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Overheard Conversation in Prague:
Jewish Tourist: So the carp here reminds me a bit of gefilte fish.
Young hip and trendy Czech Innkeeper: What's that?
Jewish Tourist: Oh, it's a special kind of fish that we eat on
holidays. Sort of like ground up fish that's made into little loaves.
And then we eat it with horseradish sauce.
Young hip and trendy Czech Innkeeper: Oh, so kind of like pork here.
Jewish Tourist: Um, not really.
Actually I'm not in Prague anymore. I'm back in our little studio on that little town in the middle of somewhere in Switzerland. I'm feeling rather gloomy and exhausted. I know how lucky I am to be living this life but at the same time, after almost 5 months of being without a home, I'm just tired. I'm tired of the same four shirts I've been wearing since November. I'm tired of airplanes, buses, and trains. I'm tired of eating in restaurants with a toddler, I'm tired of living in one room with my husband and son, and I'm tired of having almost no space or time to myself. I'm tired of having no routine to fall back on in my daily life with Nico and I'm tired of having very few friends whom I can visit when I'm feeling a need for company. There are a lot of other things I'm tired of too but I'll stop there. I usually try not to use this blog for whining but I couldn't help it today.
The good news is that we're moving to our new apartment in 5 more days! Another piece of good news is that I really did get to travel to the Czech Republic last week which is something I've always wanted to do. We spent 3 days in Prague and then 3 more in Brno, where Mr. D had a conference. Prague was absolutely gorgeous, just like being inside a fairytale, albeit one where all the men wear white socks with sandals. There is very little trace there of the 40 some odd years that the country spent under communist rule and the city is just as sparkling and cosmopolitan as any other big European city. While in Prague, we mostly just walked around and ate enormous amounts of goulash with dumplings. Mr. D drank a lot of good beer and I ate all sorts of desserts which featured apples. We quickly trotted through the famous, tourist infested Prague Castle but found the streets to be more to our liking. They were equally as tourist infested but at least we could pretend that the man next to us was really a true blue Czech who was just on his way to swill beer at the local "hospoda." So what if he had a camera around his neck and Dallas Cowboys t-shirt. And so what if that obviously Czech woman just ran up to her friend screeching that she'd just eaten the most "bloody brilliant pork chops ever" over at that "sort of dirty looking restaurant." That all meant nothing because we knew that this was an AUTHENTIC experience goddammit!
One thing that we did find especially interesting was the Museum of Communism which is conveniently located upstairs from a McDonald's and next door to a casino. Yes, you can almost hear all the apparatchiks rolling over in their graves. The museum was incredibly interesting with archival revolution footage and even a model "interrogation room" which featured an old fashion phone which would periodically ring, casting an ominous spell of creepy authenticity. Or it would have felt creepy and authentic if Nico hadn't been there yodeling "Herooo! Herroooo! Herroooo?" each time the phone rang.
Brno was a bit more like what I'd expected a post-communist European country to look like. A bit run down, a bit tired and gray. While Mr. D went to his conference, Nico and I wandered the city and even took a tram out to the zoo to see all the "Elmos." One complaint that I do have about the Czech Republic is that customer service is pretty much the polar opposite of what it is in Japan. Of course there were exceptions but in general, the staff in restaurants, hotels and tourist offices pretty much made me feel as though my presence was only slightly more welcome than a jury duty notice. On the other hand, nobody called me "sir" as often happened in Japan and I was relieved about that.
Despite this, I found the Czechs to be mostly just a great group of people. Sure there were a lot of grumpy waiters. And sure, they speak in a language that features a rather alarming scarcity of vowels and a perhaps, overzealous use of the the letters c and z. And OK, the sandals with socks thing is a bit weird. But then again, I have a feeling that the Czech people might take issue with my copious peanut butter intake so perhaps we're even.
