Day 1

April 28, 2007

We made it! After our 9 hour flight, we arrived in Prague. Our team was divided up. Greg and Butler were escorted by several Rotary members, and Eleanor, Allison, and I were escorted by a sweet Rotary member named Jan (pronounced Yan) and his son Mark (Jan enlisted the help of his son b/c he thought his English was not very good. However, his English was much better than my Czech!) Jan took us on a quick driving tour of Prague. And when I say quick, I am describing his driving. In Prague the rules of the road seem to be no rules at all. Just go fast and slam on the breaks. 45 minutes into the driving tour, Eleanor, Allison and I were all a little green from the stopping and starting. However, thankfully it was soon at an end. Jan is in the commercial real estate development business, and as a result owns several apartments (or “flats” as he calls them) around Prague. He dropped us off at one of these flats which will be our home for the next few days, and let us rest and freshen up for a few hours. Of course, knowing me, I got hungry. Jan had told us that we could help ourselves to the contents of the fridge in the flat, so I got to try Blutorange Juice (which is the juice of blood oranges). It was actually pretty good! It wasn’t sweet at all like our American juices- it reminded me more of grapefruit juice. Then around 3:30 we were off again! Jan and Mark took us to the Tower Praha/TV Tower Prague, which was an important part of the Communist regime (used for relaying communications) but since has been turned into a tourist overlook. We were able to see a wonderful view of all of Prague, and took a lot of pictures! Jan and Mark did a good job of answering all of our questions, about the change from Communism to a free economy, and the Velvet Divorce of Czech Republic and Slovakia. After that, they gave us the choice of going to a “touristy restaurant” or a really good local restaurant. We said “REALLY GOOD LOCAL RESTAURANT PLEASE!!!” So we got to take a walk through some of the neighborhoods of Prague. On the way we saw many interesting things: the Czech People really love their dogs. They don’t seem to have any leash laws, and practically every other person you pass on the street has a little dog trotting right next to them. The dogs are very well behaved in comparison to American dogs I know. There doesn’t seem to be a breed favorite, b/c I saw everything from poodles, to golden retrievers. We walked through a beautiful park and got to see the largest one room church in Europe. It was very impressive! I took lots of pictures. Finally we made our way to the restaurant which Jan told us the name translated to “Poetry in Food”. It was a very interested Medieval décor restaurant. But they specialized in Czech food. I ordered the “Velvety Velvet” which was a chicken breast stuffed with blue cheese, pears, ham, cranberries and pecans. It came with vegetables (like what we eat in the US) and creamed potatoes (potatoes with crème on them). It was SO GOOD. I ate every single bite. While we ate, Jan and Mark tried to educate us on various aspects of Czech culture. For instance, we had been taught to say “nazdar” as “hello!”. However, Jan told us that only his grandfather said nazdar, and it was much cooler to say “ahoy!” (which I noticed a lot of people used interchangeably between Hello and Goodbye on our walk home). I also learned how to say “Thank you” and “Wonderful/Awesome!” We also talked about Czech cinema, tv, and authors. The best known Czech author, Kafka, presented a little bit of a controversy for them. While they are proud he is Czech, they don’t think he accurately represents Czech literature. Then we discussed our schedule for the upcoming week. Tomorrow we will be going on a foot tour of Prague with George, the Rotary President of the Prague Club. Then tomorrow night will be our first presentation. Wednesday, we will have a few more tours and then we will attend “The Burning of Winter” which is a festival put on by the local Rotoract. I’m not sure what to expect because all of the older Rotarians talk about it very warily- they say there’s lots of live music and noise. After that on Thursday we will be leaving for “Czech Paradise/Czech Wonderland” which is an area out on the Prague countryside known for it’s castles (which after I expressed unusual interest in b/c I’ve always wanted to see what it’s like to be a princess, Jan and Mark started calling me Princess). They said they would be sure to show me some of the castle ruins that serve as the setting for several local fairytales, including Baba Yaga. We will be able to stay in a rustic inn there in the country, so that should be fascinating as well. Then we walked back. On our way back, Mark made sure we had a chance to taste Kofula, which is the national Czech pop drink. It looks like Coke, but tastes closer to Sprite (but with a cola tinge to it). And he told us how to order it at the restaurants. Now we are at our flat, recovering from our crazy day and working on the biorhythms and jetlag.

This has been a whirlwind adventure so far and I can’t wait to see where the rest of the month takes me!