Eric Crawford July 21, 2011- Study Tour Day 1

We started off the day with a quick breakfast and then hit the road in our Mercedes-Benz tour bus. After a long drive, we finally arrived in the town of Telc to visit the old castle, which was beautiful, and have lunch. After another long drive, we arrived in Suchohrdly to visit a modest family farm of about five hundred acres. Afterwards, we headed to Blatnicka where we would have dinner at a local winery that doubled as a hostel. Although the accomodations were simple, it was clean and our hosts were nice. After an exceptional meal and a preview of the wine, we headed to the actual wine cellar for a wine tasting. We tasted several white wines and a few red wines. We learned a few wine tasting tips and a couple of tidbits about the winery and how they operate. The wine ranged from Riesling to virgin red wines although all were characteristically superb in quality with many people enjoying the Riesling, "Ice" white wine, and "Virgin" red wine the most. Afterwards, a live dulcimer band played as entertainment and, after copious amounts of wine, there was dancing and card playing. We also had the opportunity to purchase our favourite wines at a reasonable price ranging from $10 to $30 per bottle, which many people endulged in.

Amazing Moravian Band from our Winery Night

Chris Hogan- July 18-19, 2011

July 19th

Today we headed out on an excursion. Our first stop was to a strip mining operation. We had the opportunity to go into the mine. It was impressive to see the massive machinery from such a close perspective. After lunch we visited the town of Most. In Most, we visited a church from the 15th century which had been moved nearly a mile from its original location as a result of the mining operation. It was an example of the considerations taken when strip mining. Though the church was preserved, many villages were engulfed by the mining operation, forcing out the residents.











July 20th

On Wednesday, it was back to the normal routine. We headed to a full day of classes; however it is our final day of regular classes. I think it made us realize just how fast our trip has flown by! After classes some of us headed out to the movie theater to see Harry Potter. It was the final movie of the series and many of us were sorry to see the series go. After our last "normal" day we all packed up our things and prepared for our six-day study tour across the Czech Republic.

Andrew Pilarcik, July 15-16

Friday 15th: We woke up in Rome after getting into our hotel late the night before. The group in our hotel room consisted of Chris, Katie, Justin, and myself. I was expecting the worst when we booked a one star hotel but I was pleasantly surprised on how nice it was. The only down side of the hotel was a shared floor bathroom in no air conditioning, something easy to get over when you are paying ridiculously low prices for four nights in Rome. Anyways, we woke up around 8am Friday because our group was determined to make the most out of every one of our days. From the hotel we walked to the metro station and purchased a 3 day pass for the metro, it cost about 20 USD but we took the metro everywhere during our trip. We used Friday to see the holy parts of Rome. Unfortunately we did not get to speak with the Pope but we did visit the Vatican, St. Peters Basilica, and the Sistine Chapel. I thought it was really interesting that guards check your outfit before you can enter St. Peters Basilica, and anyone who does not fit their dress code is not allowed in. Katie, who seemed dressed fine, was not allowed in and was not very happy about it. We spent most of our time that day at the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Museum was there and it took us around 3 hours to walk through it all. That night we bought amazing pizza across from our hotel and enjoyed the warm Rome evening.

Saturday 16th Our Saturday started much like our Friday ended, by getting pizza. I will admit I had pizza on six different occasions during our trip to Rome. It was a combination of it being the cheapest and easiest food available but it was also some of the best pizza I have ever had. We used Saturday to visit the forum and the Colosseum. We used a free tour that guided us from the Spanish steps to the Colosseum. The tour guide was kind of quiet and hard to understand but it was nice to see the city on foot. After walking around the incredible ruins of the forum we headed towards the Colosseum. The Colosseum was exactly the way I had always imagined it would be and it felt great being there. Its one of those places I had seen growing up hundreds of times in movies, books, etc and never thought id actually be there. Our group took a great O-H-I-O picture in the Colosseum, and what do you know, we met a fellow Buckeye alum there. We returned to the hotel that night exhausted and sun burnt and waited for the hot sun to go down before we went for dinner. We all got delicious pasta dishes at an authentic Italian restaurant and finished the night off by eating gellato under a lit up Colosseum.

Jena Parker, July 17-18, 2011

July 17th- Sunday was still part of our long weekend trips and the majority of us were doing lots of site seeing in Rome. The group I was with decided to head to a coastal town in Italy called Ostia. It only cost us 1 Euro and was about a 45 minutes train ride from Rome. I’ve seen beaches in the U.S. get crowded but never as packed as this beach was. People in Europe definitely don’t need as much personal space as people in the states. We eventually found a spot to put our towels and switched from lying in the sun to cooling off in the water. It truly felt like vacation and was a much needed day of relaxing.

July 18th- Ostia was only a 15 minute bus ride to the airport and our flight the next morning left at 7am so we decided to save some money and spend a night in the airport. My group got there around midnight and attempted to settle in. We all had a fun time despite the fact that we were trying to sleep on a cold hard floor with only backpacks as pillows. At 5am we all got up, checked in, went through security, and boarded our plane. By 9am we had landed back in Prague. Everyone was pretty tired from all the traveling and I’m pretty sure we all slept the rest of the day... at least that’s what I did.

John Harman, July 13-14

Wednesday was the long anticipated soccer tournament between Portugal, the Czech Republic, and the United States. The Portuguese had two teams because of their size, both of which did very well; (they beat both the US and Czech teams). The last match of the day was between the USA and the Czech Republic. Jena Parker was the team coach, yelling out such inspirational phrases from "Remember the Titans" and "Miracle." That seemed to make up for our lack of experience. Despite scoring first, the US team let up two goals but made a dramatic comeback to tie the game, 2-2. Our fourth place finish resulted in cool Budweiser Budvar T-shirts and our place in history as the only USA team to tie a match. Video of one of the goals is on facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/profile.php?id=12442914

Thursday was a travel day for most of our group. The vast majority took advantage of the long weekend to visit Rome. Other destinations include Istanbul and Dresden.

John Harman Day 9-10

Today, we had a great opportunity to hear some live music. On a small island of the Vltava River, we visited an international music festival, United Islands. Bands played in several locations. So, you could cycle between different styles of music. Two noteworthy artists include a gypsy band (a very different blend of music) and a mashpit style hard rock band. Although the term “band” is a bit misleading (they had a DJ and one singer) it was still a blast. While walking around we stopped by a Greenpeace stand on the river. Basically, people crawled into a giant walk-in balloon that floated on the river. It was large enough to stand in, which made for great entertainment when the user tried to run, soon finding themselves flat on their back.


On Sunday, the Berlin crew came back exhausted from traveling, but in good spirits. Some of us saw a chateau in the morning. The chateau was filled with stuffed animals, (at least a thousand). In the courtyard, I saw a peacock for the first time. As luck would have it, the bird showed off its feathers for our group to see. Afterwards, we joined the Berlin crew and used the afternoon for a happy nap or to just relax and await Monday classes.

Lisette F. Alor Pavon July 11-12, 2011

Monday, July 11, 2011
The day began with a rather intriguing lecture on the differing viewpoints on global climate change, as well as a general discussion on the theories themselves and the effects these changes could have environmentally and economically speaking. Following this, we began our course on Czech Literature with an overview of different crucial authors and poets. Our third lecture was a discussion of the development and regulation of organic farming in the Czech Republic, which was followed by lunch.
After lunch, we embarked on a journey to the center of Prague, beginning at the National Theater, and we toured some areas by the Old Town Square as we learned about the agricultural styles present in many buildings there, from Gothic to Baroque to modern.
























Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Today consisted of an off-site excursion, which began with a stop at a Baroque chateau and continued with a trip to the Veprek photovoltaic power plant, which we toured as we learned about its production capabilities (35 Megawatts) and its history.
Following our tour of the solar power plant, we arrived at the Zhile farm, where we spent some time learning about its history since the Communist times. After lunch, we had a chance to meet with a family farm and chateau owner, who discussed the history of his farm, particularly after communism, and allowed us to walk through his (quite run-down) chateau, which he is currently trying to sell.
We continued our tour with a visit to the hog “production” facility (although I hesitate to call anything involving living animals a “production,” as I feel this leads to objectification, but this is what they were calling it on-site), where different varieties of pigs were presented to us, including boars, pregnant sows, and piglets.
Next on our schedule was a tour of the dairy production facility, where we had a chance to observe the dairy cows in confinement, including a couple which were being milked.
Finally, we ended the tour with a return to a small meeting room, where refreshments were served as we had an opportunity for a final question-and-answer session.