A city of faces

Everywhere you turn in the labyrinth that is Prague there is a sense of being watched,

door knobs, corners, columns... it seems like everything had a face

Does it bring comfort? Does it produce paranoia?

To have the very walls watching over your every move...

Czech words...

Here is the extent of my new Czech vocabulary;
Ano- Yes
Ne- No
Dobre Den- Good Morning
Dobre Vecher - Good Evening
Prrosim - Please
Pardon - Pardon
Chesky - Czech
Angliky - English
Je Quee - Thank You
Yden - One
Pivo - Beer
Kava - Coffee

Not so very impressive considering I even got a language CD to work on before getting here... My new German vocab is much better... but then again it is oddly more familiar and much closer to English. Here in the Czech Republic I can read signs three times a day (like the words for exit and transfer) and they slide right out of my head like warm jell-o.

Geld*

Look at how much money I have in my wallet today! Seriously though... what is this worth? 1200 Czech Krouna is worth about $72.

You see this;

The three coins here add up to 17 Krouna, which is currently about one US dollar.  What can you buy in Prague with one US dollar?  You can buy;
A Banana and a trip to the bathroom
OR
A single postage stamp (to be used within the Cz. Republic, outside postage is 21ck)
OR
well, honestly nothing much else (I've been looking)

The smallest bill here is a 100ck Bill which is the equivalent of aproximately $6.  Most things here cost at least 100ck.  Goulash; 99ck, Beer or Cola is 50ck, a full meal is closer to 300ck-500ck, ($20-$30).  Sadly it is hard to find anything that is free to do... so I'm mostly walking around and doing the public transit sight seeing.  I spent way too much money on a lack-luster concert last night... I hate obsessing over money like this, but I think that the main reason that the Czech Republic has not switched to the Euro is because then it would be horrendiously apparent at how grossly inflated their prices are compared to everybody else.

*Today's German word means Money... because I'm more interested in returning to Germany than to Bohemia I'm working on my German.

nahoru*

Prague is maddening and beautiful and intense. The whole place comes with a sort of claustrophobia and it always requires you look Up Up UP! There is just about every type of architecture here and all jumbled together like a mad architect's dream world, streets converge randomly and others just go on and on, up and up with nowhere to turn. It is Easter weekend and warm so it is also crushed full of people local and not. I kept finding that I could not just take pictures becuase I would be taking them in little pieces only to try and tape together later. There is no room to take it all in and the whole city seems to crush in on you. Some buildings have intense Neo-Gothic decorations but are only five or ten feet from the next building. This video is of the old town square, one of the largest spaces by far.




*Today's Czech word of the day means "Up"
--although frankly I am still struggling with "thank you" and "I don't speak Czech"

Verloren*

Crossing over the Czech border, a sense of panic grasps me. While we huddle together in a train nearly out of an old movie about British India (no people on the outside of the train, but just as packed inside) I realize that the announcements are no longer in German. Everything is suddenly in Czech. My only hope for understanding the announcements is from a Bavarian woman who barely speaks Czech or English, while I barely speak German. She tells me we need to transfer now because there is "a problem with China" or so I understand. The houses along the country side stop looking quaint and begin looking more and more like Baja California. Crumbling houses in need of repair, clotheslines hang on ruins, broken windows abound. I did not stop to take pictures. I quickly became so over-whealmed by the fact that we were not even hearing German (much less the occasional English or Italian that you get in Germany) that all sense left me and I just forgot everything but English and 'crazy monkey pointing'. Pils (as in Pilsner Beer) looks like Detroit after the apocolypse, I cannot believe this is a functioning train station and this is where we must transfer... I follow the crowd and cannot even tell what the word for 'platform' must be... worse yet I am looking for Platform 2 but they have written out the word for 2 rather than used the number.

I pray; God oh God please don't let me get stranded in Pils.

*German word of the day is Verloren; lost.

(this is not the station in Pils... this one actually looks a little less run down)

Antici.... (say it!) .... pation.

Berlin...

Munich...

Prague...

                                                                                

(oh yes, guest rooms/hostels/hotels and trains are booked... travel blog coming in 21 days)