Now You Are in Czech Republic – July 13th

Now You Are in Czech Republic – July 13th

Prague, the Paris of Eastern Europe I have heard it called. The plane ride there was bumpy and the landing came with a thud but at least nothing was confiscated from us at the airport, they already took everything they could have. Shhhhh Joan still has her scissors, which are two Samurai swords hinged in the middle, well in reality they are almost a ¼ of an inch too long as it was pointed out to her at one checkpoint, but they let it slide. The correct length for scissors is measured against the security persons name tag, if their name is Ty. We had been assigned seats on our tickets but as we are strolling leisurely to the plane everyone else was in a hurry. Then we found out that the seat assignment was not used and “open seating”, like “shotgun”, was called and if you wanted to sit with who you were traveling with you'd better hustle. We hustled to get two adjoining seats in the back of the plane. At the airport we have a bite to eat then begin to orient ourselves to get into the city. We change only enough money to get us to a currency exchange in town where the tellers don't wear masks, about 10 British pounds. In the Czech Republic they use the Czech crown, or Koruna or Koruny shown as K'c after the numeric amount, such as 7K'c. In town we get 18.60K'c to the dollar the first day and 18.400K'c before we leave, the dollar was sliding a little (shorthand was 1 crown was a nickel then add 10%). The guidebook naturally said to watch out for the money changer in the street and we figured out why. After checking the exchange board at one Change booth we continued walking. We were soon approached by a friend of ours, well I didn't know him but he said, “Hello my friend.” He would change our money for a very good rate. He offered us 20.50 K'c to the dollar, well above the sell rate at the official booths. We said no, that the book told us to watch out for guys like him, he laughed and showed me the money and offered us 30K'c to the dollar. Finally, he offered us 40K'c (more than twice the rate) and of course it was hilarious so he left. The language is Czech and it is a slavic based language. I had little to draw from. Our guide book had a handy little two page dictionary for each Eastern European country which allowed us to go up to anybody and say, “Hello.” “I don't speak Czech.” “Do you speak English?” “Goodbye.” And of course if you really wanted to talk more somewhere in between you can count to ten in their language for their amusement. One real positive with the language is that if you could find a word or phrase in their language they seemed to understand what you were saying despite your less than perfect pronounciation, which was fabulous. Prague, (Praha in Czech) is a real hot destination and it was high season. The place was crowded with tourists. The city is just beautiful, fantastic architecture towering churches. The food was good as well. Potatoe dumplings, Good sausages, bread, soups and other stuff I may not be able to classify. And the renowned Czech beer. I tried several and they were all good. However, the glass is filled and served once the head touches the rim of the glass, so you get about 80% of a glass usually with a very big head. Prague does public transportation right. They have a very good metro system plus a well marked Tram and Bus line. The stops all have maps and the numbers are clearly marked. The kicker is that you can buy one ticket to use on all three. You can buy an 18 minute ticket, like one ride or a 75 minute ticket, ride all you want for those 75 minutes or an all day for just 100K'c, about $5.50. We fought the crowds to see what we had to but then took the Tram around the rest of the city, using an all day ticket, getting on and off whenever it suited our fancy, sort of a build your own city tour. The Czech color is a powder blue and you see that everywhere, it is a nice color, and they seem to overdo the the red flower but it still looked good. Their stained glass in the churches were very bright and colorful, the reds and blues seemed brighter less dark, bloody and somber, even though the basic theme was exactly the same. Chinese food and pizza abound and people who like the New York style of each will like them both. Joan noticed a little bake shop that we went into. We went to this one case and Joan decided to get a slice of what looked like a cheese cake. I took out 15K'c and stuck up one index finger. She said somethings in Czech to which I agreed continueing to point to the cake and holding up one finger. She then wrapped up that cake then crossed the store to the other side and added another piece of pastry. We thought this must be some try these guys and come back for more deal, but when she rang up 30K'c we were befuddled and repointed to only the cake. For some reason she got real pissed off at us. We couldn't figure it out because we hadn't even stopped at that case or looked at that pastry, nor had I tried to say any of the four words we knew so we couldn't have accidentally ordered it. She was raising a stink until a woman behind us said, “Why don't you want to pay for this?” We told her the story, we kept asking the english speaker why did she give us that but she wouldn't say. It is a mystery. We left with just the one piece of cake followed by the still glaring evil eye of that old lady shop keeper. Praha had tons of supermarkets, 95% of them being Albert's. They are literally everywhere. Every other street and in most of the Metro stops, big stores too and busy. We find plenty of friendly people but far more indifferent, short tempered, ill tempered people with a harsh disposition. We don't like saying this because our pleasure is to encounter real nice people everywhere. And I won't say that all Czech Republic citizens are like this but I just have to be honest, this was our experience. And our experience even had to overcome our initial beliefs that the people were nice in the Czech Republic. We had a host in Galway, Ireland who was a man from the Czech Republic who was as nice as could be. I need to qualify this a little in that it was mostly the older people. The Czech people have the ability to ignore you better than anyone. Did you ever see one of those movies or TV stories where the person dies returns to earth as a ghost and amusingly exhausts themselves trying to get the living to notice them, well that is what we looked like. Very little exaggeration. Here is one situation. We go up to a ticket window with two questions. First question I asked could not be answered by this person, she said “Ask inside that door,” the second question couldn't be asked because even though I asked it she'd say “Go inside that door,” open my mouth “Go inside that door,” and on and on until I go inside that door, have another not so delightful experience, then return and I was allowed to ask my second question. And you had better understand it the first time they say it because they aren't happy to repeat it. Change is not placed in your hand it is slapped on the counter and the reciept is torn from the register and thrown in your direction while they look away not acknowledging your thank yous. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That was our experience and go read 120 more lovely accounts of visits to the Czech Republic then maybe ours was an anomoly. We leave after 4 days, taking a midnight train to Poland. We failed to get off at our first transfer point because “Now you are in Czech Republic,” and you are supposed to know when your stop is coming up in a country you've never been before. We actually did notice our stop immediately on the station sign and grabbed our bags and hustled the 20 feet to the door but we weren't fast enough and the door was automatically locked and when we shouted and banged on the door, two large dogs traveling in the passageway barked violently startling us and adding to the dismal prospect of going somewhere else at 1:30 in the morning with the indifference of the conductresses and passengers giving a not too disimilar experience that what you might imagine in 1937 Germany. So at 1:30am we are let off at a lonely platform, not a soul in sight, with only the knowledge that 3 hours and 15 minutes later we can get a train back to where we should have been. I took some lovely pictures of the blackness with some white lights and a sipea station name. It was a lovely warm night and we were laughing at ourselves before long and it turned into a good time. The train turned up on time and soon we were back where we should have been the night before. Our ticket was still good but our itinerary was shot, we had to remake all our connections being sure to take the same route our ticket designated or it wouldn't have been excepted. We were a little behind our other trains. At the Czech border the connection for the Polish train was handled 6 times a day for a gazillion years, yet no one in the station claimed any knowledge whatsoever of the times, tracks, fares, or destination of the Polish train. This was on purpose of course, because there was some little railroad feud going on regarding the allowing of Polish trains into the Czech Republic. They did begrudgingly give us the train color, black and yellow, so we did know which trains to run up to to ask if they were going to the city we were heading to. Finally we get the correct Polish train and we were pleasantly on our way.