Field Trip!

We had our second field trip for the term today, led by urban Geographer extraordinaire Prof Ourednicek (again there should be lots of haceks in that name, but I'd be lucky to find out how to write in haceks here). These fieldtrips will eventually constitute an entire class, Geography 81: Field Research in the Czech Republic. As Ourednicek spouted information, we furiously scribbled in our notebooks. We visited three places today and this is the castle from our third and final destination.

We first visited Prague's 'Hollywood' and the expensive villas that surround it. This building , on the edge of 'Pollywood', was originially constructed in the 1930s as a swanky restaurant and swimming pool but has long stood vacant since the socialists closed it down. However, the Havel family (of Vaclav Havel fame) has plans to restore it to its former capitalist glory.

Haha. These billboards are everywhere. The gentleman here, the current Premier, recently flipped off Parliament and the opposition parties want everyone to know about it. The Premier is a member of the Civic Democratic Party which currently runs the show and we were told the ad is meant to look like a mock-up of an election-time poster.

We then took a trip to the countryside to take a look at what the suburbanization we've been hearing so much about actually looks like. Urban sprawl here has occured very rapidly since the fall of socialism and everyone who can has headed to the 'burbs to build their very own massive prarie palace- in what our Profs call the 'Baroco' style. These people even built their own observatory.

I also was struck by how similar central Bohemia looks to Northern Colorado ... We also stopped by the independent munucipality of Ricany (with two haceks- pronounced 'Jichany'), but I couldn't take any pictures while writing so furiously ...


Last but not least was this quaint little Castle town between Ricany and Praha ... whose name I have completely forgotten. But it was really, really pretty and I took lots of really, really pretty pictures like this, but I have to go hang my laundry out to dry; so that's all for now! Sblohem!