Transportation is another thing that I have had to get used to coming over from the United States. In the Midwest, we do not use a lot of public transportation. If you want to get somewhere, you pretty much have to have a car. It is not really an option to walk everywhere, as everything is very spread out. Here in Olomouc, you see very few cars, considering the number of people who live in this city. However, there are a few different forms of public transportation that the people here use to get around the city. There are trams, buses, cabs, and quite a bit of walking. Since I am not used to public transportation, it has taken me a while to get used to the trams, especially since everything is in Czech. Also the layout of the streets is rather complicated. It is not laid out in square blocks. People who know me well can attest to how bad I am at finding my way around places, but I can now find almost all of the places I like to frequent the most.

                Since everything is fairly condensed here, you just take the tram (or bus, or cab, etc.) to the area of the city you need, and then you walk around that area of the city. It results in quite a bit of walking each day. The area of the city that we spend the most time in is completely paved with cobblestones. That definitely starts to hurt your feet after a while, and a lot of the stones are loose. I often have to look down when I walk, to make sure that I do not trip over any. As a result, I often do not look around at where I am going, and it has taken me a while to figure out the city and how to get to certain places.

                Even if you do own a car here, you cannot get away from the walking, as there is not a lot of parking in the main part of the city. There are a few small parking lots, and a few places where you can park on the side of the road. Once you have gotten your car down there, you are walking everywhere else. This has resulted in some unforeseen difficulties. For example, when grocery shopping, they cannot buy a lot of stuff for the month, since they have to carry all those things all the way back to where they live. You cannot exactly carry 25 bags of groceries onto the tram. I imagine they have to go to the grocery store often, getting a little bit of what they need each time.

                However, this is not as big of a deal as it would be in the Midwest. Like I said before, everything is very condensed, so if you have to go somewhere, there is probably a grocery store within walking distance of wherever else you need to go. In the Midwest, you might have to make a special trip and drive all the way out to a store that is nowhere near wherever else you need to go. So in the Midwest it makes sense to try to get all your shopping done in one trip.

                Travelling here is much cheaper than it is back in the United States. I have tried to never take a cab in the United States, as I know it will be extremely expensive. Here, however, I can take a cab across town for around 100 koruna (about $5) most nights. Flying within Europe is also pretty cheap. For Spring Break I booked a flight to Dublin for about $90 including paying for a checked bag. I know I am starting to become spoiled with how cheap things are here, and it is going to be difficult to pay so much more for things when I return to the United States.

This is the Upper Square in Olomouc. As you can see, it is completely paved with cobblestone. This square is a good landmark to use when finding your way around this area of town.

This is Olomouc from the top of the tower of the Town Hall. As you can see, the town is not laid out in square blocks, which makes finding a certain place rather difficult at times.