My name is Tommaso and I am from Italy. I stayed in the Czech Republic for 3 months; I arrived there on 27th August 2021 and I came back home at the beginning of December.
When I and the other exchange students from Italy arrived in the Czech Republic, we stayed all together in a camp. That camp was amazing because there were also many other guys from all over the word and it was very interesting to speak with so many people that had a different culture from mine. At the beginning, It was a little strange and difficult because I couldn’t speak English very well and I had many thoughts in my head, but only in that camp, I realized that I was living one of the most memorable experiences of my life so far.
After three days, in the camp, I and the other exchange students met the respective families and I found an amazing one that was very generous and super friendly. When my host family and I left the hotel of the camp, we went to a typical restaurant and we visited Prague.
Almost every weekend we used to visit some place of the Czech Republic or to go to my host family’s house in the mountains, so that we spent a long time together. During the autumn holidays, we also went to Austria to ski. I lived quite close to Prague, so several times I went there to visit the city which is stunning. I also visited the city of Brno which is beautiful, too. I was very lucky to stay in a friendly and generous family.
Sometimes, I cooked some Italian food like “pasta alla carbonara” for them and they appreciated it a lot. My host mum and sister taught me how to cook some typical Czech biscuits: Pernicki and Vanilkove rolicke (I love it). My favorite food from the Czech Republic is: Trdelnik.
I made a lot of new friends, especially with the other AFS students, that were very friendly and open to know about the experience of the other exchange students there. At the beginning, my school mates and the Czech guys were a little reserved, but after a few days they were friendly and some of my schoolmates helped me to learn and understand the language during the lesson.
The three months I spent in Czech Republic flew by too fast and I want to say that this is an experience that all the students should do because it teaches you a lot of things in order to develop new life skills.
– Tommasso C., trimestr program in the Czech Republic in 2021