Before this internship experience, I have never been outside of North America and have never felt like I was in a place culturally different then where I was born and raised (I had only ever been to Toronto and Vancouver in Canada). I never had been somewhere where people lived in dramatically different cultures than my own. That was partially why I decided to come to the Czech Republic in the first place. While I had obviously heard of the country, before being selected for this program I could not have told you where on a map it was. I had no idea of its past history and its cultural regions of Bohemia and Moravia. There was very little I knew of the country.
After being selected for the program but before I was in country, I thought I knew a lot about the country. I learned how to say hello and please. I learned about Czech’s rough history with both Germany and the Soviet Union. I learned that Czech’s rarely smiled. I thought I had learned a lot.
What I learned when I got in country is that everything I had learned before was thrown out the window. Traveling to a country, becoming a part of the culture, meeting people who have lived here their whole lives (Through communism through present day), seeing the vastly different architecture from different eras, and working in a city with a complicated and unique business structure has shown me the importance of travelling. You can learn a lot from books and research to to truly know a culture and a place, you must immerse yourself in it, and that is why I am so excited for this travelling experience.
Business update for the week; My company v6 Ventures is currently in a transitional phase as the one full time employee has resigned leaving me and my boss (he works about two days a week on the company) as the only employees the company has. This has put me in a much more important role than I originally had. I am currently the go to person when it comes to everything about our company whether it was in my job description or not. I am currently developing two new websites for projects as well as working on digital marketing for the current functioning website. While at first I was startled but this jump in responsibility, I now relish in it because it is giving me a great opportunity to be self reliant and adaptable. I have plenty of challenging work and am learning new skills everyday and it is a refreshing challenge waking up each morning not knowing what challenge will occupy the coming day. I look forward to the coming weeks and how my role with v6 Ventures will adapt and grow.