Visiting Czech through Michael’s eyes…(part I) / Kdyz byl Michal v Cechach…(cast 1.)

How is visiting Czech through eyes of an American? Well, Mike (a great supporter of this blog as well as the occasional guest writer for CMD) and his lovely wife (who has Czech roots by the way) just came back from a trip from the Czech Republic. I don’t know how about you, but after I read his post, I felt like they went just about everywhere! Some of these places I haven’t even visited yet!!

The Shadow of Jan Žižka (Stin Jana Zizky)

I stood beneath Jan‘s statue on Zizkovo namesti in Tabor. This was not a sunlit day in the Czech Republic and yet I felt the presence, if not the physical shadow, of this man who, with Jan Hus and their followers made Tabor famous in their day almost 600 hundred years before. Children played at the nearby fountain and coffee and pastry was to be had at the various eateries about the square. A few bicyclists had just unlocked their bicyles from the chain around the statue and ridden away so I had Jan by himself for just a moment; a moment to savor what it meant to be here, to absorb the history and culture and be in this wonderful country for the first time.

This was our ninth day in Czech, my wife and I. We had already sampled the sights of Praha, from ground level to the highest heights. We had driven the roads to Kutná Hora, Brno, Mikulov, Valtice, Lednice, Telc, Trebon, Cesky Krumlov and C.B., my designation for the almost unpronouncable Cesky Budejovice (unless one drinks enough of its most excellent and famous beer in which case the proununciation becomes much easier). A further trip to Marianske Lazne and back to Praha would complete our trip.

A trip’s remembrances are the sum of the impressions made. The mundane everyday occurrences are not noteworthy enough to be remembered (or, at least, passed on). Yes, we were rained on and a bit cold at times but that could happen anywhere. On the other hand, the beautiful, the unique and the humorous are impressions to be remembered. I will skip for now the humorous (and those nervewracking occurrences that become humorous in the past tense) and concentrate on the wonders of Czech; for wondrous it is. Outside of Praha (Prague for the uninitiated), Czech is little known to people here in the United States. I have made the learning of the Czech language, its geography, culture and history my sole avocation these last two years (my obsession, my wife would say). But even before then, I knew much more than most who live in the States. I cannot count the number of times I have gently corrected anyone (friends, colleagues and strangers) who utter that foreign word „Czechoslovakia“ (unless in an historical context). I tell them I am under contractual obligation to the Czech government to correct this mistake whenever I hear it. Not a manner to win friends and influence people but this has become a quest of mine to inform the uninformed. Perhaps I can begin a small measure of that quest by describing my experience in Czech and hope that someone might read and become a tenth as enthusiastic as I have become about this country.

continuation next time…