Well this is my first time having a good wifi connection since Friday. The pension has horrible wifi so the only time I’m able to access the internet is when I’m at the institute. Sorry for how choppy my posts are going to be…I have a lot of random things on my mind and no organized way of sharing them.
It’s a struggle figuring out the currency over here, but I’m beginning to get the hang of it. The coins are what would be smaller bills in America, and there’s nothing smaller than 1 koruna. It’s also insulting to tip over 10%…so that’s way different than anything I’m used to back home. At the ATM you’re only able to get big bills and almost no one will break a 2000 koruna bill. I asked the advisor of the trip the best way to break a big bill and he suggested going to the McDonalds because they’re trained to deal with big bills and give back change. So I did what I thought I would never do while abroad and I went to McDonalds. While a few menu items seem similar, there are also a few distinct differences. The burgers have a dijon mustard instead of the yellow mustard, and there is fried mozzarella cheese as well as american cheese on a few burgers. I ended up getting a McFlurry for about 60 koruna and paid with a 2000…I felt completely ridiculous but it worked and now I have small bills thank goodness.
At home you would never find a grocery store and department store attached, but here it’s much different. We went to a store called Tesco yesterday that was basically a pharmacy, grocery store, and department store all in one…where they also sold alcohol. It’s interesting, but it makes it super convenient to run errands!
There is a Starbucks in Old Town Square, so after getting lost for a couple of hours Haley and I decided to go see if Starbucks would accept my gift card before going back to the institute….sadly they didn’t and a tall cinnamon dolce latte was 115 koruna which is equivalent to about $5.67. No more Starbucks for me. A man a few people behind me ordered a grande chai latte and it was 240 koruna, $11.82. I guess it’s that American brand…
One of the coolest things about this city is how there are dogs everywhere. Most of them are usually off leash and just follow their owner around, but they’re all extremely well behaved. There’s dogs at the mall, some at restaurants and a stray sheep dog that comes into the pension who has a little purple clip holding her bangs out of her face. If only America was as dog friendly as Prague.
I got to take some picture today because it was a little less overcast than it’s been recently. I’ll post those to Flickr by tomorrow!
Adventures Abroad 