturday we got up early again, surprise surprise, to catch a 7:25 train back to Brno so we could have part of the weekend to do some final packing and do laundry before leaving Brno for good. Monday night is going to be out last night sleeping here in Brno But Tuesday afternoon Jon and I as well as 3 other Erasmus from Belguim are going to go to Brussels and do some sight seeing, then Jon and I are off to Paris for Christmas and doing some more traveling after that. Our internet from here on out is going to be very limited so please be patient if we don’t get to write all the time. Hope everyone did good with their finals and good luck to all who graduated!

Thanks for reading and we will update you as soon as we can!

Lynsey and Jon

We made back from Budapest! What a beautiful city. Jon and I have decided that was one of our favorite cities thus far, it still doesn’t top, but definitely our favorite in Eastern Europe. This was our first Erasmus trip outside the Czech that we did as well. Friday afternoon around 2:30 about 30 International and Czech students met at the main train station to start off our journey to Hungary. We stated off the trip in a tradition Czech way, half the people late to meet us and then the train was late, you learn to expect that kind of stuff over here. We boarded the train shortly after 3 for our 5 hour train ride to Hungary. The train was full, like heavily overbooked full. In our train car alone every cabin was filled plus the conductor couldn’t walk down the hall because that was full of people standing. After about 2 hours into our journey most of the people got off the train and everyone got to sit down. We arrived into Budapest around 8:30 Friday night and made our way to the hostel to drop our bags, grab a bite to eat and go out for a beer. It sounds like a nice simple plan of attack, but that whole process took over 3 hours. And that was just dropping our bags and grabbing a Kebab on the way to the bar. After arrive at the bar shortly before midnight a group of us stayed for a few then went back to the hostel to get a good nights sleep so we can be fresh for a full day of touring.

Saturday morning Jon and I woke up before the rest of the group to go do a little exploring on our own before meeting up with the group at 10. We went to a local market which was amazing. The market was 2 floors and had to be 80,000-100,000 sq ft! It was huge!!!! The first floor was all vegetable stands and meat markets. There were a few bakeries and some cheese, honey and spice shops as well. Everything looked so good. The second floor was a traditional Hungarian craft market. We spent about an hour walking around and could have easily spent a few hours there. After we met up with the group we took a tram to the Parliament building for a tour. It was modeled after UK’s all the way down to the riverside location and hieratic facade. After the nice tour of the Parliament we broke off for a quick lunch before heading to Gellert Hotel and Baths. WOW is all I had to say. When I thought of going to a spa I though of a smaller building, nice and relaxed with a pool, hot tub, sauna and people getting massages. This place was huge. There was a large cold swimming pool with 2 larger warm pools on the side of it OUTSIDE. The thought of it not even being 50 degrees and going swimming outside didn’t sound too appealing, but it turn out to be perfect. There were also about 10 other thermal pools inside the building each with different minerals for the body. Jon and I took a dip in each of them. Your skin felt wonderful after you got out. We went to go get a massage but they were completely booked, bummer!!

After the spa we went back into the city center to do some exploring. We walked through yet another craft and food market all lit up with Christmas lights. It was beautiful. It really made me start to miss Christmas at home with the family. We did some walking around there and ate dinner at one of the local food stands. Tradition Hungarian pepper sausage with potatoes. YUMMY! Then we went and had some Hungarian sweet bread cooked over coals and coated with vanilla sugar and walnuts. There was a long wait to get one, but it was well worth it. We eventually started to make our way back to the hostel later that night to shower and crash.

Sunday morning we were up bright and early once again and Jon and I went and saw the Great Synagogue, which is the largest in Europe and second largest in the world. We then ventured over to the castle for a few hours and explored the city within a city. The view across the river was amazing and all the architecture was beautiful. We started our journey back towards the train station seeing a few more sights before catching our 4PM train back to Brno. All in all it was a great trip, and definitely a city Jon and I would like to go back to.

As for how the week is going, same ol same ol. Just work and doing some final papers, thats all.

Until the next email…..ciao!!!

Lynsey and Jon

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s weird being over here in the Czech because they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Jon and I went to the store the other day looking for a small turkey or turkey breast to cook as our own little Turkey Day but there were no turkeys to be found We had to improvise and eat some chicken. We do have a small Thanksgiving dinner tonight with some of the exchange students that we are excited about. The Erasmus program organized it for us at a local restaurant not too far from our flat. Jon and I get to give a little speech on what Thanksgiving is and how it is celebrated in the US then the best part…..We Get To Cut The Turkey!!!!!!! We’ll let you know how our dinner goes on the next posting.

As for the last few weeks, we have been doing a lot of traveling. Two weekends ago we went to Prague for the weekend. It is an absolutely beautiful city! If you are ever in Europe it is a must to go see! The architecture is incredible . In the heart of the “Old Town” there is a beautiful clock that people come to watch on the top of every hour. It is unlike any other clock you have ever seen, as silly as that sounds. If you check out our other website (PICTURES) you can see some pictures of it! As for during the week, its the same ol’ routine. Work, Work, Work, then Class.

Last weekend Jon and I took a long weekend and went to Poland. We left early Thursday morning via bus to Ostrava, Czech Republic, then hopped on a train to Krakow! We arrived around 5PM and it was already dark out so we couldn’t see too much of the city but we found our hostel and mingled with some Polish people to see what there is to see.

Friday morning we got up bright and early and went to the city center to catch a minibus to Auschwitz. After the overpacked the bus by about 10 people the driver tried starting the bus and it wouldn’t start. Everyone got off the bus and a few of the men push started the minibus while the driver popped the clutch and drove back around to get everyone. It took about an hour and a half to drive 45 miles, that was because we stopped at every corn field to pick someone up! But we made it there! We ended up buying a guide book and taking ourselves around the camp instead of going with a tour. It was very sad being there, but also very informative. I know many people learn about Auschwitz in school and everything that happened there, but to actually see it in person brought some closure to what people actually went through and how horrific it all was. We were told that you could spend a full day just visiting Auschwitz and they were right, we spent the whole day there and didn’t even get to see everything. Friday night we got back into Krakow, explored the city, went out to eat, and went back to the hostel to crash after a long day.

Saturday we went to a Salt mine just outside of Krakow. Not even a half an hour drive. Yah, I know, a salt mine doesn’t sound too interesting, but it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. This salt mine was 130 meters underground and was literally all salt! It took two hours to get through the entire thing. It was like a little city in itself. There were churches, chapels, Ball Rooms, restaurants, you name it, it was down there. The Church was so pretty. All of the statues were made of salt, even the floors, and chandeliers! After our tour we went back to Krakow again and went to go see the Castle and Tombs of heroic Polish Men and Women. All and all it was pretty cool. Saturday night we made a nice spaghetti dinner and had a few Polish beers before heading out to see some of the nightlife. We went to a Jazz Bar right in the heart of Krakow. Let me tell you, to an American, it definitely wasn’t Jazz. More like 80’s synthesizer music. It was pretty funny, but we had a good time.

Sunday morning was a travel day to get back to Brno and get ready for another week of work. Tomorrow we leave for Budapest, Hungary for the weekend. Check in soon to see how we are!

Until next time,

Lynsey and Jon