In July and August 2009 I spent 8 weeks in Prague to work at PageUp s.r.o. on internship organized by IAESTE Austria & IAESTE Vienna & IAESTE Czech Republic & IAESTE CTU Prague.
In Prague I shared a flat with 5 other trainees from all around the world. This was a really great experience which reminded me of one of my favorite movies - “l’Auberge Espagnole”.
The work at PageUp was very interesting. I was assigned to help developing the Alvila framework - it’s a set of tools for use with Java that makes development of complex applications easier. It will be published open-source soon. I have visited many cities before that were much stranger to me than Prague, which is just five hours away from my home town by bus. However, living in a city, getting to know the food, the streets, the bars and the people is a whole different experience than just walking through a place for a day or two. I learned enough Czech to order food and drinks, pay and ask for directions.
Also, living together with people from all over the world is a whole different experience than just meeting them somewhere. We went to so many places, saw so many things and did so many things together. After all I must say that I really like Prague and I will go there again one day for sure, however without all the nice people from my flat, my work and IAESTE it will not be the same anymore. The days before I had to leave I had quite mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was really sad to leave the place and to end the summer. On the other hand - there is no place like home!
Doing an internship in another country was a really exciting experience for me and I can recommend it to everyone. There are several student organisations that can help you with doing it (depending on what you study) - IAESTE (for engineering and natural sciences), AIESEC (for business and others), AMSA (for Austrian medical students), ELSA (for law-students).
My favorite spots in Prague
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