The differences between France and the Czech Republic
From the view of Eloi
Comparison cost of life
When you go to a foreign country, you have to acclimatise to the way of life of its inhabitants and to the habits of the country. Even if going from France to the Czech Republic doesn't make such a big difference, a few things disturbed me. First of all, you have to adapt to the climate. Here, everything can change from one day to the next: it can be sunny one day and a snowstorm the next. In terms of temperature, it is generally colder here than in France. However, it doesn't feel the same! The cold is dry, whereas in France it is more humid and icy. What struck me most when I arrived in Ostrava was the sunrise and sunset. Being further east than France, it is day and night earlier: from 6am to 5.30pm, which is about an hour and a half later than in Angers. So there is a certain rhythm to adopt. At the university, for example, some classes start at 7.15am and the later ones finish at 7.15pm. Compared to French universities, students start an hour earlier in the morning and finish an hour later in the evening. As said before, we are in Eastern Europe and therefore in the former USSR; the buildings are gigantic, blocky, tagged and the streets are very wide to let the tanks pass. The environment is the same as in the films about the cold war: blocks, streets, damaged pavements, big brick factories that pollute, ...
Poruba Ostrava
Moreover, in these famous streets, there are no traffic lights for most of the crossroads (they only have them for the main roads). Here, pedestrians always have priority and the inhabitants respect the traffic rules so much that even if the light is red and there is no car, they will not pass. It's little things like that that you don't think about beforehand, but you notice them on the spot. For public transport, you don't pay by the hour but by the journey: There are many other differences that should not be overlooked, such as the currency (1€ = 23 Czech crowns), or the qwerty keyboards for computer experts who are not used to them, and the fact that most Czech adults do not speak a word of English, which makes it difficult to be understood.
Czech tickets