Last week I was able to partake in an European holiday because in the Czech Republic two office holidays fell consecutively on Wednesday and Thursday. My supervisors were kind and gave me that Friday off as well, so I was able to take a five-day to trip to Croatia. It was a beautiful trip and a nice change of scenery from Prague (not that I really needed one though since I love living in Prague). The weather in Croatia was very hot, though, and by the time the trip ended, I was ready to be back in the mild summer weather of the Czech Republic.
The entire trip consisted of a different city or part of Croatia every single day. My friends and I started in the mainland and by the end we were in the coast. It was incredible how easy it was to bounce around like this, and I appreciate the dynamics of the trip. The ease of traveling, I have found at least, is not something unique to Croatia, but Europe in general. To me, this is one of the biggest differences between the U.S. and Europe, and I absolutely love the ability to travel here.
Back home, traveling is not easy. In fact, I would go to say that traveling in the U.S. can be quite difficult. Buses are not a popular method of transportations in the U.S. as they are in Europe, especially in the Czech Republic since that is where I am located. If you ever want to take a bus from Prague to another city in or out of the Czech Republic, it is no more difficult than a click away on the internet. It is also fairly inexpensive as well, and there are a lot of time frames to choose.
In the U.S. I remember wanting to go just to the other side of the state by bus last year, and it was somewhat expensive for a college student. Additionally, the times it left were hard to accommodate you own schedule to. So, I have been appreciating and taking advantage of the ability to travel around here. It is even quite cheap to hop on a bus and go somewhere.
Prague is also in an ideal, central location because several countries are no more than four hours away. I have done a weekend trip to Slovakia, and I will be taking another weekend trip to Germany next weekend. Not to mention that my after-program plans involve traveling by bus even farther across Europe, and it was all so easy! This will be something that I will greatly miss back in the U.S.