Dear Sheffield, you’re awesome. Dear Prague, I miss you with all my heart

I miss Prague. I miss the city. I miss the night rides in trams, where you're trying not to fall asleep or someone would immediately steal your iPhone. I miss that you can smoke everywhere and get a beer for 30 crowns/1 pound. I miss the omnipresent homeless people asking me for change while waiting for the metro. I miss the confusing bureaucracy of Charles University. I miss spending half the day waiting at the student’s department to get a small piece of paper in 5 seconds. I miss SIS, the most annoying thing in the world. But I love it here.

Sheffield Hallam University, where I'm trying to somehow get my masters in Cultural Policy and Management, is the 3rd biggest university in the UK. After (not particularly successfully) studying English and American Studies for a year, I thought no essay assignment could surprise me. I was wrong. English Skills in Cultural Communication (oh dear, how I loved the course) was nothing compared to this. The basic idea is; no tests, no learning by heart, you're academically mature enough to find out the useful information yourself and we challenge you to deal with them properly. Luckily for us, our university library is a high-tech sanctuary open 24/7 (compared to the Jan Palach Library quite impressive). The first month here I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Czech universities can only dream about the facilities we have here. Not only the library is awesome, we also have a lovely gym, employment or accommodation centre and tons of other (for an Eastern-European student with rose-tinted glasses on) fascinating things. I am rather not talking about the students residences which look like the most luxurious apartments in Prague. I am definitely not going to talk about the local student information system, which compared to SIS is a sci-fi miracle. A miracle. On the other hand the food in canteens tastes basically the same, which is a shame.

People keep asking me about culture shock. Guys, this is not Japan! The only unusual things are; driving on the wrong side of the road and using wrong type of plugs, also the obvious habit of drinking only black tea with milk. Most of us have been to England, so I don't even need to mention these (rather stereotypical) things. What strikes me more is English political correctness which does however disappear with a few pints of ale/stout/lager (do not call it beer, please) and the "health and safety" obsession, which sometimes grows really bizarre.

Overall I love England, and I love my university. You need to pay a tuition fee here, but it reflects on the fact how well the system works (although it is not flawless of course). I don't want to give out wisdom here, but Czech teachers could learn from the British ones in terms of attitude towards their work and the students. British cuisine could, however, learn from the Czechs by avoiding Yorkshire pudding in any form.

- Eliška Černá 

On the Road in Canada and the USA.

At the very beginning of this long, expensive, but awesome madness, there was our friend who decided to live and work in Toronto with his girlfriend. He begged us (no, we wanted to) to come and visit him and when we saw this great deal on flight tickets, we didn't hesitate a second and with a few drinks supporting our decision we spent all our money on flights to Toronto and back from NYC.

                                                                                                                                         

It actually took us 51 hours to get to Toronto, but it was worth it. Toronto is like this melting pot, chicken soup, salad bowl or whatever you call these cosmopolitan places; you get to meet people of all nationalities. I somehow can’t come up with any disadvantages, but I know that Toronto must be a foodie’s paradise. You can travel the world without leaving the city and taste everything from delicious sushi, disgusting Czech “goulash” to Mexican everything.

We continued our journey to Niagara Falls. We saw them in winter, which is a completely different experience than seeing it without the ice, snow and freezing hands and also when there, we took a picture of an Amish family. We also had an exhilarating visit to a casino, and right there was the moment when I decided to become a croupier... The next day we hit the road again and smuggled Absinthe into the United States. The customs officer fell in love with my friend, so we were safe. By the way, Niagara Falls, Buffalo is probably the creepiest town with the creepiest and the most expensive buses in America. We rented a super huge, user-friendly car and drove down to Boston.

It was a pleasure to drive on American roads with the American drivers around. Whatever people say, I love Americans for being so polite, apologizing for bumping into you and driving only 65 miles per hour on highways ALL THE TIME. Boston surprised us in an entirely positive way. We stayed in Cambridge, the suburb of Boston, right in the middle of the Harvard campus. It was our first Couch surfing experience and it was rather... interesting. We met a few Harvard students and after several beers we found out that no matter what university you study, you like beer. And also that Harvard students are not geniuses at all. Or at least the ones we met.

New England is one of the most beautiful parts of America, unfortunately for us there was a huge snow storm and flooding, so it was quite troublesome to get to New York. In the end we made it by bus and had the last 4 days in NYC ahead of us. NYC is one my favourite cities (and I’m sure I’m not the only one, right?) and New Yorkers are the coolest people on Earth. We loved every corner of it, except for the empty Wall Street at night - that was scary. After almost dying on a Delta airplane, our trip was complete. And we do want to come back soon, this time to California.