Amalie Zahradnickova has been the academic year 2025 visiting student from the Czech Republic. Like all the other students chosen from Tabor, Orinda’s Sister City, she loved the experience.  Zahradnickova lives in small town about 20 minutes from Tabor called Milicin.

    Zahradnickova is in her junior year of secondary school at home and would love to study medicine in Prague in the future. She likes the natural sciences, biology and chemistry.  She also enjoys the feeling of helping other people.  

    Zahradnickova’s dad is a historian. Her mom has a few jobs. She makes jams and sells them at farmers' markets. She has also translated books from French and English. Both of Zahradnickova’s older sisters are currently in college: the 21-year-old is studying to be a veterinarian, while her 19-year-old sister is studying law.

    Her family doesn’t own a television, and Zahradnickova says that she has never really watched, except at her grandparents, where she watched cartoons. For news at home, she uses the internet, and for entertainment, she loves hanging out with friends. In Orinda, she took up running, trying out cross country. At home she is in a scout troop and she plays the violin in two orchestras.

    Her time in Orinda is not the first time she has spent time away from home. For a month and a half one summer, she was an au pair for her cousin in Northern Ireland. Her cousin is Czech but moved to Ireland and lives 20 minutes away from Belfast in Bangor. 

    Zahradnickova has previously visited at least half of countries in the European Union. “In Europe we travel a lot,” she explained, and said that she would love to visit all of the countries in Europe. Her favorite city is Lisbon in Portugal. “It’s beautiful, with a little bit of everything” she noted, “it’s not too big, so you can walk everywhere.”

    Since coming to California, she’s been to San Francisco, went to Lake Tahoe with a friend, and she loves to hike. “Carmel is beautiful,” she enthused, “I loved it.” Bobbie Landers and her daughter Merrily took Zahradnickova to LA in October, including a visit to Disneyland.
 
    Her host family, that of former Orinda Union School Board Member Liz Daoust, took her to New York City for Thanksgiving, and have plans to be in Colorado for Christmas. 

    Communicating with her family at home is a little hard with the time difference. Lately Zahradnickova has been calling them more “because I’ve been missing them more.” She admits to being a little homesick, sometimes. “It’s going to really hit me at Christmas,” she said. 

    However, she praised her host family, calling them amazing, and said that they make being away from home much easier. Daoust and her husband have three girls, including one in high school, who is a sophomore at Miramonte. 

    Although the visiting Czech students take classes at Miramonte, they are also responsible for keeping up their studies at home. At Miramonte, Zahradnickova is taking drama, anatomy and sports medicine, English and US history. She performed in the Halloween show that was presented to some classes at the school. She enjoyed doing Shakespeare, studying "The Taming of the Shew." She noted that one modern version of the play is the movie, "10 Things I Hate About You," which is one of her favorite movies. 

    Zahradnickova said that her experience at Miramonte is very different than at school at home. “It’s amazing to see how the system works differently,” she said, adding, “the teaching is a little different, how the classes work. At home, everything is in one school building.” 

    After the Christmas break, she will head home to the Czech Republic on Jan. 8, where she will become part of the large cohort of Czech students who have enjoyed being the visiting student to Miramonte High School in Orinda.  

    The Sister City Foundation is already hard at work selecting the student to visit next year, and, as always, looking for a host family.