Ze Greatest Field Trip in All Ze World

So Saturday morning at 7:45 we had to meet at the Na Florenci Bus Stop again for a trip. Since I knew that the buses were departing at 8, I actually made the right tram and got their on time. It's great how huge improvements can be made in small amounts of time. Anyways, we then departed for Moravia.
For those who don't know [as in pretty much everyone], the Czech Republic is made up of 2 provinces, Bohemia and Moravia. Bohemia is the Northwest section whereas Moravia is the South and East sections; Prague is in Bohemia, and the second and third largest cities [which no one has ever heard of] are in Moravia. The second largest city in the Czech Republic is Brno, and the second largest city in Moravia in Olomouc. Back to the boring non-intellectual stuff now.
So pretty much this was supposed to be an academic field trip, and it probably couldn't have been any farther from that. The trip was 'supervised' by the traditional CIEE staff [only rule = no drinking on the bus] and there were even a few of our Czech buddies with us; the difference - this time - entailed the accompaniment of my Psychoanalysis professor. He is pretty chill, despite being British, and of course drank beer at lunch with us. He did lecture as we walked too. Before I continue, I feel obligated to go over again a brief history of past CIEE trips. For one, Orientation was filled with tons of useless, boring, and ineffective scavenger hunts. These were poorly planned. Our first field trip, we had to have breakfast before it [around 7am] and weren't given lunch until about 3. Our next, Lidice and Terezin, was decent despite being depressing. So although there has been an upward trend, nothing has been 'good.'
This trip was fantastic. All we did was drive, eat, drink, and walk. Literally. The highlight of Saturday, coincidentally being the only thing planned, was a trip to Sigmund Freud's house. For everyone who thought that he was from Vienna: you're right. Freud lived in Vienna from age 4 until like age 78 when he moved to England in fear of the Nazis. Note that in my timeline of his life, 0-3 have been skipped. What eventful years were enjoyed in the small town of Pribor. The trip to Pribor was probably as eventful as Freud's life there. We had a very tasty lunch [again, we had the choice of Chicken or Chicken], walked 2 blocks to his house, and went on a tour of his house.
Freud's birthplace is a tiny house on a small street with a statue of his famous couch outside of it. That's it. Not being extremely wealthy when he had little Sigmund, Freud's father lived in a 2 story house; the first floor, occupied by a blacksmith, was a few open rooms; the second floor, lived in by the Freud's, was a few smaller rooms. Oh yea, they had every book that Sigmund ever wrote in a few bookshelves upstairs (even though he didn't write them in that house). So to summarize: we had a 15 minute lecture outside near the statue, then a 10 minute video about Freud's life in Pribor, then a 5 minute walkaround of an unimpressive, small house. We then left.
We next drove to Olomouc, our destination for the evening. After getting there, we checked in, had a small amount of downtime (it was about 5:30) then - you guessed it - ate dinner. And in true CIEE fashion, we had the same choice as usual: chicken or chicken. After dinner, I showered and joined everyone in the lobby so that we could start drinking early.
Despite Olomouc being the primary destination, CIEE scheduled no planned walk around the city. We had no time to see the city during the light, and even though some people did the walk with staff after dinner, most just showered and went to a bar. Despite that, since Olomouc is tiny, I still managed to see most of the city - even if seeing it meant seeing double of it. Luckily, when we went to the main town square with some cool statues, a great city hall, and an awesome astsronomical clock [not as great as Prague's though], and the McDonald's, I hadn't started drinking yet. Anyways, 7 of us went to a small, local bar and just ordered rounds until it was 9:00. Sadly, this meant playing coaster flip until I had finished 2 liters and having 2 Red Bull Absynthes. At 45 krowns per shot of 140 proof Absynthe (about 2.75 USD), this might have been the deadliest bar in the world. Dillon and I at least had the sense to only have 2, despite feeling quite floaty afterwards. I even tried scaling a wall after he did, forgetting that he is a climber and I can't jump. After getting halfway up but only holding onto a ledge with 1 hand, I fell back about 8 feet and somehow had the nicest fall of my life. It could have ended quite differently unfortunately.
Being drunk Americans, a few (probably all) of us were singing in the streets in search of anywhere. We met up with some Czech kids who were all leaving for their first year at university on Monday, and thus were needing to party. They took us to a real fun underground pub that we enjoyed until about 10:30, then headed over to 'the best club in Olomouc.' I'm not sure if this place was the only club in Olomouc or not, but it definitely was ridiculous: in part because of a ton of alcohol thus far, and in part because it was probably the best club I've been to in the Czech Repubic thus far. After about an hour of intense dancing with anyone within 10 feet of me, the combiation of my caloric output and my genes dictated an oncoming, subtle sense of sobriety. I crushed this urge with about 8 shots of Bcherovka (a Czech liquor that when mixed with tonic water tastes a shocking amount like strong ginger ale). The night proceeded, and unlike in Munich, I made it home while Dillon did not. At 9:10 this morning, the knock on the door that I thought was CIEE was in fact Dillon, returning from possibly murdering a hobo, probably sleeping in someone else's room, definitely sleeping in a park, and without a key card (which CIEE later wondered about on the bus). On the bus after breakfast, Dillon - still being quite drunk - shouted random statements about what might have happened and provided me with a great deal of entertainment for the following 2 hours. It was definitely funny, and I wish he wouldn't have stopped dancing whenever I tried to record it.
Here is a list of events on the bus [depending on which ride it was]:
slept, read, slept, watched a Czech movie (similar to the Crucible) about the Czech witch hunts, slept, read, was pissed off by the background noise of a Psychoanalysis lecture that was playing on the TV, slept, read, slept, cried laughing at Dillon, slept, slept through a Czech witch version of the Wizard of Oz, ate the best McDonald's of my life. After laughing at Dillon and before sleeping [as in this morning] we stopped at a pretty sweet castle that - again - we weren't allowed to take pictures of. The Czech's have a policy, in many places unfortunately, about only being able to take pictures if you pay 100 krown. Unlike in the States where you can't take pictures if the light might affect something old or they don't want you to have a picture, here, you must pay to shoot pictures. It's a pretty terrible policy, and thus I can't show pictures of pretty old places from around Prague. It's almost as bad as needing to buy water always, but that can at least be gotten around by drinking sink water in bathrooms. Anyways, the Castle really pissed me off because the woodwork was so intricate and beautiful. Whereas this would be quite impressive to most people - as it was to me - the fact that none of the pictures were hung straight and that some of the floors were uneven and that the designs weren't parallel drove me nuts. I almost began fixing picture frames, but there were too many to fix in too little time [and they might have broke had I touched them because they were like 400 years old].
To further elaborate on weird Czech culture, our stop at a gas station on the bus ride home proves quite interesting. Despite priding themselves on being extremely good workers, I have noticed that the Czechs are quite slow in some work aspects, and are far from what Americans would call efficient. At the gas station, I was fourth in line to order McDonalds. For some reason, it took 10 minutes to get to the cash register. As they served my food 5 minutes later, CIEE staff hauled us out of the McDonalds, and forced the students behind us in line to not get food and thus waste the previous 15 minutes. The weird part of this story was the cost of the food. Having run out of money, Dillon was in need of financial assistance, and I thus paid for both of our meals. His meal cost 100 krown, as did mine, and my yogurt cost 30 krown. The total cost of our bill was 195 krown. It makes no sense to me still.
The basic point of this blog is that I feel really bad for anyone who is used to just regular academic field trips. No field trip that I have ever been on has been quite fun, yet alone had no academic purpose (other than the investigation of witch hunts which we didn't really do) and had tons of good food. I can only hope that Allison may get to enjoy some cool field trip at Edgewood instead of just a bus ride to a museum.
Finally, I must wish Ari a safe flight. For those that don't know, my younger brother and his friend Sam will be boarding a plane to Vietnam in approximately 45 minutes, from where they will proceed on a 3 month walk around Southeast Asia, India, and more before they come visit me in December. May you two have the best of travels and a fantastic blog to keep us all on the edge of our couches. Hopefully it will be more eventful than my blog, even if you aren't as good of a writer Ar.