Second Week

This second week in France has given me the time to adjust and adapt to my new environment. As exchange students from the University of Windsor, we are allowed to take courses from Rouen Business School’s Bachelor of Science in International Business and Master Grand Ecole level. While the BScIB courses began early last week, the MGE courses did not begin until today. As I aim to challenge myself, I registered exclusively in MGE level courses, and thus had the past week to explore around Europe. I quickly took advantage of this opportunity, and left Rouen last Wednesday and embarked on a quick backpacking journey to Amsterdam, Munich, and Prague.

The trip to Amsterdam was relatively pain-free. For €38, myself and two fellow Canadians that study at Brock University took a train from Paris to Amsterdam via Eurolines. The bus ride was expected to take eight hours to arrive to Amsterdam, but the bus was blessed with a flat tire and the trip was sidetracked by an additional hour. While in Amsterdam, we visited a number of places including the Anne Frank House, the Heineken Experience, and ventured off on a boat cruise in Amsterdam’s canals. The Anne Frank House was very moving as it allowed for the viewers to witness where the Frank Family had gone into hiding and feel for their situation. The Heineken Experience allowed tourists to visit a former Heineken brewery. The tour was set up very well and included a ‘drinking lesson’ in which an employee demonstrated to everyone on how to drink a Heineken beer properly. Most notably, Amsterdam was swarming with residents biking around the city. If you visit Amsterdam, it is important to note that there are two sidewalks. The red sidewalk denotes a biking lane, and it is important to avoid walking in this lane as you may be hit by a cyclist.

Holland is known for using bicycles as a main form of transportation.  Pictured above is a parking garage for bicycles.  Click the picture above to view my photo album from Amsterdam.

Upon visiting Amsterdam, I headed to Arnhem to visit Mickey, a fellow Odette student that is studying at Arnhem Business School. Mickey and I, along with three other students studying at Arnhem had rented a car to road trip to Munich and Prague. This was a different experience as I had only been exposed to public transit in the two weeks that I have been in Europe. For those that wish to visit Munich during Oktoberfest (as we did), be sure to plan the trip well ahead of time so that you can secure a hostel or hotel that is reasonable in price! We had lined up to enter one of the tents at around 7:30am, but we had lined up too late and were not admitted into one of the tents. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we spent our afternoon on a patio directly outside of the tent.

During Oktoberfest, the servers begin serving beer at noon.  Pictured above is David, Ryan, Sonya, Mickey, and myself.  Click the picture above to view my photo album from Munich.

My last location for this week was Prague, where we spent just under two days exploring the city. As I was born in Slovakia and can speak Slovak, I was comforted that I could also speak and communicate with locals in Czech. The ability to communicate in the country’s native language provided great reassurance for me as I traveled around the city. I can now truly understand the importance of bilingualism and hope to improve upon my knowledge of the French language while I am in France. Prague is a beautiful city to visit for its old architecture. We explored the city by taking a boat tour, visited the Prague Castle, Old City Centre, and my favourite – the Lennon Wall. The visit to the Prague Castle was very interesting; prior to visiting I did not know that it was the largest castle in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The Lennon Wall, my favourite stop has some fairly recent history behind it. According to Wikipedia,

In 1988, the wall was a source of irritation for the communist regime of Gustáv Husák. Young Czechs would write grievances on the wall and in a report of the time this led to a clash between hundreds of students and security police on the nearby Charles Bridge. The movement these students followed was described ironically as "Lennonism" and Czech authorities described these people variously as alcoholics, mentally deranged, sociopathic, and agents of Western capitalism.

The wall is layered with peaceful phrases and quotes from Beatles songs. As The Beatles are my dad’s favourite band, I had to visit the wall and take some photos for him to enjoy.

Shown above is a painting on the Lennon Wall. Click the picture above to view my photo album from Prague.

Thanks for reading. I will be sure to fill you in again on my adventures next Tuesday.