Things Czechs Like

1. Dogs
Dogs are everywhere. Along the streets. In the parks. In restaurants and bars. It really is great. The most remarkable thing about them is that they are rarely leashed. They may wander from their owner from time to time, but never too far. And they certainly catch up quickly if they stray to sniff another dog's butt, or mark their territory.
Yet as the saying goes, "where there's smoke, there's fire," well, "where there are dogs, there is dog poop." This week, during one lesson, I talked about Aesop's fables. The moral to this tale (tail? har har) is clear: watch your step.

2. Meat (vegetarians, skip to #3)
Yes, the Czechs have a fascination with meat. The meat section in the supermarkets is quite extensive - sausages upon sausages upon klobasas and kidneys and hearts and intestines. You name a body part, there's a section for it in the store.
Yet the couple times I've had sausages from vendors on the side of the road, I have not been disappointed. Deeeelish.
Still staying away from the raw ground beef, though... and speaking of raw meat, the other day Kyle got a sandwich which listed "prosciutto ham" as one of its ingredients. Well, "prosciutto ham" apparently meant raw bacon. Quite humorous it is to see someone pull a sandwich away from his mouth, and, much like a good cheesy pizza in the US, see some food stretch from the sandwich several inches to his clenched teeth. Yet unlike cheesy pizza, when the food finally rips through, it snaps back and slaps the eater in the face.
In addition, two nights ago, we dined at a local Czech eatery, and a "meat skewer" was ordered. The menu listed the skewer's contents to be: chicken, sirloin, cabbage, and bacon. Sounds good, right? Well... we never could positively identify the bacon on the skewer, though there was a layer of an unidentifiable substance around which the chicken and sirloin (yes, the sirloin was cooked) was wrapped... was it pure fat? was it a vegetable soaked in fat? was that the bacon? no one knows for sure... Moral of that story: Beware of things called "bacon."

3. Beer
Apparently there's been a price explosion in Prague over the last few years - so we're now up to a whole four dollars for a dinner entree. But I've been told a law was passed prohibiting increasing the price of beer. Hence Praguers washing down their egg breakfast with a Pilsener. Stunningly cheaper than water. In any case, I haven't had a bad beer since I've been here.
Given the quality, quantity and price of the beer here, I wonder about the Czech who visits America. Wanting to take in some American culture, he visits a stadium for a Major League Baseball or an NBA game. To wet his whistle, he meanders to the concession stand to find that beer is 7 dollars (which equals ~175 crowns. for comparison, beer here is 15-30 crowns). Upon emptying his wallet, he takes his first sip of the light-yellow, watered-down liquid he was handed, and finds that he spent a hearty dinner's worth on some incredibly tasteless beer. Take me out to the ballgame? hmmm.. no wonder the song doesn't include beer in it's "buy me some..." line.
No moral here. Cheers! (Na zdrave!)

4. Roller blading
It's quite the fad here. It's hard to be in the park without seeing dozens of people blading. More than one path in a park nearby even has painted lanes directing the roller blade traffic. More roller bladers than bikers.

5. Sex
Yes, for a quiet, humble people, they sure love their sex. The walk from our flat to the tram stop we take each morning for the TEFL training class, we pass 3 sex shops and one strip club. And these sex shops aren't your little hole-in-the-wall, back-room-of-Blockbuster size shops. These are supermarkets. With large, bright yellow signs out front.
"SEX SHOP" "Erotica Centrum" "U Vibratory"
They're like Starbucks - the same chain has stores four blocks away from each other. And I live in a very non-touristy area. There is no doubt these stores are for locals. What amuses me the most is that for all their bright yellow signs and very non-discreet window advertisements, they have tinted windows, or the shades pulled.
We were talking about the prevalence of these shops, and we reasoned that the open display, and exploration, of sex was probably taboo during the country's Communist control. As to why the proliferation hasn't calmed, as it's been 16 years since the Velvet Revolution, to quote Kyle, "some things, well, they don't stick so much. others, they stick."


A real interesting side note, I was talking with some people about Czech culture and how Czechs see themselves in the world. The country is small, and has been occupied many times (Russia, Germany...). It is only in the past 15 years they have had control over their own politics, and in that time, claims of corruption have been prevalent. Their language is one of the toughest in the world to learn, and it is not readily spoken anywhere else in the world. The country's size and location in the center of Europe are not conducive to being an influential player in the world stage.
While I haven't experienced any real anti-American sentiment here, at times I feel its presence with regards to our garish ways, loud voices, and lack of knowledge of Czech. "Yea, we're in your country, but you have to speak our language." In the older generations this attitude is certainly stronger than with the youth - they have been brought up in the post-Communist era, and have learned English in school from a young age (their parents were taught Russian). In any case, I found that pretty fascinating.

I'll close by saying that listening to the Newark-based jazz station WBGO over the internet the other day, I smiled that I'm not in the east coast summer time heat and humidity. I'm enjoying crisp fall weather - mornings in the 40s or 50s, with highs in the upper 60s. Truly gorgeous.