I woke up this morning still on the plane as the sun was
rising. We were flying over the English Channel at the time so I had a very
cool view of southern England and northern France. After debarking and well
wishing my seatmate, I headed over to baggage claim. I first had to go through
customs and received the typical line of questions (What is the purpose of your
visit? Etc.), but upon learning that I was a student and this was my first
visit, the customs official brightened a bit and assured me that Czech beers
lived up to their reputation. I had a very short layover in Atlanta, so there
was some consternation that my bags would not arrive for a day or two. These
worries proved unfounded as my bags promptly appeared.
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| Sunrise over the English Channel |
Exiting into the terminal, I was greeted by none other than
Miroslav, who allowed me to wander aimlessly a little before I finally spotted
him and his fellow orange clad coworkers. I was the first in our group to be
ready, so after waiting a bit, we went over to the other terminal to meet up
with more students before finally getting on the bus to take us to the hotel
for the night.
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| View of Charles Bridge from the Bus |
The first person I met on my program is Ethan Weiss. He’s
from San Francisco and goes to Occidental in L.A. Funnily enough, his father’s
name is Stephen, so when he found that out and that I spell my name the same
way, I think he got a little freaked out. Haha. As we were waiting in the
airport, I talked to a few people and found connections that I was completely
unaware of before. Jewish geography knows no boundaries evidently.
After getting my rooming assignment for the night, a fellow
Badger came by the room to see if I wanted to get lunch. I don’t think she was
looking for me initially, but I took and so, Rachel, Ethan and I
ventured out to find a meal. First we had to stop at the ATM because none of us
had any money. Ethan went first and got back a 2,000 kc bill (~100) at which
point I remembered being told to get odd amounts out of the ATM (i.e. 1,800 kc)
to get smaller bills at the UW orientation. With this in mind, I try my hand at
the ATM and am told that I don’t know my PIN. Awesome. So that’s clearly
something I need to work on ASAP. Ethan said he would spot me though, so off we
went.
We found this nice little café and decided to try it out.
Rachel had a heavily dressed Caesar salad, while I had a risotto dish with
garlic, spinach, chicken and garlic (not a typo). Ethan probably got the best
deal of the bunch paying ~$7 American for a pizza that would have cost $12-15
easily in the states. My food was plenty sufficient though and I ended up not
finishing it all (though I’m sure I could have had I any desire).
Funny story for the day: on the walk back from the café,
just after passing our program director on the sidewalk, a man, who had been
standing by what turned out to be the trash, turns and faces us. It turns out
the man had been relieving himself and was now done. Evidently, however, he’d
forgotten to wrap up the typical routine as he was on full display for all the
world to see. I don’t think any of us expected Prague to greet us in such a
fashion and it took us quite aback by the forwardness and distinct lack of
embarrassment the man possessed. It took us all a few moments to realize what
we had seen, but as if a collective light bulb lit up, a collective laughter
rang through the streets. We didn’t stop laughing for nearly a block and a
half, only taking brief respites before one of us would remember the event and
renew the practice.
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