I am Junyeong Lee from South Korea, and I am studying Business in English. For me, Ostrava is quiet and small, but I still love this city.
Author: Junyeong Lee
I don’t like walking that much, but in Ostrava, everything is close to my dormitories, so I don’t need to spend a lot of time traveling around. For a person like me, it is the best city.
And its location is perfect for traveling. You can go to Poland, Austria, and Slovakia very easily. It doesn’t take a long time from Ostrava. That means you can spend your weekends in other countries!
My first impression of Czech people was that they are very kind and polite. At the first time, I didn’t understand any Czech, but they always tried to help me. And when I began to learn the Czech language, I realized that it is a very polite language. I guess this politeness comes from a polite language and culture. And in the class, many students tried to help me. They are very kind and recommended a lot of nice places in Ostrava to me.
The thing that surprised me the most is that everything is super cheap in comparison to Korea and other European countries. For example, a glass of beer is about 2 Euro in Korea, but here, it’s half that money and sometimes cheaper than water! In my opinion, I am sure that Czech beer is the best because it is cheap and tasty at the same time. My favorite is Kozel dark. I tried it for the first time two years ago when I traveled to Prague, and the taste impressed me a lot back then. It goes well with Koleno (pork knuckle).
Because of the large variety of tasty Czech beer, I’ve gotten used to drinking it more. I do have friendly advice though, do not attempt to competitively drink with Czech people as they have more training than one would expect.
I also think that Stodolni is the most important street in Ostrava, I would say that except for Stodolni there is nothing else to explore in the city center but still, I would definitely advise people to be careful around that place as bad things happen, some of them I witnessed with my own eyes.
At the moment of writing the article I only have one month left in Ostrava. I experienced so many great events and tasted the priceless Erasmus life. My all-time favorite was Get To Know Each Other Weekend (GTKEOW). The theme of the whole weekend was Harry Potter, each of us was assigned to a different house. It was something I haven’t experienced before, something very new and interesting. During that weekend, we all got to know each other, and I made a lot of awesome friends. The last night of that weekend, we hiked outside regardless of the bad weather and snow, the road up the hill was dangerous and risky, but it was worth the effort.
On top of the hill we lit a lampion of happiness and watching it fly away was extremely beautiful. It will be my unforgettable memory of my life and I will miss it forever.