Zlin, Czech Republic

Starting from now, I'll try to write posts about cities I've been in from February to June.
Let's get started with the first city!

Zlin, Zlin, Zlin.
A city full of people and memories left behind but will never be erased from my mind.
Most people I talked to often asked me, "Where the hell is Zlin?" Well, I can say that it's a small city, well, compared to Jakarta of course. It's situated in southern Czech Republic state called Moravia. The city itself has a lot to do with Bata Shoes Company. Well, for Indonesians, I guess it's kind of a big deal because firstly, Bata Stores are everywhere in Indonesia, so I kind of thought that it's a local shoe store. But, guess what. It's from Europe!
Back to the city. Zlin was a place where I lived for 5 months. I joined a student exchange program as a result of the cooperation agreement with the university there. Guess what the name is. Of course, Tomas Bata University.

The View of Zlin from Bata's Skyscraper

Summer Semester Exchange People during Winter

It took me about 3 and a half hours by train and bus from Prague to Zlin. Well, because Zlin is actually closer to Vienna. From Vienna, you can just take a bus for 3 hours top.

My first impression was that it looked like a dead city. Mostly, people residing here are either old people, small children, or kids. Even once, when I tried to go to the church right across my dormitory building for a holy mass on Ash Wednesday, I thought I joined a wrong mass for elderly because, well, I didn't see a lot of youngsters there.

But after a while, I got used to that. I liked, and still do, how slow life was going there. There's a small market, a small city plaza called Zlate Jablko (Golden Apple) that has almost everything there, a church nearby, a hockey stadium, a ski slope, a zoo which is really nice and quite famous, and almost all necessary needs. I mean, everything is in walking distance.

FOOD:

It's always cheaper to cook. I mean, you can get 500gr dry pasta (my favourite is fusilli and macaroni) for only CZK 15 (EUR 0.56 / IDR 8000) when there's sale in the supermarket. Potatoes were also cheap.

To buy meat, it's better to visit a local butcher than to buy it in a supermarket, really. The tricky part was the language but once you knew the meaning of basic hovezi (beef), kureci (chicken), and veprove (pork), everything's gonna be fine. For eggs, in the market you could buy them for CZK 3 (EUR 0.12 / IDR 1600) for one medium-sized egg.

If you don't want to cook, there's always cheap Vietnamese take-out spread everywhere and you can get one full meal for CZK 50 (EUR 1.85 / IDR 26000). Or a quarter of pizza for CZK 35 (EUR 1.30 / IDR 18000). Or eat at a fancy Chinese restaurant in Hotel Moskva, an Indian restaurant behind Hotel Garni which was soooo nice, and there's bajaj inside, or at library of Tomas Bata University, or at the campus refectory.

DRINK:

What's my favourite? Tap water of course. I've never been able to drink tap water everywhere during my travels in Asia, well unless in Singapore. But even then, I don't think it's safe to drink tap water straight from the actual tap above your washing basin. In Europe, it's my staple drink since it's free everywhere. In Zlin, especially, something is even cheaper than bottled water. Beer. It's as cheap as CZK 20 (EUR 0.74 / IDR 10500) for 0.33L of beer.

Next city, Prague The Awesome.

Cheers!