Observations, Part I

Czech word of the day: čtvrtek
Meaning: Thursday
Pronunciation: ch-t-v-r-t-ek

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I've been here a week now and I've barely had time to sleep, let alone catch everybody up on what's going on! But I keep seeing things and thinking, "Ooh, I need to tell the folks back home about this!" I'm afraid I'm going to forget everything before I get around to telling you guys, so I'm starting this blog to write all my observations about life in Brno.

I'm not sure what to call this blog. Calling it a "travel blog" seems pretentious, as I won't be doing much actual traveling while I'm here in the Czech Republic. I can barely find my way around Brno. I got lost twice today, actually. Luckily I know a few landmarks around the city. The other exchange students say that if you follow the tram tracks you'll eventually end up somewhere, but I don't trust that advice because the trams also go out into the suburbs and I don't want to end up there! I'll have to write a whole separate entry on the public transportation system here, but that's a task for another day.

Here are my first observations from living in a foreign country.

1. Snow

In Georgia it rarely snows, and when it does, the snow always melts too quickly for it to get dirty. Here, there's snow on the ground all the time. It hasn't snowed since I've been here, but Brno still looks like this:

The ground and rooftops are still covered with snow. There are icicles that have been hanging there since before I got here. You have to be careful walking down the sidewalk because huge chunks of snow could tumble off the roofs above you at any moment. It just doesn't get warm enough here for the snow to melt, so it stays piled up beside the roads and on the roofs, accumulating footprints and dirt. Especially dirt. The main streets in the city are lined with snow that's nearly black from foot traffic and whatever nasty stuff cars cough into the air.

This is not asphalt. This is dirty snow.

You can see in the snow the path people take up the steps.

Today was the first day that the temperature rose above freezing, so the snow started slowly melting today. The city was saturated with water - in the air, on the streets, on the walls of buildings. The floors of the city trams were covered with mud. Walking down the sidewalk was especially hazardous because water was dripping from every roof. There were city workers shoveling snow off the rooftops. They cordoned off the sidewalk below and shoveled the snow into big piles on the ground.

Despite all this cold, I haven't had much of a problem keeping warm. I guess I mentally prepared myself for it. I've actually been grateful for the cold, because the refrigerator in my dorm room doesn't work and my roommate and I can just leave our food out on the balcony to keep it cold. In Georgia ants would find the food no matter how cold it was, but here I haven't seen a single insect.

2. Diversity, or lack thereof

I haven't seen a single black person here. It's funny and kind of sad - when you stick out in a group of people you notice instantly, but when you're in a group where everyone else looks like you, you don't immediately notice the absence of people who are different. It takes a while to realize that everywhere you look, everybody looks the same. Of course, if I weren't white I'm sure I'd have noticed right away.

Most nations in Europe are pretty ethnically homogeneous compared to America, especially Central and Eastern European nations like the Czech Republic. Here you've got your Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Germans, and Russians - all white people. There are also Vietnamese and Roma minorities, but the vast majority is white. So people here aren't particularly used to seeing non-white people, and a few exchange students here have had a hard time. One guy from Mexico got cursed out in the street by an elderly Czech man who overheard him speaking Spanish.

On the bright side, there are exchange students here from all over the place. I've met people from Poland, Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, Bosnia, Canada, Britain, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, France, and Japan. Students from the same country tend to cluster together speaking their native language, so when we all get together you can hear about seven languages being spoken all at once - plus the local Czechs speaking Czech and Slovaks speaking Slovak. My building is full of French people who tape French flags to their doors and hang around smoking in the hallways in a very French-like manner. Sadly, Turkey, Bosnia, and Brazil are represented by only one student each, so those poor students don't have the pleasure of speaking their native language with anyone. The default language for communication among all of us is English, so we native English speakers are lucky.

3. Language

Everything here is in Czech, obviously, but it's not too hard to find English. Most street signs are in both languages, as are the signs for the shops that particularly want to attract tourists. (Disconcertingly, the signs for sex shops are all in English. I don't know what that says about English speakers.)

Found this place today, but didn't have time to go in. I'll visit there soon. My Slovak friend here says that country music is quite popular in the Czech Republic.

The first things you see when you walk out of the main train station in Brno are strip/gambling clubs and a KFC. The people taking the orders at KFC speak English, which made me wonder how many fast food employees in America speak a foreign language. It's humbling to realize what an effort people in this far-away country make to learn a language that we in America take for granted as our native tongue. It makes me want to try harder to speak their language with them, because they work hard to speak mine. The vast majority of the American students here aren't bothering to learn much Czech, and some even complain when Czechs don't understand English. I don't understand how you can be so arrogant as to expect people in a foreign country to accommodate your language. This is their country. They have the right to speak their language here. Jeez.

Today I went to KFC and ordered in Czech. The register girl wound up speaking English to me anyway, but at least I tried. One difference that stood out to me: if you ask for potatoes at KFC here, they'll ask whether you mean mashed potatoes or French fries, or even just give you fries. "French fries" doesn't seem to be much understood here.

4. Little things

KFC difference #2: They don't have crispy chicken here, just original, and the mashed potatoes and gravy taste different. The gravy is thinner. At home I would complain if there was no crispy chicken, but here I'm grateful just to have fried chicken - or anything American, for that matter. There's a McDonald's here too and a "hamburgery," or hamburger stand, but I haven't tried them yet. I hear the McDonald's staff also speaks English.

Cokes are everywhere here, but they cost about the same as at home. There's a Czech drink that's kind of like Coke, and it tastes really weird. It's almost indescribable - it's like Coke plus root beer, with a hint of buttermilk? I can't decide whether I like it or not.

Now on to less food-related things.

This is a toilet flush button. Not all toilets here have buttons like this, but many of the newer ones do. There are actually two buttons, one bigger and one smaller. I don't know why. Pushing either button will make the toilet flush.

This is a wall heater. There's one in almost every room here, and they all look like this. There was even one in my hotel room in Prague and I couldn't figure out what it was, so I left it alone. I also couldn't figure out where the heater was. I didn't put two-and-two together for a few days.

This is a light switch. It's about the size of my palm. Some of the light switches here are smaller, but they're almost all designed like this. I've only seen one up-and-down switch like the ones in America, and it's not a light switch, but the power switch to the hot plate in our dorm room.

This is a Czech power outlet. It's got two round holes and one round pin, and I have to have a special adapter to plug in my electronics. I like the outlets here, though. They look like faces.

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That's all I have time for tonight. I'll leave you with this image of a jacket some Czech guy was wearing on the tram this morning.