Jansepar.com

So, today Horatiu and I finally decided to stop procrastinating and finally fill out our forms to apply for International Exchange to attend Charles University in the Czech Republic. For those of you who don’t know (but I’m sure most of the people who read this blog do), Horatiu and I plan to go to Europe for about eight months in January 2009, first to Czech for first four months, and then travelling in the latter four months.

Here is a picture of where we will be attending class:

For those of you wondering why we decided to go on international exchange, or more specifically, why in the Czech Republic, let me explain.

This may be different from why Hora wants to go, but I am going first and formost because I feel that I never really got the full “University” experience. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Simon Fraser and I have no regrets in my choice, but by living at home and attending university, I never had a chance to experience living on your own, and more importantly, living on your own with thousands of others your own age. Living at home still definitely has its benifits, expecially when it comes to saving money, and its not so bad as my parents are pretty relaxed, but living on your own and having a place to yourself is an entirely different experience. This experience is here to make up for all the fun I could have potentially missed, and considering I’m going to be in a entirely new country, I’m hoping it will make up for it and then some.

Now, why Czech? Well, the plan was definitely to go somewhere in Europe, and we thought to ourselves, where would be the best place to go that would have Western European living conditions, but cheaper, since I am a poor university student after all. We decided on Czech because its the defining middle ground in Europe, with the cheapness and fun of Eastern Europe, and the standard of living in Western Europe. Basically, the country had to have cheap beer, or it wasn’t going to be an option ;-). Also, since Czech is right in the middle, we are easily going to be able to take multiple weekend trips to Berlin, Vienna,  Budapest, and other surrounding cities.

So, whats the next stop after our first four months in Czech? We plan to take the summer off and go travelling. So far, the path that we’ve thought up involves going down Italy all the way until we hit Bari, which is the closest place to Greece (and where my mom’s side of the family is from). From there we will take a ferry to Greece, go through that country then head on over to Turkey. After that though the plans are a bit hazy, we aren’t sure which countries to go to from there, maybe a couple Baltic countries like Croatia, but like I said, we aren’t so sure. We are definitely going to stay in Romania since Horatiu is from there. After that, we plan to go to Poland, and my friend Izabela said we could stay at her place over there when we go, so that should be good times. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know! Or if anyone plans to go to Europe that summer, just give me a shout and we can meet in some country =D.

Right now, Hora and I are in the process of applying, so far we have to get 4 photographs of ourselves, talk to the CS Advisor, talk to a bunch of other advisers to match up courses from Charles to SFU, print our transcript, make a budget, and get two professors to recommend us. We should be able to take care of most of that pretty quickly, but for now, we have filled in a bunch of paper work, and thus completing out first steps towards our great journey.

For those of you who want to keep updated while I’m in Europe, check back here regularly, I’m hoping to blog while I’m there as much as I can (and hopefully I’ll have a decent layout/ colour scheme by then…). Hora will be taking most of the scenary pictures, since his camera is so badass, so you guys can head on over to www.hhalmaghi.com for his updates and pictures. I’ll be the one taking pictures of the drunken nights out =P

Or vice versa. How can good food still taste good when you cant taste?

I pondered these questions yesterday when I grabbed a tub of what I thought was vanilla yogurt, but eventually, through the magic of my brain, I found out it was plain. Now, I didn’t find out through taste, because I was sick. I just somehow magically knew! If someone has the answer, leave a comment, because I’m quite confused as to how that plain yogart “tasted” horrible when I couldn’t taste it at all.

I also had one of these today from Donair Town :

I couldn’t taste it, but it was just as amazing and satisfying as ever.