Praguematic

Location: Prague, Czech Republic.

Mission: Explore/learn/infiltrate

Mode:

Scavenge

Our first full day of fun in the city of Prague we had a walking tour of the downtown. The distinguishing characteristics of the city are the churches, the gothic architecture of some of the buildings and the presence of Americans all over.

Scavenger Hunt

Once we were done with our tour of the city we were all burning up and needed to sit and rest for a while. We went to a restaurant and ordered some drinks so that we could cool off and sit in the shade. It was only 16:00 so it was too early to eat dinner so we needed something to do to pass the time. I came up with the idea of having a scavenger hunt. To my surprise, the others agreed to the idea (no one ever likes my ideas!). We formulated a list of things to find and divided up into two teams of four. We had to take pictures of the following items.

Our list included:

- a mullet

- yellow shoes (on someone)

- a street musician

- an American

- A flag (not the Czech flag) flying

- a made in China sticker

- McDonalds

- someone in a fountain

- Czech underwear (touristy underwear)

- a shirtless man

- PDA

- Bonus: One group member on a boat

Getting more than we bargained for

After we finished our game, we were famished from having run all around the city in the humid weather.

The social rules of dinner are different than in the states; that much is for sure. Here are the rules in Prague:

1. The check will not come unless you ask for it.

2. Water is not free.

3. The bread that they bring out with the meal gets put on your check.

4. Tip is automatically included.

5. Getting leftovers in a box costs extra.

6. Dekuji means thank you.

7. If you eat all the bread then they will bring out more bread.

Still figuring out the other rules.

I do not want to evaluate these characteristics as right or wrong. Nevertheless, they are inconvenient and are something to be learned the hard way, but I do not want to impose my culture as superior to another.

exploring again

Dave and I were walking throughout town yesterday and it seemed like we were lost. We were wandering throughout the town without a destination or a purpose. We had intended on watching the World Cup matches from the giant TV screen that was set up in the center of town. The TV that brings people together. The beauty in futbol/fotbal/soccer is that it brings the world together. We met a couple while we were walking that had on Mexico jerseys and of course we had to ask them if they were actually from Mexico. I seized the opportunity to speak in Spanish as if it was some comfort from back home that I was missing. Dave and I were talking after the encounter and we found humor in the fact that we felt like we had a bond with the Mexican couple even though back home that would not imply any such connection. I guess going to school in Southern California is almost like actually being in Mexico. What is familiar, in this case, is relative.

Venturing further without a point of reference we knew that if we could find the river, we could find our way back. We got to a place that I recognized because of having run through it earlier.

We headed toward the river and after we crossed we found this:

an erie statue of a man who is progressively disintegrating. Or maybe he is actually becoming whole, because at the top step there is only a right foot and the final man who is near the ground level is mostly whole. What it represents is beyond me. The fact that the farther back, the less of a person remains may signify that history gets forgotten.

After meeting the statue our venture took an upwards turn. We found a cable car that took people up to the top of one of the adjacent mountains. Being as cheap as we are, we decided to hike up that direction instead of taking the train. After climbing the steep grade for a while we saw some boulders. What else was there to do than to climb the obstacle because it was there. Now, as a preface, most people would not care about a detailed description of a boulder, but it is important to me, so I will share it. The boulder was about 12 feet tall and it had a shallow cave at the base of it; this made finding good footholds hard. The "pocket" sized holes in the rock were just enough to get a good grip, yet not enough to become overconfident. The many cobwebs on the rock seemed to say "climb me because I have been neglected for far too long." Moss covered the rock like the fuzz on the skin of a peach: enough to feel soft to the touch but not enough to cause me to lose grip. I really enjoy climbing in the rock gym, but the process of finding places outside to climb, especially ones that have never been climbed before, is amazing.

Continuing on we found some other notable landmarks: a miniature effiel tower, a chapel, a rather large stone wall, and a lookout tower that cost money to go up into so we decided not to.