The Eye Abroad
postcard from prague
PrintIf you have seen the macabre thriller Hostel—which I stupidly watched the night before leaving for Prague—you understand the chills that ran down my spine as my taxi from the airport pulled up to the gloomy Hostel Propoka. Located in an eerily quiet district outside the city center, the small building’s dingy exterior and echoing stairwells seemed straight out of a bad horror movie, and an ominous setting within which to begin my four month immersion program in the Czech Republic.
When asked why I chose to study abroad in Prague, a question that I have answered many times over the last few months, I really haven’t had a definite answer. Sometimes I refer to a vague interest in its turbulent communist history and renowned architecture, sometimes to Karuna and Kafka and indulging my caffeine addiction. As I settled into the hostel that first night with strangers from across the U.S., I attributed my choice to sheer lunacy. However, after having wandered the cobble-stoned streets of Prague for almost two weeks now, I now see it as one of the best impulsive, uninformed decisions I have ever made.
As part of an “immersion program” at Charles University, myself and forty-eight other American students stay at the hostel while we find roommates and flats to rent for the duration of the semester. Within five days of arriving in a new country, I found myself with three keys (one of which I promptly lost), two roommates, and a Czech landlord and lease agreement. Having lived for three years in different dorms on 114th street, the experience of finding a realtor and paying monthly utility bills has been a completely new one, complicated enormously by the language barrier. After a frustrating and strenuous couple days, I have settled into a beautiful apartment in the heart of Prague’s “New City,” only a block away from the majestic river.
Our housewarming celebration last weekend, hours after we had moved in, was cut short by an appearance from our cranky neighbor, screaming in Czech and banging his fist against our wall. Minutes later I had my first encounter with the intimidating Czech police, who had responded to his “noise disturbance” complaint—at 10:30 p.m. on a Friday night. Their prominent weapons and cold voices were intimidating enough to disperse our small party and our desire to entertain for good. I was confused: for a city known for its crazy nightlife, all the residents we had met so far seemed reserved, oddly quiet, and intolerant of noise. In the subways, restaurants, and streets the foreigners (especially Brits and Americans) were easily differentiated by our loud conversations and proclivity to travel in packs and move around the furniture.
After a week of orientation lectures on Czech culture and some interesting conversations with locals in bars, I have started to understand the huge distinction Czechs make between “private” and “public” life, partially as a remnant of the communist era. It is as if there were an above-ground attitude defined by an icy aloofness, and a completely separate persona that appears in the smoky, crowded underground pubs. The nightlife is what you would expect from a place where beer is cheaper than water, a series of crowded cavernous bars and crazy multi-level techno nightclubs that don’t ever seem to close. There is one district, Zizkov, right outside the city center that has the highest concentration of bars in the world. The city feels much smaller than New York though. If you meet someone in a random pub one night, it’s almost guaranteed that you will run into them in Old Town Square a few days later or see them at a nightclub across the river the next weekend.
I have found that my best introduction to Prague has not been the city tours or lectures on culture, but in getting lost night after night without a map. Time is ephemeral in these dark, underground pubs, and on many occasions we have emerged to find daylight breaking and no sense of direction on how to get home. Fortunately, violent crime is practically non-existent in the city (although pick pocketing is a huge problem) and wandering the quiet, cobbled-stoned streets until finding a familiar landmark isn’t a dangerous solution. On these cold early mornings, the touristy destinations, like the huge Astronomical clock or Charles Bridge, cease to hold their architectural allure and are simply a comforting reassurance that I am headed in the right direction home.
Nishi Kumar is a Columbia College Junior studying abroad in Prague.
19 February 2009
vol. 6, issue 4
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