Don't forget to visit the Europe page for a local map!
Don't forget to visit the Europe page for a local map!
Heather and I are trying to decide just how to be Bohemian. After all, we are in "Western Bohemia" in the Czech Republic. We got a little taste of it last night on a Pub tour, but truly it is hard not to be a tourist here.
When I had last traveled around Europe, in Italy just two years ago, Prague seemed like this crazy foreign place where they didn't speak (gasp!) a romantic language, and it was going to be difficult to get around.
It turns out that while Czech is a fantastically strange language, the rest of Prague is surprisingly accessible. This is both a blessing and a curse. While you can walk around and marvel at the beautiful architecture and the funny accents and modifications to the western alphabet, it is also painfully obvious that tourism is a massive part of this city's culture.
Everywhere we go, we are greeted with "Hello" and we get a knowing smile whenever we ask for something ("Prosim," pronounced "Pro-seem") or thank someone. ("Dukuji" pronounce De-Ku-Yee) I can only assume that they are genuinely pleased that we are at least trying to speak some Czech. I know that they know that we are only doing our best, but both of us just want to declare, somehow "We're not like the four zillion other tourists walking around, we want to be respectful and understand the local culture!"
But really, that is probably a harsh judgement of much of the tourists. The truth is that when you have a fascinating city like Prague, you get a lot of people who are fascinated, and most people probably want to see Prague in the same way we do. It doesn't automatically make them disrespectful. We're probably no different than many of the other travellers here.
Its hard to walk that line between seeing such amazing beautiful things, and feeling like you've having your own adventure distinct from the experiences of so many others.
Last night we were able to kind of merge those worlds of tourism and local experience with a pub tour. Sure, it was a tour they run a few times a week and sure they visit the same pubs, but they were real bars and we got some real local beer (including the "original Budweiser" Budvar) and saw some real live music. We hung out with our Czech (well, Slovak, as it turns out) tour guide in the last bar and learned a bit about his experiences in Prague as a student.
And so as we begin to wonder what next, we will probably leave Prague and look into something a little more out of the way. We've heard stories of churches made of bones and fantastic castle towns and caves, natural springs with geysers and other neat stuff. Places not quite so touristed as Prague. Then we head further east, pushing into even more eastern lands. Wish us luck!
... pronounced shi-prah-go (rhymes with Chicago), I am trying to get a new nickname for this city to catch on because of all the decorative art cows everywhere. They are sponsored and decorated in promotion of a border-town film festival that's already happened.
Update: now with cow photo links above!
Alec is off riding a bike through some gorgeous park near the castle and I'm hanging out in an Internet cafe.
We arrived yesterday morning after a very rough night on the night train from Frankfurt. Because of a lack of planning, we purchased two sitzplatz (sitting up seats) for the 7+ hour journey and shared our car with several colorful and noisy characters... we were groggy and train-lagged. The journey is a big part of the adventure, so I'm not so much complaining as justifying our long naps.
Funny story from Frankfurt... after our dinner of schnitzel and german pancakes, we found a groovy looking "Nutelleria" that served all kinds of food with nutella. We decided that it would be fun to order something off the menu that we had never heard of (the menu was all in german, so that was easy enough) and something safer. I ordered "100% Nutella Crepe" with Nutella Machiatto and Alec ordered "Puderzucker Crepe"... if you know german, you know that this story ends with Alec having ordered a completely plain crepe with only powdered sugar (the only thing in the place with no nutella at all).
Quick Czech language lesson:
Hello: Dobry den -or- Ahoj
Goodbye: Na shledanou
Please, Pardon, You're Welcome: Prosim
Thank you: Dekuji
Cheers or "to health": Na zdravi!
I'm sure Alec will want to share the amusing tales of our pub crawl or some of our biking adventures. We haven't been so good about touring the key places yet...