Prague: Days 1-3

This year I, along with 28 other students from the business school, were chosen to be part of the Baylor B.E.S.T. class.  It is a year-long course with the first semester focusing on case studies, business ethics and developing a business plan and the second semester focusing on writing our own cases.  Many of our cases involve entrepreneurs who started businesses in Prague after the fall of the Communism.  We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Prague for a week to tour and meet with these entrepreneurs.  Am I blessed or what??

Destination: Prague

After +24 hours of travel we made it safely to Prague! Some of us slept the entire time, while others didn’t not sleep at all. I fell into the sleeping the entire time, in fact I not only manged to sleep both flights, but the majority of our 5 hour layover in London-Heathrow as well.

Ready for Take-Off!

As if we didn't stand out enough already, Sean and Ryan decided to dress like Olympic athletes.

About the only 30 minutes Kristen and I were awake in London.

The rest of the time we looked like Will.

 The moment we exited the airport I realized just what they meant by cold…to give you a picture, freezing was an understatement. We all had dinner at a little Czech restaurant right by IBTS where we are staying. It is a good thing that the menu was in English because otherwise we would have had some serious trouble ordering.

IBTS where we stayed.

Monday we woke up bright and early to head to Skoda Auto Factory, the company that we did a case study on. Here were learned about the history of Skoda which began as a bike manufacturer and is now a branch of Volkswagen, pumping out thousands of cars per year. We even got to see the manufacturing line which was quite an intricate process of specialized teams and multiple levels of quality inspection.

Todd's favorite was the car the Skoda they used in some vampire movie.

Jonathan and Kristen acting out the universal WC sign.

The back of the bus got pretty crowded...especially when we were a seat short to begin with.

Next we headed to the Terezin, a concentration camp. It was an unbelievably moving experience, and we all had difficulties grasping how something like this could happen. The hundreds of pictures and diary entries from the children of Terezin were difficult to look at.

After heading back to IBTS, we went into Prague to explore the city. It was absolutely beautiful at night; covered in a foggy haze. My friend Mike recommended that we try the Ropemaker’s Wife for dinner because of its delicious Czech food. Even though we split up for dinner, as fate would have it, we all ended up meeting up again and finding some live music to end the night.

The center of Prague.

Jessica, Kristen and I at the Ropemaker's Wife; a perfect, cozy restaurant filled with many locals.

Czech food is definitely a little different....goulash, breaded dumplings, beef with cranberry sauce and whip cream but it all tasted delicious!

There is lots of music in Prague, and we found it interesting how most musicians lost the accent they had when speaking English once they started singing.