Tag: jfbarszcz

By jfbarszcz

Today is Sunday, December 9th, at about 2:30 PM CET. Exactly six days from now, I will be boarding a plane and leaving the city I've called home for the last three months, with no idea when I'll return. I definitely have mixed feelings about having to come back to the States. On the one hand, I'm very excited to be able to see my family and friends again, and there are many comforts at home that I simply do not have here. On the other hand... I desperately want to spend another semester here. I feel like the amount of time I've spent here hasn't been enough to really, fully explore and experience everything I've wanted to just in Prague, to say nothing of the Czech Republic and Europe as a whole. While I spent my first couple of weeks here practically overdosing on new experiences, as classes started, the weather got colder, and the days got shorter I inevitably had to slow down. If I could do another semester in Prague, I absolutely would without question. Unfortunately, my academic obligations make this impossible. But I'm not sweating it, since in all likelihood this won't be my last time in Europe. ...continue reading "Departure"

By jfbarszcz

One of the worst things about going abroad in the fall is missing out on Thanksgiving festivities in the States. I think I speak for almost all Americans when I say that Thanksgiving has always been one of the highlights of my year. I get to spend time with family and friends from home, I get to eat one of the biggest and best meals of the year, and I don't have school. What's not to love?

Of course, the godless communists nice friendly people over here in the Czech Republic don't celebrate American holidays, which includes Thanksgiving. And even if they did, it's not like I'm just gonna catch a plane back to New Jersey for the weekend. Consequently, this was the first Thanksgiving I ever spent away from home (and the first Thanksgiving I had class, gah). ...continue reading "Thanksgiving in Prague"

By jfbarszcz

My prompt this week asks me to talk about a custom from my country that I think the US should adopt. While not a "custom," per se, there is one big thing that the Czech Republic does better than the US: money. No, I don't mean the Czech Republic is richer than the United States, or that their spending habits are better, or that Czech monetary policy is better than America's. I mean that their actual money, their cash, is so much better than ours, for several reasons. ...continue reading "Dollars and Crowns"

By jfbarszcz

I imagine that most GW students would feel similarly when I say that right now, the foremost thing on my mind is Tuesday's presidential election. In the US, the presidential election is always a time of great excitement and dominates the national attention. Here in Prague, as one may expect, the media coverage is not quite so overwhelming, but it's still a very big topic (and of course, I continue to read American news outlets online, where the election remains the top story). Seeing that we exert enormous amounts of global influence in just about every sphere, I don't find this surprising in the least; US policy decisions have effects on the entire globe. Still, it's definitely pretty weird to go to a foreign country and have seemingly everyone there know an impressive amount about my country's politics, when I know so little about theirs, and I'm the one who's in their country! Then again, I guess the same could be said about people here (especially young people) knowing English, American movies, music, etc... in other words, I should be used to this kind of stuff by now. ...continue reading "Electoral Madness"

By jfbarszcz

It's been a busy week and weekend for me, as I suddenly find myself with lots of work to do. Midterms, presentations, general homework, plus scheduling classes for next semester (Yay FOFAC priority registration! Boo transferring into Columbian from Elliott and having to figure out all the new GCRs!) Heck, even writing this blog, while I don't want to call it a chore, still takes some time. And while my classes here are generally less intense than GW classes, it's still hard to get work done for them for a couple different reasons: ...continue reading "Week (I’m Not Even Counting Anymore): Midterms"

By jfbarszcz

As you may be aware, dear reader, soccer (sorry, football) is much more popular in Europe than in the United States. In the Czech Republic in particular, football is probably about tied with ice hockey as the most popular sport. So it goes without saying that I wanted to attend a football game (sorry, match) during my stay in Europe. Thankfully, that's pretty easy to do here. I think that in this regard I've actually been pretty spoiled. AC Sparta Praha is historically the best team in the Czech Republic and one of the best in Central Europe. But unlike, say, Real Madrid or Manchester United, you don't have to pay hundreds of euros for a single ticket. The price of admission to a Sparta match is 240Kč, or about 12 US dollars. Not only that, the stadium is three tram stops from my dorm, so it was very easy for me to attend a match on a whim after class one Monday evening. And NOT ONLY THAT, but my 240Kč ticket? It bought me this view. Pitchside, midfield, hell yeah. Do you know how much that would cost you in Barcelona? I don't even know, and quite frankly don't want to. ...continue reading "Football! (As in soccer!)"

By jfbarszcz

The Czech Republic has produced a great number of visionaries: the composers Antonín Dvořak and Bedřich Smetana; the writers Karel Čapek and Franz Kafka*, and the playwright-activist-turned-politician Václav Havel are just a few. A name that was unknown to me until recently, however, was that of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century painter Alfons Mucha (pronounced MOO-kha). Perhaps he's better-known to people more versed in art history than I am, but I had never heard of him until I came to Prague. ...continue reading "Week 6: In Which Jake Talks About Art Or Something"

By jfbarszcz

Once again, I'm writing this week's post in a bit of a rush, since in just a few short hours I'll be boarding a plane to Amsterdam for the weekend! (Yeah yeah I know, I'm doing such stereotypical American college kid things in Europe: Oktoberfest, Amsterdam.... Definitely looking forward to spending the next couple weekends after this one at "home" in Prague though!) So I apologize in advance for any weird incoherence caused by my not thoroughly revising/editing my post.

My prompt this week is "Discuss what the academic culture is like in your host country." While I can't really say for sure what academic culture is like as a whole in the Czech Republic, I can talk a little about what I DO know about it, as well as how my academic experience thus far has been similar to and different from my experiences at GW. With that disclaimer out of the way let's get started.

...continue reading "Week 4: Classes etc."

By jfbarszcz

Hey all! So my blog post is going to be a bit shorter this week because I'm actually in the middle of packing for Oktoberfest! Obviously I am very excited for this, but it means that I leave Prague at 7 tomorrow morning and won't be back until late Sunday night (and I know I'll want to sleep when I get back) so I'm writing this post at about 11 PM Thursday night). Anyway, this week's topic is... restaurants.

You can learn a lot about a local culture by visiting restaurants. Obviously, cuisine is a very large part of culture, but it can also be an educational experience in other ways. Dining in restaurants in Prague has also taught me about local etiquette, money and prices, and even a bit about the Czech outlook on life.

...continue reading "Prague’s Restaurant Scene"

By jfbarszcz

Hey there! I was pretty sick last weekend, so I didn't write an entry last week. But I'm back now! So while this might be the fourth week of blogs, it's only my third post, but I'm going to call this Week 3 (because the first one was Week 0, remember?). Don't bother looking for Week 2. It doesn't exist.

When I saw the prompts for this week's entry, one jumped out at me immediately. "Tell us how to get around your city! (Describe how to take the bus, ride a bike in the city, etc.)" This is because one of the most wonderful things about Prague is how easy it is to get around! While I love DC, its public transportation, by comparison, is honestly crap. The only American city I've been to with a comparably extensive mass transit system is New York, and if you've ever been there you know that besides its extent the NYC Subway lacks in pretty much everything else... besides character, of course. It has loads of that. But really, if Prague is any indication, Europeans have the public transportation thing WAY better figured-out than us Americans.

...continue reading "Week 3: In Which Jake Espouses The Virtues Of The Systems Of Rapid Transit In The City Of Prague"