Let’s try and recap.
Arrive in Heathrow (London) at some ungodly hour in the morning, something like 6am. I say ungodly because I slept on the flight at woke up at 4am, only to watch another movie and wait a while, to still not see the sun come up. Hung out in Heathrow for at most an hour before we boarded the flight for Prague. I was pretty anxious the whole time, wondering what Prague was going to be like, how I was going to take care of everything I needed to take care of, etc. And nobody on the flight was speaking Czech. The only way I knew that, of course, is because everyone was speaking English. (I actually caught a Portuguese couple in London!)
And then, the magic. Coming into the city, snow was on the ground and falling all around. The first time in three years I’ve seen that. I got off the phone, picked up my bags, consolidated the two to one bag, plopped it on to my back, then went to it. Got on a bus, to a tram (streetcar) to another streetcar, then a short walk, getting SNOWED on the whole time in some pretty nasty cold. But I had prepared – three layers on top and two on the bottom of my warmest clothes.
Got into the hotel, checked in and immediately got out to get more money, a coat and a hockey ticket, not necessarily in that order. The coat turned out to be especially urgent as I could feel myself freezing little by little, though I was holding up just fine with a fleece, longsleeve and t-shirt in freezing temperatures. I think my winter body never left me.
So I got into a clothes shop (finally!) and started a routine which was to follow (and most likely will follow for the rest of my time here.
“Dóbre den.” (Good day!)
“Mluviste anglicky?” (Do you speak English?)
“Ne.” (No)
Seeing as all I know is, “Do you speak English,” “Yes,” and “No” the conversation quickly comes to a halt right there. I learned officially “How are you?” (Jak se mas?) and “Fine, and you?” (Dobré, a té?) at a bar so that I could successfully ask someone how they were and respond, assuming they asked me the same question. Doesn’t add a lot to the conversation, though.
Good beer.
After walking quite a bit and successfully getting lost (after I bought the hockey ticket), (I can get lost inside of a shoebox, and when I get out, feel safer inside the same shoebox, which is to say I sometimes enjoy getting lost because it’s a familiar place to be), I found the same restaurant twice and decided it must be fate. It was starting to get dark, and my back was hurting, so at 4pm I sat down for dinner.
4pm? Oy.
I asked what time people usually eat. Oh, 7 to 9pm. Yup. Oh, well.
I asked the waiter what he would drink and eat. I got another half-liter of delicious draft beer and approximately one half of a pig.
To the waiter’s credit, he did ask me whether I was really hungry. I now know that question to be akin to the Mozambican response to, “Is that far from here?” In either case, a “Yes” is bad news.
Well, I finished the salad and the two skewers popping out of my pig. I dumped the gravy all over it, dipped it in horseradish and mustard and onions, and loved every bit. Had an espresso afterwards, and including tip it all cost $13. I love Prague.
So now I’m trying to get my insides warm before I crash – I’m trying to hang on for at least a couple hours before I bite it. It’s 7pm.
At 2pm, I was covered in snow, thinking that 24 hours earlier I was covered in sunlight by a pool playing catch with dogs. In Africa. Weird.
Hockey tomorrow!
Peace,
John
