Friday, April 2, 2010

Track Trip To Kutna Hora

It was February of last year, and my friend Nhan needed a break - a road trip out of town.  Only this was the Czech Republic and why take a road when you can take a train on the densest railway network in all of Europe?  We threw around ideas of where would be a good place to go.  Wanting to save places that would look best in Spring and Summer, I suggested Kutna Hora cause going to see a pile of bones is the same in February or July.  No amount of spring flowers will change the view.

We got into our train compartment and marveled at what a relaxing way this was to travel.  Nhan originally hails from Orlando. He remarked how wonderful it would be to have a train like this for day trips from the city to the beach.  Instead, after a day of unwinding, a Florida beachgoer has to experience the stress of the traffic back into town. We would get to chat the whole way to Kutna Hora with nary a thought about traffic, gas tanks, or directions. The cost round-trip was less than $5 for each person.

Being the dear friends they are, Gulnara and Nhan greeted me with a box of chocolates, even though I had lost, yes, lost the Christmas present they gave me before I even opened it.  Did I say they were dear friends? Simply the best.

Gulnara and me in the deserted Square at Kutna Hora

It was one c-o-l-d day the day we decided to go.  I think we were three of 12 tourists in the whole town. We definitely did not have to fight off the crowds to go visit what was our first UNESCO Heritage site that we visited simply because it was a UNESCO Heritage site.  We decided to save the Bone Church, the reason everyone comes to Kutna Hora, for the end of the day.

T
The Alchemist's Shop

Immediately we spotted a beautiful building with tourist information and a purported alchemist's shop.  I would like to say we were all filled with a burning desire to learn how to turn ordinary objects into gold, but mostly we were just freezing our tushes off and needed someplace, anyplace, with heat!

 Investigating Alchemy

There were all sorts of mysterious mad scientist apparatus and giant bellows and a tunnel that lead who knows where.  All of it food for the imagination of a young person raised on tales of King Midas. But what Kutna Hora is known for besides the Bone Church, is the real wealth, not pretend wealth that came out of this town.

Kutna Hora was the center of a mining operation that created coinage that was traded so widely you could call it unintentional medieval Euros. We began walking toward the famous Church of St. Barbara's (named after the patron saint of miners and anyone working with explosives) that had been built with all of this fantastic wealth that Kutna Hora produced.

The Walkway to St. Barbara's

The walkway to St. Barbara's was so romantic -- or it would have been if it wasn't 0 degrees centigrade.  Along the way were numerous statues of  saints and people in various states of torment, along with the beautiful paving and stonework that Czechs do so well.

Over the stone fence to the left, there was a magnificent view of Kutna Hora, the town, and the surrounding countryside. There are around 21,000 people in Kutna Hora today but at one time Kutna Hora rivaled Prague for economic dominance of Bohemia. The mines have played out, however, a new source of wealth has been found: growing tobacco for Phillip Morris.

 Gulnara and Nhan
with St. Josef's Church
in the background

As we walked toward St. Barbara's Church, I was fascinated by the competing church St. Josef's, easily seen from this walk way and the spectacular St. Barbara's.  I marveled at what politics would motivate the building of a smaller, less ornate church when there's a perfectly magnificent church already started in town in the 1300s.  Maybe it's like American churches that divide and divide into smaller and smaller congregations over minute theological questions, I don't know. Or maybe the townspeople viewed St. Barbara's as a money pit. It didn't get finished until 1905.  It was fun to think about.

 Approaching the flying buttresses
of St. Barbara's Church

I ask you gentle readers, especially my male readers, you know what flying buttresses are as an architectural detail, don't you? Simply because it's so much fun to say "flying buttresses," right? Can you say the same for knowing what crenelated stoneworks are? Sounds like a detail on a petticoat, doesn't it? I was just wondering if my theory that you know what flying buttresses are proves correct.  The inner 8-year-old in all of us loves to say "flying buttresses!"

 One of many beautiful baroque altars
and stained glass windows within the church

The beautiful Gothic
arches and ceiling
within the Church
After thoroughly exploring the unheated church we headed back toward the center for a long leisurely lunch of Czech specialties, mead and beer.  There were more interesting sites along the way to our next stop.

For example, they don't make
water towers like this back home.
 Two wild and crazy Czechs
from back in the day.

Many European communities
have one of these:
a Plague Column
to commemorate and give thanks for the end
of the Bubonic Plague's rampage.

We were all excited when we saw this truck
because we thought we were going to get to say hi
to American military overseas.
It was three Czechs moving carpet.

The Italian Court
 
Our next stop was the Italian court, a former royal residence and mint. We took a tour that showcased some of the coins and manufacturing operations of those times.  I remember being impressed with medieval loss prevention techniques.  Nobody was sneaking home with any coin molds in their lunch pail.

The keys our guide used to enter
the doors at the Italian Court.
Good thing she had them.

 She was so nervous
giving her first tour in English
she accidentally locked up a few tourists
on our tour.

Luckily Gulnara asked,
"Hey, where did the Germans go?"
Otherwise they might still
be locked up in the tower.

The drop-dead gorgeous chapel
in the Italian Court.
 Every wall was achingly beautiful.

Oh, the Bone Church.
We ran out of time. Never saw it.
Ice cream and good conversation
got in the way. 

I hope I come back this way again.
I'll do the Bone Church and the Silver Mines
...next time.

You might enjoy these other train-related posts:


Thursday, April 1, 2010

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed"

Imagine living in a country where your political system did not consider your needs as a woman and mother important enough to provide for. It's easy enough in the West to bemoan the superficiality of a consumer culture, but how long could you last, Western ladies, in a country that had no consumer culture at all?  Imagine a life without cosmetics, any sort of feminine hygiene products, where fruit was available only sporadically if at all, and where recycling was not about ecology but about the complete lack of any goods to replace worn-out items.

"How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed," a book by Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic is a wonderful description of what it was to live as a woman trying to create a normal life under a totalitarian regime. Encouraged by her feminist friends in the West, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, Ms. Drakulic describes what it was like for women in the first few years after all of the regimes fell.  While pundits described grand political theories about what just happened after the Wall fell and what was continuing to happen, Drakulic was among the first authors writing about how these regimes affected ordinary women.

This book is a quick and wonderful read that shows communism didn't necessarily end when the Wall came down.  It will take future generations for all of that communism to leave the mind. I don't think any other writer has helped me see how communism breeds incredibly reactionary outlooks in people since making a mistake could be so well...fatal...plus job #1 was to survive it until the next day.

You might enjoy my post about Slavenka Drakulic's other book:

In Prague, you can enjoy reading "Cafe Europa" at the Cafe Europa

Monday, March 29, 2010

Sounds like a Healthy Debate About Patriotism in Slovakia

  
Slovak Flag

The New York Times recently chronicled a healthy debate about patriotism that is going on in Slovakia.  Politicians are playing to populism asking all schools to display the flag and play the national anthem every morning.  This is all taking place in advance of upcoming elections.  Critics, including Martin Simecka, (son of Milan Simecka, who would be so proud of his son's public intellectual role) say the efforts aren't inclusive of ethnic minorities and may glorify the past with uncomfortable truths glossed over. Click on my title to read the article.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

'Soul Of A Citizen': Barack Obama and Vaclav Havel, And When Small Steps Yield Unexpected Fruit

Recently I saw the Czech movie "Twenty-One Spokespersons of Charter '77." What a great film for showcasing the singular courage individuals had to possess to work for change at a time no one thought change was possible.  In the film, Vaclav Havel said that Western reporters would always come and interview him and then tell him that what he was trying to do was impossible.  You are only risking your life, they intimated.  The balance in power is too great.

A grateful Czech nation is glad he ignored that advice.  He did not work alone to create change.  As more and more Czechs not only didn't believe in the totalitarian system, but grew willing to show their lack of belief,  Charter 77 evolved from dissident protest group to celebrated speakers of truth to power.  I was struck by one of the spokeslady's comments in the film.  As she watched her fellow citizens congregate in Wenceslas Square to protest, she went home.  She said "her work was done and she was no longer needed."  Aren't you grateful for courageous citizens like that?

A recent essay on the Huffington Post celebrates these people who take small steps to yield unforseen fruits.  What steps are you comfortable taking to change your society?  Are you one of the early canaries who sing in the coal mine or are you more comfortable helping later when a movement picks up steam?

Has one person's political risk-taking and actions ever inspired you? Who was it? What did they do? How did they open your mind?

Have you ever felt passionately about an issue yet kept quiet?  How come? What kept you from expressing how you felt?

Two issues that inspired me to activism in my own country were protesting the Iraq War to my elected officials, including my-then United States Senator Barack Obama. What was depressing about my letters is I read them five years after I wrote them early in the war and nothing in the situation had changed.  I could have sent them again and just changed the date.  I'm grateful that my Senator was finally elected to the Presidency to change all that and he has.

The other issue that inspired me to activism was our recent health care debates in America.  It took zero courage on my part to call my elected officials over and over and over again.  It merely took time.  But when the President of the United States said afterwards "thank you" to everyone who ever made a call or worked for change on health care in America, I found it deeply meaningful.

Click on my title to read the essay on Paul Loeb's book "Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times." 

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Forgotten Transports of Czech Jews

Deported Czech Jews
working as conscripted laborers
in Estonia
I haven't yet been to Terezin, the concentration camp that is frequently visited by Prague tourists as a day trip out of the city.  If there is one experience that tells the story of Czech Jews, visiting Terezin and seeing it for oneself has been the single event that most people interested in Czech history have experienced.

Now a new and intensively-researched film documents the little-known stories of what happened to Czech Jews during the Holocaust.  Filmmaker Lukas Pribyl, is a project obviously close to his heart due to his family's history, has culled photos from survivors and relatives of both sides of the story to create a photographic narrative of what happened for us to see almost as if we were there.

To read more about his new film, click on my title to access the story in the New York Times. Does anyone know if it's been shown in Prague yet?  Have you seen it?

Friday, March 26, 2010

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall Visit St. Clement's Church in Prague

  photo copyright Sybille Yates 2010

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall

Prague is one of those cities that seems to host important figures from around the world.  This week Prince Charles came through Prague on his Central European tour and Charles and Camilla (or C & C as my friend and chaplain Ricky Yates affectionately refers to them in shorthand) chose to attend Sunday service at St. Clement's Anglican Church in Prague. As you can imagine the amount of coordination required is extensive and Ricky should be proud as a British citizen for keeping the Prince's visit a secret when diplomatic sources did not!

I respect Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall for visiting St. Clement's church.  If you were looking to get splashed all over the headlines, you probably wouldn't pick going to church as the activity to do it.  But to the people involved at the church it makes a difference.  Expat churches are incredibly hard to sustain financially as there aren't big endowments and the members are constantly coming and going.  By attending services, Prince Charles brought all kinds of great publicity to St. Clement's (including his own web page), doubled the normal attendance and helped the budget of a fantastic community of Christians.

If you want to read more about the Prince's visit, I invite you to enjoy Part I  of the royal visit on Ricky Yates blog here:

http://rickyyates.com/the-royal-visit-%E2%80%93-as-it-happened/

Part II follows! One of the coolest parts about the Prince's visit is I'm sure they don't let just anybody preach to the Prince.  Go Ricky Go!

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Original Thinking in Olomouc: A Grain Silo Reborn



The New York Times featured a very interesting home in Olomouc, Czech Republic today. It looks like a beautiful home to live in and look out of; Olomouc is said to be very old and very beautiful so I can just imagine how breathtaking it is to see the entire city from above.

I wonder if the neighbors feel this home is as beautiful to look at as look out of? Regardless, I have to give it to this family for original thinking. Click on my title to read the article and see the slide show of their home.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Thanks for reading!

This month brought me the best gift of blogging.  I guess I should say, the second best gift of blogging because the first gift is the wonderful, wonderful friends I have made in real life due to my blog.  This month I have just had amazing conversations with a couple of my blog readers ~ and what a stimulating group they are! Thank you for reading my blog and giving me your feedback.

It's so exciting to hear about the adventures and thoughts of people who read what I write because I get feedback not only on what I've said but I get to see who enjoys it.  Keep reading and writing to me!  I love it.

This month my very best friend from 2nd grade, Nancy, now living in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States, hosted a Czech night at her book club.  She served mead and had Central European food and her entire book club read Bohumil Hrabal's "I Served the King of England" based on my recommendation.  If any of Nancy's book club members are reading my blog for the first time, welcome!  Thanks for cherishing my good friend Nancy and sampling the gorgeous literature of the Czech Republic.  I feel like I did my bit to spread Hrabal's name in America where he is virtually unknown.  Nothing could make a librarian happier!

 I will begin writing longer posts again shortly.  Life is so beautiful and I can't write down fast enough all of the things that fascinate me. Until next time, ciao!

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

How I Travel: A BootsnAll Resource

If you're interested in starting a life of vagabonding or setting out to see the world and do any kind of internet research, you quickly discover the internet resource "BootsnAll." The site bills itself as the ultimate resource for the independent traveler. BootsnAll offers all of the usual traveler money-making resources like tickets, tours, insurance, and lodging.  What really makes it interesting, however, is all of the travel writing content. I love to read about other people's travel experiences!  The forums, where independent travelers discuss their finds and look for tips from the person who was most recently there, are inspiring in their spontaneity!

 
Me hanging out in Berlin

 "How I Travel" is a new BootsnAll interview series publishing every Tuesday in an effort to look at the unique and diverse travel habits of some of the world's most well known and proficient road warriors. Here's the travel writer, Rolf Potts, who first empowered me to hit the road, plus a couple of other columns to enjoy. 

 
Rolf in Ethopia

How I Travel: Rolf Potts
author of the wonderful travel book "Vagabonding"

 
Don Wildman on the Road

How I Travel: Don Wildman
host of the History Channel show "Underground Cities"

 
Stephanie Izard making friends in Honduras

How I Travel: Stephanie Izard
Chicago chef and winner of the Top Chef competition

BootsnAll writer Steve Bramucci is interested in hearing from you.  Who would you like to see spotlighted in a future "How I Travel" interview? You can tell him here.  I'm nominating one of my favorite expat bloggers for a column: MaryAm from the gorgeous design blog My Marrakesh.  Her last business trip took her to Kabul.  Now don't you want to know how she travels?

Monday, February 1, 2010

Who Will Be the Czech "Jamie Oliver?"

There are two spheres of life in the Czech Republic that are wide open for the right talent to walk into and call their own - giant gaping voids that just scream "opportunity!"  The first sphere would be politics which I've written about in other posts.  The second sphere of life in the Czech Republic that is in need of new voices, new talent, & new thought is cuisine.
 
            
         





British Chef
Jamie Oliver
  
Where is the Czech "Jamie Oliver?" He's the British chef who said "we could make our national food and cuisine and what we serve our kids healthier." The Czech Republic is in bad need of this kind of culinary cultural leadership.
Food author
Michael Pollan

It's interesting to compare what needs to be fixed in American diets and what needs to be fixed in Czech diets.  My hero, author Michael Pollan, writes extensively and entertainingly that Americans eat a lot of "edible food-like substances" rather than real, actual food. He has said Americans are unconscious when they eat processed food.  It's not really "real food." It's an "edible, highly-processed food-like substance" that has been created because processed food adds more profit to ag companies than commodities.

Americans are so guilty as charged! Pollan says it would be hard to create an eating culture that resulted in more heart disease, obesity, and chronic disease than our own, but we Americans have managed to do it.  Most likely, because each one of those health problems is a profit opportunity for someone. So ag companies can make profit on creating unhealthy food and drug companies can make profit on fixing all the health problems created.  You are not a person - you are a profit delivery system for large companies in the American food landscape!

So Michael Pollan asked all of his readers ("The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" were each chosen as among the top ten titles in the year they were written - both of them are fantastic) to send him their family "food rules" so Americans could begin to develop an eating culture that would not poison them. It has resulted in his new book "Food Rules," a collection of the rules people sent in.

The most well-known food rule people sent is this: Don't eat any food your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize.
Ewwwww.
Pork knuckle.

What a conundrum. Everything Czech people eat is food their great-grandmother would recognize! If we were doing manual labor on a farm it would be the perfect cuisine: bread and potato dumplings, deep-fried cheese, piles and piles of potatoes, loads of beer (and not light beer either), and inexpensive cuts of beef and pork (did you know pork had knuckles? Pork knuckle is a famous Czech dish). So far, the Czech people look pretty skinny.  But I was seeing the pedestrian Czechs for the most part - not the driving Czechs.  Now that Czechs are beginning to buy cars, I wonder how long they'll stay skinny.

I say the opportunity is right for an inventive Czech chef to update Czechs to the beautiful, wondrous, variety of vegetables out there beyond cabbage and potatoes.  Communism is dead! Czech people, you don't have to eat like a communist or a member of the A/H Empire anymore.  You deserve vegetables in every possible color, not just white. You deserve high-quality meat! There are more exotic things for you to discover beyond bananas!

This mythical chef could possible update gender roles a bit too.  In America, every man I know proudly kicks ass in the kitchen.  Czech men have no idea how fun it is to cook!
Travel Channel host and chef
Anthony Bourdain

Tonight, Anthony Bourdain's American travel show "No Reservations" travels to Prague to see how cuisine has evolved post-communism.  I'm so excited to see what he has to say.

Related posts:
Armchair Traveling With Tony
What Flavor Do You Associate With the Czech Republic?

Friday, January 29, 2010

What Flavor Do You Associate with the Czech Republic?

Quick.  What flavor or spice do you associate with India? The clock is ticking...oh you didn't need any extra time, did you? Most people answer "curry." What's flavor do you associate with Japan? The clock is ticking...everyone may not answer this one the same way. I would say "wasabi."

What flavor would you associate with the Czech and Slovak Republics? Before arriving in Prague, I would have drawn a blank.  Today I would say: "honey."

Do you like honey? Let me tell you about two fabulous Czech specialties that are delicious!

The first product is an alcoholic beverage.  It's mead! How can an American learning about other cultures resist a beverage with such a long and storied European history and medieval name.  It sounds like something one should be served at a Renaissance Fair along with a big fat turkey leg.  Mead is wine made out of three ingredients: honey, water, and yeast. If you want to call it by it's Czech and Slovak name, it's marketed as 'medovina.'

I discovered the joys of medovina one night when I had arrived at a friend's flat, cold and shivering, and my friend offered me a cup of warm medovina to take the chill off. I sat down with a deliciously warm, yummy glass of medovina and fell in love with the taste.

I wish I had noticed the brand name at the time (it came in a clear bottle) because ever since then, I've been tasting different brands of medovina to try and reproduce that exact memory of deliciousness. It's easy to find medovina that is sickly sweet and needs to be watered down.  This wine tasted like a gently sweet, low-viscosity form of honey. Try it. If the first brand is too sweet, give another brand a try.  Mulled mead (doesn't that sound medieval?) is available at Christmas time.  It has additional spices and fruit flavors added.

Are you more of a show-stopping dessert type? I'm not as much.  But I remember one of my fellow teacher's reaction to Medovnik, an exquisite honey cake served everywhere in Prague for dessert.  She was in utter rhapsody! She loved it so much she tried to make it at home.  "Don't bother," she reported after her attempt. "It's not for amateurs.  It's w-a-y-y-y too much work." So I guess she's back to turning heads in cafes with those moans of ecstasy as she consumes her medovnik.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Communist Art in the Prague Metro


Andel Metro Stop

When I first arrived in Prague, I would get off at the Andel Metro Stop every morning to go to class.  The Andel station is beautiful, firstly, because it's all done in different shades of pink and cream marble. The colors gave it warmth and femininity.

 Bronze reliefs
mounted in the walls

Nothing made me appreciate the leap I made more than seeing the Communist art embedded in walls of the Andel station in Smichov.  I liked being in a place where the ideology was different than mine, the history was different than mine, the aesthetics were different than mine.  That's the whole point of travel, isn't it? To challenge our thinking! And maybe, to be a little scared, to push ourselves into experiencing new things.
 

I hope Czechs never remove this art from the station. Originally, the whole station had been designed by Soviet architects.  Andel (Angel) used to be named in honor of Moskevska (Moscow). The Soviets built this station and one back home in Moscow they named in honor of Prague. The Czech couldn't change the name of the station fast enough after the Velvet Revolution.

Czechs don't appreciate these period pieces now.  Americans do.  It's Orwellian art. I felt the privilege it was to get to see it.  Czechs are just grateful not to be living it anymore.



 All of the art in the Andel Station
celebrates the "friendship" between
the Czech and Soviet peoples.

 
 Mir - the Russian word for Peace

 
 My name for this:
"The Happy Cosmonauts"

No Art Represented My Image of Communism
More Than This
-Everything For the Glory of the State!

 
There's a gorgeous city
out there waiting to be explored.

I'm glad I made the leap.


Thursday, January 21, 2010

How Czech Government Delighted Me As a Consumer

"Can you tell me," asked my native-Czech student shyly near the end of a lesson one day, "anything you see here that is better than in your country?"

"Can I? YES!" I answered enthusiastically. "Czech people haven't the faintest idea how FABULOUS their transportation networks are. They are simply amazing."

Hlavni Nadrazi
the Main Prague Train Station
 What I admire:

1) Czech transport makes Czechs more competitive. Here's why: In America, it is suggested that 15% of the average household budget be devoted to paying for transportation. That usually includes cars for both parents and possibly for any teenagers living at home, car insurance, gasoline, and licenses for the car and drivers. That's 15% of American salaries, which run higher than Czech salaries.

Czechs don't need to spend so much of their salaries on transportation because it's possible to survive, indeed thrive, without a car. Not only can companies locate in the Czech Republic and get high-quality, hard-working, highly educated, often multi-lingual employees, it's possible to pay them less because they don't have these household costs that exist in America.

How low are the transport costs in the Czech Republic? Envision living in a city of 1.3 million and paying a mere $300 a year to get around. And if you want to be able to travel through the entire country (similar in size to the U.S. state of South Carolina), an annual train pass is only $100 more! Can you imagine, my fellow Americans, being able to get around your entire state for only $400? As far as I can tell, Czechs spend around 8.8% of their salaries on transportation.  What a competitive advantage in the global fight for jobs!

On the Hlavni Nadrazi
train platform
where you can catch a train to Plzen
or another city or village 

The comfortable seats
on a City Elephant Train
What's missing: stress!

Czechs have the most extensive rail network density in the entire EU.  Railways were built to transport the military in the 19th century.  A CFO for a construction company pointed out to me Communist government also made it easy to create this incredible system of national and metro railways because the apparatchiks just 'appropriated' whatever property was needed from the citizenry. Property owners weren't compensated. If a government such as mine were to develop this today paying retail prices to property owners, the cost would be exorbitant.  Bummer.

Right up this Metro escalator
is one of Prague's newest malls.
Prague kids don't need their parents
to drive them there.


The kids can't get in too much trouble.
See those spiky things?
There will be no sliding down that shiny metal
all the way from the top!

2) Czech parents don't have to be chauffeurs! When children are between the ages of 10-16, American parents spend their "free" time chauffeuring them from one activity to another. Think about this, America.  Imagine your city safe enough that your 10-year-old and his friends could get on the metro and go to hockey practice without you driving them there! Yes, remarkably, Prague is that safe.  Tweens and teens travel on the metro and trams unchaperoned as they pursue their interests.  When Czech children are free to explore the city, Czech parents have a vested interest in making sure that all parts of the city are safe, not just their neighborhood. Surely, that lessens crime.

Czech students on a field trip
using the Prague metro
to get from Point A to Point B
3) Superb public transportation facilitates learning outside of a classroom. It's a giant hassle to take kids on a field trip in America.  The teacher has to coordinate a school bus, discuss it with all the other teachers, get liability release forms from each parent, etc., etc.  Plus securing that bus is all dependent on whether or not there is budget for it that year.  Is it any wonder field trips are dying out? In the Czech Republic, the teacher can just take her class on ever-present public transit that serves everyone! No need to call ahead and order a bus just for her and her kids.  Kids don't need school buses to take them to school either.  They ride the metro like everybody else.

Poetry in the Metro

4) Public transportation creates readers which is good for democracy and good for wealth creation.  One issue poor families face in America is 'a poverty of print.'  No books in the household and no billboards even in their neighborhoods (companies don't bother advertising to folks with no disposable income).  Low-income children don't start kindergarten with the pre-literacy skills developed by observing readers and reading materials on a daily basis.  A sight seen again and again on Czech transport is a variety of people greedily opening their book with such reverence it reinforces the message that reading is fun. At-risk kids in the Czech Republic have other role models beside their parents.  I've even see Czech parents use that transit time to read to their kids!

All those readers create a healthy market for print newspapers and weeklies which is great for democracy.

Good readers grow up to earn 20% more than average readers. Constant reading builds up a skill critical to wealth creation.

5) Public transportation is safer than driving. Americans curtail their activities because they fear driving when drinkers could be on the road.  I went out with full confidence on New Year' Eve in Prague because I knew I didn't have to worry about dangerous people on the road. It's a little crazy, isn't it, to deprive ourselves of activities because we fear driving?

A new, less predictable, driving danger is becoming known: texting while driving. It results in driving so distracted it is the equivalent of twice the impairment of driving while intoxicated.  Why not bring laptops and electronic devices on public transit to use that time to accomplish work undistracted rather than try to work and drive at the same time?

6) Public transportation creates a pedestrian culture that limits obesity.  I offer my own experience.  Twenty pounds lost in the Czech Republic in six months without trying! But think of the money slimmer people save the country's health care budgets with less chronic diseases caused by overeating and inactivity.

Life goes on!
Here a Czech takes home
a Christmas tree on the metro

 7) Public transportation limits human isolation. You know how people who have just broken up with someone have a grudge against the opposite gender?  It would be hard to keep that attitude alive using Czech public transit. You may not be in love, but everyone else is.  My goodness, I've never seen so much public smooching in my life! On the metro, you'll see couples in love, families moving their household furniture, students studying madly for a test, and people on their way to a potluck with a dish balanced on their lap.  I think it's healthy and gets people outside of their own head to see the wonderful parade of humanity that happens on the metro.  It's a conversational banquet too.  I can't count the number of interesting five-minute conversations I had with perfect strangers on the metro!

The futuristic feel
of the Prague Metro
is part of the fun

8) The Czech Republic is already armed with an infrastructure that limits global warming. Every family that uses public transit saves 20 lbs. of carbon emissions annually from entering the atmosphere. Czech people already have it built!

9) Public transit keeps the air cleaner. - the street my language school was on was like a valley of trapped car exhaust.  I'm sure vehicle traffic has made the air in Prague less healthy for the people who live there.

10)Public transit creates a very livable city. In a city of 1.3 million people, I could go home for lunch!  That's what delights me the most.  The incredible, extensive transport network allowed me to move into Prague without a car and get about the city without any anxiety.  An English teacher in Prague gets to know how to use the metro, trams, and buses in combination with each other so extensively it would be normal to get from one side of Prague to another in 20 minutes.  If I was going someplace new I just used a first-class website to help plan the trip.  All included in my $22 a month transit pass.

An elevated Metro tube
headed into Luziny Metro stop
in Prague
The Challenge for Czechs

Czech families with the funds available are purchasing cars.  Because that strata, articulate in their demands, tends to get listened to in a democracy, there's a danger that public transit budgets will begin to favor highways more than public transit.  In America, 80% of the money goes for highways and 20% for transit. Our transit looks like it too. It's not world-class.  How will the Czech Republic maintain it's fabulously competitive transit system if the loudest citizens value something else?  Are you rich enough as a country to afford both? We aren't - or at least haven't prioritized it that way. What would Prague and other cities be like to live in if the car became the dominant vehicle of choice? Would you have additional costs to your society if obesity was higher, carbon emissions, pollution, and foreign oil imports were higher, stress was higher, human isolation was higher, educational costs were higher, and household expenses were higher?

Czechs, do you understand what an infrastructure gem this is? Have you purchased a car? What do you think will be favored more in the next twenty years? Vehicle traffic or transit traffic?

Americans, does this appeal to you at all? Is there any American area that comes close to this level of transit service?  What kind of public transit do you wish you had where you live (I would love high-speed rail from Madison, WI to Milwaukee and Chicago, Illinois. Rockford, Illinois is a city the size of Plzen that would explode if it had any kind of rail service to Chicago, 90 miles away.


You can also read my previous post about what I valued about the United States Government:

The United States Government Saved My Life

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The United States Government Saved My Life

I moved to Prague in November of 2008. It was the day after the Presidential election so I left full of hope and excitement for my country's future. The preceding month, however, with the credit crisis and the bank bailouts pretty much drove American belief in the fairness of our system out the window. It would have been so, so easy to give up in cynicism. I was grateful to be in Prague where I would be avoiding the continual depressing drumbeat of economic calamity in American news.

When I came to Prague, I discovered Czechs had their own cynicism about democratic politics. I'm not talking about before 1989, but after. Immediately after the Velvet Revolution, Czechs felt all of the assets of the country were stripped away in a big "grab" by politicians and carpetbaggers.

I don't want to be cynical. It's not my nature and cynicism never advanced the cause of humanity. So as I made my transition to living in a new country, I vowed to celebrate one wonderful thing about my government and the Czech government so that I could keep cynicism at bay. In my next post, I'll talk about one wonderful thing I admire about Czech government, even though there are actually many things (just as there are for America). Today, I'd like to celebrate my own government's actions. It actually ended up saving my life.

A typical sign
that conveys how socially unacceptable
smoking is in America.

I am grateful to the United States government for providing leadership in my country on the elimination of smoking as a socially acceptable practice. This wasn't a grass-roots movement from the people pushing up but a top-down campaign from the Surgeon General of the United States (our top public health official) to the people.

In 1964, the Surgeon General declared that "smoking causes cancer." That took real courage to say back then because 46% of American smoked. They smoked in cars, elevators, planes, offices, and their homes. The 1964 report was issued on a Saturday, so great were the worries about what it would do to the American stock market.

The news that smoking causes cancer finally sank into my brain in 1991 when I was 31 years old. Up until that point, I smoked more than I care to admit (okay, I'll admit it: 3-4 packs a day).

When I came to Prague, I had never seen so many smokers! Not even when I was 17 years old and thought smoking was cool. Just walking down one of Prague's very lovely streets, one has to be careful not to get a cigarette burn in one's coat because people are actively walking and smoking at the same time! I once talked to a young Czech college student who was smoking and he was astonished by the idea that anyone would want to quit. "It relaxes me." I don't even think he knew it could kill him. And it's not just Czech young people who smoke.

Most educated people in the USA have educated themselves about the danger.  In America, the majority of smokers left have less than a high school education. I've entered salons frequented by Prague intelligentsia where nearly 100% of the people had a PhD. But they are uneducated about the dangers of tobacco. The air was so thick with smoke you could see it move!

I  was mystified by how unlikely it would be that my country led on this and the Czech Republic lagged on this. After all, in a socialist health care system, wouldn't the government want to eliminate preventable chronic disease because it would eliminate expense? Wouldn't Czech people resent their neighbor's smoking if that drove up national health care costs and their taxes? Isn't it in a socialist government's fiscal interest to change this smoking culture?

Maybe the taxes raised on cigarettes more than cover the cost of the increased disease and people who smoke are used for financing public budgets. I don't know. I will occasionally razz, with a joking smile, my smoking friends who are huddled outside for warmth where they've been banished nationwide in America: "hey taxpayer, thanks for paying more than your fair share through your smoking. You make it easier on the rest of us. But you don't have to kill yourself in the process - why not just mail in the money if you're so insistent on paying these extra taxes?" One of my young coworker has taken to calling his smoking breaks "paying everybody's taxes."

Why did my country lead on curtailing smoking culture when we had a giant tobacco industry that was hugely powerful, created tons of jobs, and lots of export income? The government continually, over and over again, did the right thing despite all that. We have all kinds of industries back home that sway the government from doing the exact thing in the best interest of the public as a whole. I would love to understand why the American government was so terrific on this issue when the government didn't even bear the health care costs of increased smoking, insurance companies did. What do you think, Americans? How could this sort of extraordinary leadership on an issue be reproduced? We sure could use an awful lot more of it.

I am so grateful to the Surgeon Generals of the United States for saving my life. Thank you for continually reminding the public that we were killing ourselves. And since all movements have a drum leader, I would like to take a moment to honor the individual human beings who have led this movement in my country. Thank you!

American Surgeon Generals from that period onward:

Leroy Edgar Burney (first federal official to state that smoking causes lung cancer)
Luther L. Terry (commissioned landmark 1964 report on smoking)
William H. Stewart
Jesse L. Steinfeld
Julius B. Richmond
C. Everett Koop (led a campaign to create a smoke-free society by 2000)
Antonio Novello
M. Jocelyn Elders
David Satcher
Richard H. Carmona
Regina M. Benjamin

See, it's not so hard to keep cynicism at bay! Next post I will talk about what I most admire about the Czech government:

How Czech Government Delighted Me As a Consumer

Thursday, January 14, 2010

How to Make Friends In Your New Country Before You Become an Expat

I suppose expats become old hands at arriving in a country and figuring it all out. The first time sure isn't like that. It's a bit, well, daunting! Luckily, there are resources to help you!

One of the first I discovered was Expatwomen.com. I loved it because it was so beautifully organized. There were stories about life abroad as an expat, lists of expat/international women's clubs, and advice about settling into specific countries from expats who live there. My friend Sher put together the advice for the Czech Republic and it's dead on!

And how do I know Sher? Through Expatwomen.com! The coolest feature on the site is called "Your Blogs." It lists country by country expat blogs in each country. There were two others listed for the Czech Republic and I became friends with both ladies (even though, I haven't even met one of them because she lives outside of Prague!). It helps though to have a blog yourself so they can get to know you as much as you get to know them.

When I was looking at other possible countries to teach English in, the country specific blog directory was really helpful. What are those blog writers writing about in their blog? All I had to do was read the Ukrainian expat blogs to see I didn't have an interest in moving there. In Kiev, they were freaking out about keeping the heat and the lights on because of continual power outages. Next country! Not going there. I need heat.

One day I looked at African blogs. In one country, the expat were worried for their physical safety and the physical safety of people in that country. Next country! Not going there. It's an incredibly powerful resource from REAL people. Are the writers having fun? Are they being exposed to new ideas? Can they afford living there? Do the locals make them feel welcome? Does the local government treat them with respect?

So take a look at Expatwomen.com. The site is celebrating it's third birthday on January 16th - (Happy Birthday Expatwomen!) Even if the only traveling you are going to do is in your armchair. Your vision will expand as you take in other people's experiences in faraway places. You might even end up with a friend or two.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Discovering a Prejudice Against Germans I didn't even know I had

The Czechs had a pretty horrific 20th century. First, it was the Austrian-Hungarian empire, then the Nazis came, and the Soviets. You'd think Czechs would harbor a grudge. Not so. While every Czech I met knew their history, Czechs seem not to devote a whit of space in their heads to grudges against Germans or Russians.

Conventional wisdom says the opposite of love is not hatred but apathy; that would describe the Czech attitude toward Russians. The Russians left only 20 years ago but they're just never talked about much. Sometimes it seems the Ruskies were never there, and evidence of their being there can only be found in traces, such as the Czech habit of not smiling on the subway for fear of giving your neighbors something to report.

I was surprised though to discover Czech open hearts toward German people. But "how can you trust them?" I'd ask. "Don't you worry the same thing could happen again, where Germany tries to take over all of Europe and make everyone miserable and/or dead?" "Nah," my Czech friends and students would say. "They're not like that."

I always wondered how the Czechs could say that with such confidence. How could they be so sure? Didn't my country have to come over to Europe twice and bail everyone out because of how the Germans behaved? If it happened not just once, but twice in the last 100 years, didn't that mean that deep in the heart of every German there was a blustering Imperialistic Nazi hibernating inside? Over and over again, I heard Czechs negate that thought.

It wasn't just Czechs who had an open mind and heart. While I was living in Prague, I entertained some friends from Israel. The lady discussed making her first visit to Germany to make her peace with the German people. She was content with moving on. What? A Jewish person has such incredible capacity to forgive and trust? Incredible!

I never understood what people were seeing and feeling about Germans that I wasn't until I went to hear Andrew Bacevich, an American professor of international relations at Boston University and the author of "The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism" speak at the Wisconsin Book Festival. He and two other learned professors were describing how countries that pursue empire are doing so rather than look inward and reforming themselves. I don't know if he meant this, but I got the idea while listening to his talk that pursuing empire is a country's version of addiction, a non-conscious expression of pain and harm toward other populations so as not to feel or reform ourselves.

After the talk, I asked all three professors separately, "Okay, if the way we Americans are living now is all about Empire building, who then offers us the model of how we are to live?" Each professor commented on what an interesting question that was and that no one had every asked it (yea me!). Andrew Bacevich then answered without hesitation that "the Germans are our example. They have no interest in empire building whatsoever."

Bacevich made me realize I was operating on 65-year-old information. It wasn't fair to judge the Germans of today against the Germans of yesterday. I needed to update my vision of them as a people and open my heart as countless Europeans and my Jewish friends had already done.

When I went to Berlin, all those monuments documented a dark past from which the nation was recovering. Building monuments and talking about the crimes that had been committed in their name is an acceptance of responsibility. They are choosing to deny denial. One of my friends from Italy told me, "if only my country had learned as much from its mistakes as the Germans have."

It made me think. Is my country accepting responsibility for the things that we've done wrong? Are we ready to discuss them out-loud? Are we able to discuss our past mistakes? One of my U.S. Senators told me if Americans thought the Abu Ghraib photos were bad, the ones not shared in public were much, much worse. If we don't prosecute the alleged abuses and torture done in our name, doesn't that make every American responsible for them? If we choose not to talk about them or acknowledge them, it means we approve, cause we'd rather live in denial. I don't want to live in denial.

I also don't want to operate on 65-year-old information. Heck, if people didn't update their visions of each other, we'd all be worrying about Scandinavians looting and pillaging ala the Vikings!

Look at Iranian leadership. They are operating on a paranoia developed from 55-year-old information when the CIA overthrew their leader and they've been overreacting ever since.

I vow to open my heart to German people and look at them as people completely and wholly new to me. I know nothing about them and my mind is now an open slate.

You may be interested in these other posts:

Understanding Iran: The Power of One Graphic Novel called Persepolis 

Recommended Reading for Thoughtful Americans: "The Limits of Power" by Andrew J. Bacevich

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Most Popular Posts for the Empty Nest Expat Blog


As Empty Nest Expat blog begins a new year, it's interesting to look back and find out which posts received the most readership. I knew nothing about search engine optimization when I started this blog. I now try to at least make my title have a keyword or two related to the subject at hand.

I'll no longer write a post with a title who's meaning is as hidden as "Good Things Happen to Good People" when it's about UNESCO naming one of my favorite places, Iowa City, Iowa, the third-named City of Literature in the entire world. No one finds the post except those who return to my blog on a regular basis!

For those of you who do read my blog on a regular basis, I want to say thank you. I have learned so much from you and have enjoyed our two-way conversation. If you're one of my "lurkers" and are nervous about leaving comments, please go ahead and do so. I'm constantly surprised when someone will send me an email telling me they took some action based on something in my blog (such as visit or move to the Czech Republic, or picking a particular part of Prague to live in, or going to a particular tourist attraction) and I knew nothing about them reading it cause they never said hello! Say hello - I'd love to meet you (at least the best we can - virtually).

When I write, I write about what fascinates me and I write from the heart. Writing gives me a chance to relive the experience and know it more precisely. I have no idea what you'll enjoy. It was fun to go back and see what posts generated the most readership. If you as a reader can share your favorite posts with me in the comments, I would love to hear your opinion!

Here are some of my top read posts over the last two years. The individual posts to read are in green. I've grouped them under some general subject headings.

Downsizing:

Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life

Shedding a House and a Full-time Role

A last spin around America before moving overseas:

The Legend of Starved Rock (Illinois)

Wonderful Food Eases a Newly Empty Nest (Madison, WI)

"An Iron Curtain Has Descended" (Fulton, MI)

Czech Housing:

My First Taste of Czech Village Life

Was Living in Soviet Housing on My Bucket List?

Czech Art and Architecture:

It's David Cerny Appreciation Week

Welcome to Capitalism!

Inspiration at the Post Office

Czech Books:

"I Served the King of England"

"The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovakia"

Czech Fashion:


Beautiful Slavic Faces

Tall Black Boots

First Beautiful Spring Evening in Prague

Out and About in Prague:

The Infant Jesus of Prague

Futurista Builds Upon the Past

I Needed Some Cash in My New Neighborhood

Prague Kavarnas (coffee shops):

Pavel's Prague II: Grand Cafe Orient

Come Join Us for Coffee

Fantova Kavarna Waiting for It's Closeup

TEFL:

My First Week of Teaching English

My First Class of Students

Yea! We're done with Our TEFL Class

Communism:

"You Americans Are Obsessed With Communism"

Two Capitalist Running Dogs Visit the Museum of Communism

Disarming the Velvet Revolution

President Obama:

Dear President Obama, Please Come to the Czech Republic
(he did, too!)

President Obama will Speak to the Most Vibrant Part of Czech Democracy: the people

Obama in Prague!

Leaving the Czech Republic (unexpectedly and not by choice):

The Czech Government Denied my Visa

What Just Hit Me?

Why Can't Visa Departments be Like UPS?

Recognition:

Empty Nest Expat Blog Among the Best Expat Blogs

Welcome Wall Street Journal Readers
 
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