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Two weeks in and one class down.

We basically wrapped yesterday with a tour of the Prague Sports’ Facilities including Sazka Arena, Czech Lawn-Tennis Club (where Navratilova trained before immigrating to the US) and Toyota Arena, home to AC Sparta. We had a great tour of Sazka and received a book about the development of the arena, and were even allowed on the field at Toyota. Even not being much of a soccer fan, that was pretty cool. Although we didn’t have a tour of the tennis center I enjoyed seeing pictures of Martina, since she was Queen at the time I really loved tennis. OK co-queen with Sabatini, Steffi Graf, etc.

After the tour finished we came back to the study lounge here at the apartments where we did our presentations. I didn’t stress about mine because I’ve looked at the socio-cultural impact of tourism throughout the class, it was easy to add sports. We focused mainly on the Olympics (which has been the focus of the class since Prague is considering a 2016 bid) but added in the World Cup and Japan’s concern about soccer hooligans.

We decided to go to a celebratory ‘end of class’ dinner and one person recommended the Matylda Botel. It was wonderfully located right on the river, good food and quite cheap (<$400 US for 15 people,including dessert and drinks). We had a lot of fun and then some headed out to karaoke. I opted not to but on the way back to the tram a few of us got a sight: our first Czech prostitute. It was good for a laugh.

So Sports Tourism is over. Some general thoughts on the class and Prague:

-sports and tourism are even more connected than I’d initially thought, and not just in connection with large events such as The Olympic, World Cup, etc. There really needs to be a strong partnership in order for the two worlds to work well together.

-sports tourism covers things that I normally would not have thought of i.e. spa tourism. It just didn’t occur to me as a sport.

-still no great interest in Prague/The Czech Republic. Sure, Prague is a fun city and it’s a great place to take these classes, but I have little to no interest in the city itself. I shouldn’t be surprised, it was the same last time when I went to Vienna nearly as soon as I arrived. It’s not like I can pinpoint an interest in a specific other location since it’s basically 7 cities in a month (Londo, Prague, Krakow/Oswiecim, Rome, Berlin, Zurich and Geneva) but just the general ease of travel and desire to explore. I’ll see more of the Czech Republic and Prague in the next class though.

I’m really looking forward to Rome, I’m staying in the center so I should come back with many photos, I hope. I have a few from the sports tour that I need to take off the camera.