CZECH-REPUBLIC - PRAGUE

In the third and final blog task, I look back on my semester abroad in Prague, which I started at the beginning of February and completed with my return to Switzerland at the beginning of June after 4 months. The last few weeks were characterized by a few visits from friends and family from Switzerland. It was great to share the city with friends and families and I only realized now, when I had external visitors, that I have settled in very well in the city and already know my way around. I wouldn't exactly compare myself to a city guide who knows every corner and special feature and can tell a story about it, but we still found a great activity for every situation, weather etc. to pass the time in the city. So I realized, especially through the external visit, that the initially unfamiliar big city had become a place where I felt more or less at home.

For me, the last few weeks were mainly characterized by the Ice Hockey World Championships, which started at the beginning of May and lasted a few weeks. This allowed me to experience the city and the Czech people from a new perspective. Until then, the Czechs had seemed a little reserved and closed in on themselves. With the start of the World Cup, this image turned 180 degrees. Every evening, the subway was full of cheerful people in their Czech national jerseys. Of course, there were also a lot of people from Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Canada etc. in the city because of the World Cup and you could tell that when you went out, for example. I found the Czechs to be extremely hospitable and warm, which I hadn't always noticed before. There was also a public viewing area in front of the stadium, where I went several times and the atmosphere was really great. I also went to two Swiss matches and made a little day trip to Ostrava, where the whole event wasn't quite as big as in Prague, but it was still worth it. The only minus point I have to give to the government of the city of Prague, which enforced the closing of the fan zone at 22:00, although the games sometimes didn't start until after eight o'clock. That was a real mood killer at times and, for me, still shows a little of the government's "narrow-mindedness".

At the same time, lessons at the VSE ended in mid-May. I thought it was a bit of a shame that there was no official "farewell event", where you would certainly have met all your classmates and people you had got to know again. Some of my classmates had already returned home a few days after the end of classes and the Czech students were not around as much. The student and ERASMUS organization events also ended around the Ascension weekend, where I was unfortunately unable to attend due to a visit from Switzerland. So the farewell was a little abrupt, but you can still keep in touch with some of them via social platforms. Towards the end of May / beginning of June, I realized that I would be working more or less every day in the apartment in the home office for my company in Switzerland for the next few weeks and that this could be relatively boring. So I decided to return to Switzerland two weeks earlier than originally planned and have been back in Switzerland since the beginning of June, working in the local office in St.Gallen with more motivation. In the end, I can look back on a great time in Prague with lots of new experiences and great progress in terms of independence. Despite the great time in the Czech Republic, I was really looking forward to returning to Switzerland, where I could see my family and friends again. Now, after a week back in Switzerland, it already feels very strange to think that a week ago I was living in a completely different place and in a different reality.