Czech & Czechs

1. Ctvrtek means Thursday, this language is crazy. They do not like vowels here. They try to cram as many consonants together as possible, and even when it's not possible, they do it anyway. Another one is zmrzlina. That means ice cream.

2. People in metro stations are silent and keep to themselves, unless they are making out. I kept hearing before I came that Americans always give themselves away by being loud. I didn't realize how much of this was due to how quiet Europeans are (or at least Czechs). Just talking in normal voices on the metro often draws angry stares. Rather than talk, Czechs seem to just make out. Escalators are the most common place for this, but it really happens everywhere in the stations.

3. Czechs are not the nicest people, and sometimes they're just mean. I mentioned before how when I tried to order things off the menu without one part of the dish (such as cream), I had waitresses laugh at me, give me funny looks, or just be rude for the rest of the meal. This attitude is not limited to restaurants. I went to the train station last week to try to get tickets to a town a few hours east of here. The first man I talked to, at the info desk, got really mad at me when I asked him to repeat himself, and slammed his desk. Then he pointed me to another window. I asked the woman there if she spoke English, and she said yes. So I asked her about buying tickets to this place, and she told me I had to go upstairs to find someone who spoke English. Finally, at the third window, someone was able to help me.

But the worst experience was a couple nights ago at our local grocery store. I wanted to get pastrami from the deli. I walked up to the deli and the woman immediately offered to help me, but I just kept looking at the meat because I wasn't sure which was the pastrami ( I probably should have at least said hi). Then I tried to call my roommate to ask her to look up the word for beef, and right when I dialed, the woman returned to ask what I want, but I was on the phone, so I put up my index finger to indicate I would be ready in a moment... and she lifted her arms emphatically in exasperation and said something to the wall and left. So then I figured out which was pastrami and came back to the deli, but she was in the back room. When she started to walk out, she saw me, shook her head, and went right back into the back room. So my friend had to get pastrami on my behalf.

I thought most people in the center of Prague spoke English, but this is not the case at all. Most seem to not speak any, and it's pretty easy to find people who speak a little bit, but I've only met a couple people who are fluent. Thus, language has been more of a barrier than I had anticipated. It's a part of the study abroad experience that I didn't expect to have, but it's definitely happening. It makes me more eager to learn Czech... but that class is a story for another post.