Ukončit

Ukončit

-To finish, conclude, complete

Well, here we are.  Forty-four posts and now, with the fifty-fifth, it’s time to bring this blog to a close.  I’m no longer the only Englishman in the village, I’m one of the tens of thousands of English people in my hometown once more.  Not quite as exciting, really, and I’m not going to be able to fulfil the purpose of this blog now that I’m back home.  Doing day-to-day things has gone back to being mundane rather than novel; there aren’t going to be any ‘lost in translation’ style capers around here.

That’s the only real direction the blog could take, unfortunately.  My writing here has been a public diary of sorts, logging the experience of moving abroad and living somewhere completely alien to me.  The alien factor, the newness of everything and my handling of it was the meat of the text, and that’s now gone.  I’m a firm believer that you should write things that you’d like to read yourself. I love travel writing, but have no interest whatsoever in, say, Livejournal;  I’m not going to write something that would bore myself because I’m confident it would bore everyone else, too.

Working in the Czech Republic was fantastic.  It’s a country I’d wanted to visit for a long time, and it didn’t disappoint.  The kids at the school were wonderful; working with children can be hard in any setting, and I had my tribulations for sure, but there was seldom a day I left work without a smile on my face.  I miss teaching them, and I miss seeing them when I’d go into the village shopping, or at the train station asking me a hundred questions about where I’m going and why.  They were always friendly, and I really hope I get the chance to go back and visit the school some time to see how they’re getting on.

I’m not going to pretend  things were perfect for me.  I’ve always highlighted the light-hearted side of living abroad, but having to constantly translate and estimate even the most trivial of things can become tiresome, and you find yourself leaning away from being adventurous because of it.  The loneliness of the experience can be intense, knowing that you can’t simply go and have a chat to someone without both of you either putting in a great deal of effort trying to convey meaning or grossly simplifying things.  I remember seeing the first school holiday coming up in February and feeling a sense of dread, being very short on cash and not really having made many social contacts yet.  Being the only Englishman in the village was tough at times, but looking back I wouldn’t have changed it.  I’ve learnt plenty.

So what now?  Well I’m home again, I don’t have anything adventurous lined up at the moment, so in truth I’m not sure.  The job market here isn’t exactly blossoming, so for now it may simply be a case of taking whatever I can to get a little money behind me.  Working at the school has helped me realise that I want to pursue a career in education, though, so I’m considering what avenues I could take to follow that.  I was only a classroom assistant in the Czech Republic as I don’t have any sort of TEFL qualification, and I’m enamoured by  the idea of getting a suitable qualification and heading to foreign lands once more, but that kind of thing isn’t free, so I’ll need to fund myself.  The idea of going back to the Czech Republic and teaching there again is something I’d be very partial to; I have a real love for the country and its people, but those are merely pipe dreams right now, and it’s not like I’m in a position where I could turn down a job offer in another country.  Hey, if I were to work abroad once more maybe I could start a blog about it, or even kick this one back off, who knows.

One of the really great things about wordpress is the amount of info and stat breakdown they provide regarding views on your blog.  It seems only right to make this last paragraph a thank you to everyone who took the time to have a look at my little corner of the web and read it.  I look at the different countries people have viewed my blog from, the sheer numbers of people who’ve come to take a look at a post, and the people who spent the time to leave a comment or two, and I’m left stunned.  There’s something humbling about knowing someone’s wanted to take the time to read a piece of writing you’ve done simply out of enjoyment, and I’m still gobsmacked at how my blog got attention from anyone.  Maybe one day I’ll be good at this whole writing thing, who knows.  There’s a Stephen King quote from his book ‘On Writing’ regarding how his wife supported him that sums my feelings up better than I can:

“Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot if difference. They don’t have to makes speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

Thank you.

Hindsight

You may have noticed that I kind of forgot to finish this blog off as my time at the school drew to a close.  I’ve noticed too, and I’m not happy about that, so I’m going to fix things.  Yes it’s late, and I don’t wish to make excuses, but summer was a busy time.  I flew home the day after finishing at school and had 3 days to unpack/repack for my summer job in the USA, at the same summer camp I’ve been working at for years.  Summer camp work is mile-a-minute, and though I love it you’re not left with much time to do anything leisurely.

It’s been almost five months since I left the Czech Republic now, and nearly twelve months to the day that I was offered the teaching assistant job in the first place.  Before I agreed to the job last November I had a meeting at my old university to talk some of the finer details over and try to ease any concerns that I had.  At the time I knew that no matter how many questions I asked or how well I prepared there’d be things I would oversee or not be ready for, and now, having been away from the Czech Republic almost as long as I was there, I think it’s time that I looked back and make note of the things I could’ve done differently if I were heading back.  I’m a firm believer of jumping in at the deep end, and I wouldn’t change my experience even if I could, but there’s no harm in sharing a few things I’ve learnt:

1. PACK HEAVIER

Sounds like anathema to anyone who has gone backpacking or travelled in a not-spending-a-fortnight-in-a-hotel way, and in truth it is to me too 99% of the time; I spent my summer travelling after working at the summer camp, and travelling as light as possible makes life much easier.  The big difference, though, is packing light for travelling is for just that, it’s for travel.  If you were to be some sort of travelling TEFL teacher, working in a different city week-by-week, then by all means keep it light and make your life easy, but if you’re looking to stay in a single place for several months, take stuff with you!

One of my biggest regrets packing-wise was not taking a ‘proper’ laptop.  Instead of packing my cumbersome 17″ laptop I’d used at uni, I brought a tiny 9″ netbook.  Perfect if you want to check your email quickly, but not powerful enough to do things like run videos full-screen or run itunes and a web browser at the same time.  A laptop is such an important multimedia device these days – doubly so when living in a country where you’re unable to understand what’s being said on the TV or radio – that it was naive of me to think I would get by with a netbook just fine.

The same goes for home comforts and casual clothes.  Though you quickly get acclimatised to the commodities available to you, sometimes it’s nice to have that pack of Uncle Joe’s mints (personal fave) or a steaming mug of Bovril, and despite the Marks and Spencer’s in Prague offering a fair few English goods, you’re not going to find Bovril anywhere.  Not to mention bringing things like these into the classroom are a great way to spice up lessons and even incentivise good behaviour.

Similarly, you can always pick up a T-shirt and pair of jeans pretty much anywhere if you’re in need of them, but there’s no way of replicating your favourite shirt.  My pupils would often talk to me about sport and ask me which teams I support – bringing a rugby or football shirt with me would’ve been a great way to jazz up a lesson about sports (and flaunt those team colours when out and about, too.)

That said, I’d still take an ebook reader, rather than a stack of real books.  Pack heavy, but don’t pack daft.

 

2. APPRECIATE THINGS MORE

See that?  That’s a lovely early-summer photo of the village I lived in.  It’s set in a valley, and this picture is taken just in front of the train station (you can see the wooden fences of the station in the foreground) which is quite high up.  The views here were stunning, and I get annoyed at myself that I didn’t spend that much time appreciating them until the end of my stay.

Though I truly enjoy it, working with children is a job that leaves you drained.  With my flat basically being in the school it was tempting at the end of the school day to brew some coffee, flop down on my couch, and be lazy for the rest of the day, and I often did, usually doing little more than making a quick trip to the shops in my spare time during the week.

A danger we all face is a creeping level of apathy towards our surroundings when we’ve lived there for more than a few weeks.  Most of us have grown up living either in or relatively close to a city, but how often do we do the things in our cities that tourists flock there for?  Okay, not tourist traps, but there are fantastic sights and cultural experiences practically at our doorsteps that we never partake in.  I’m guilty of doing this in my hometown, in my university town, and a little so in the village, too.

I did try to combat this.  I headed out to take pictures when I first arrived, went on little walks of an evening, soaking in the atmosphere, and most nights I’d make a point of watching the trains roll by up on the opposite side of the valley.  Simple little things that make you enjoy day-to-day life a little more.  It was easy enough to do this in Prague – Prague was a train journey away and as such became a de facto adventure, whether I was visiting a gallery or going to Tesco – but to do it where we live is more of a challenge, and one I’d like to do better at next time.

 

3. BE BRAVER

This is both the easiest and the most difficult of the things I’d do differently.

There’s a line I’ve heard a lot, both from friends and strangers, that goes something like:

“You’re so brave!  I could never go and live abroad the way you do.”

It’s not bravery, it’s stupidity.  The good kind of stupidity where you don’t think about consequences and just try stuff out.  I’m sure if I spent any amount of time thinking seriously about all of the things that could go wrong on these escapades that I’d have quite strong reservations about doing them, but I’d also be just as cautious about stepping outside and doing anything.  You’ve got to take risks sometimes.

Thinking back now, I get annoyed at myself for getting so far, travelling away and living abroad for so long, and not being brave enough.  Not pushing myself by trying to learn more Czech, not going out and visiting new places, not going down to the pub on my own and meeting some of the locals.  I carved out a little comfort zone for myself where I wasn’t challenged too much and I stayed in it for far too long.

Of all the things on here, that’s the most important lesson to learn.  Carpe diem.  You only have so much time to do things when you’re away like this, and it’s such a folly to waste the opportunities right in front of you.  Get out there, do stuff, enjoy it.  Make mistakes, make a fool of yourself, accept that it’s part of the learning process (and a source of some of the best stories) and you’ll notice that, as time goes on, these moments of embarrassment become fewer.  Be social, you’re on your own and that won’t change unless you get out and do something about it.  Find other expats, find locals who want to practice their English, find friends who want to come and visit.

Don’t be complacent.  You have less time than you think.

Sundae, bloody sundae

In my last post I went on a trip to Prague that, although it didn’t stick to my plan all too well, was quite nice regardless.  The weather was on my side, my camera was firing on all cylinders for once, and it was great just walking around the city in the sunshine and warmth.  One thing I’d wanted to do whilst in the city was visit a certain cukrarna for a coffee break at the end of the day, but getting lost and being too tired to keep looking made me call it off and go home.  Two days later I had to back into Prague, and this time I was going to get to the cukrarna, nothing was going to stop me.  And it didn’t.

The cukrarnas of Prague are known to be, well, cool.  They typically have a great deal of style and cosmetic attention placed upon them, with the super slick Fox and Deer arguably leading the way (though the food is the number one priority, of course).  There’s one place that regularly pops up on the top cukrarnas list that doesn’t really put the effort into making their store appeal to hipsters, though, and from the descriptions I’d found it sounded like a place I wanted to check out.  It’s called Italská cukrárna – literally Italian cukrarna, so immediately I’m thinking of Italy’s culture of espressos and gelatos smashing together with the Czech cukrarna and coming up with nothing but great images.  It’s noted in particular for its sundaes, so my plan comes together pretty quickly:  go grab a sundae and a cappuccino and sit by a window, acting all cosmopolitan.

 

Take the 14 tram to Lazarska and you’re less than 5 minutes away from Italská cukrárna, in fact you can see it on the way to the station on the tram if you’re paying attention to your surroundings.  It’s not particularly big, nor does it catch the eye if you’re not looking for it, but one giveaway is the exterior cashier point for people to grab an ice cream on the go.  I want to have my ice cream sitting down, however, so I open the door and venture inside.

There’s only one word for the store’s aesthetic, and there’s no way for me to say it without sounding mean, so believe me that it is not meant in a nasty way.  It’s tacky.  In fact it’s known for it’s tacky stylings, but it isn’t neglected or messy.  It’s clean, it’s tidy, it’s just got a look that few places are going to try and imitate.  As you can see in the picture, the picture-menu of available sundaes is pretty large (and entirely in Czech), so I take the plunge and order my coffee and sundae – I get the ‘Angelo’ sundae.  The sundaes are hand made right in front of you and made pretty quickly, the staff clearly get a lot of practice .

The Angelo is a combination of chocolate, caramel, and vanilla ice cream, with a big splurge of whipped cream on top and a vanilla liqueur sauce over the whole thing.  The ice cream is very good, the chocolate ice cream tasting more of cocoa than sugar (which is perfect) and the vanilla sauce making the whole thing fantastically boozy and lovely.  The view from my window isn’t quite as cinematic as I’d hoped, but it’s still a good spot to do a little people watching being quite close to the Vltava.  Oh, and with the coffee the whole thing came to 90kc – less then £3.  Can’t complain.

The School Ball

For the last month or so there have been advertisements around the school and the town in general for our second annual school ball.  Well, I think it was at least, there have been posters of people dancing and a few words I recognised about 2nd school something.  My confidence in it being the event was further reinforced by the fact that I’ve been unable to escape being asked if I’m going.  The school ball, unusually, wasn’t for children; it was specifically for the school’s staff and the parents of pupils, no children allowed.

I hate dancing.  There are a lot of things other people would avoid at any cost (playing music on stage, visiting new places alone, working in a classroom) that I have no problem doing at all, but I am a terrible dancer and will do anything to get out of being dragged onto the dancefloor.  The fact that I’m a terrible dancer and very aware of how badly I dance also plays into this, but just generally when I’m at a party I’m happier sitting and talking with people, or standing by the bar.  I guess it explains why I’ve always been more of a pub person than a nightclub person, but anyway, the kind of social gathering like the school ball is anathema to me.  Going out to a pub quiz or something with the other teachers wouldn’t be bad, but going to something as dance-centric as a ball makes me very nervous.  Being asked by a few people if I was going wasn’t too bad because a solid ‘I don’t know yet’ keeps everybody content, but the headteacher took a cleverer appraoch:

“Do you have plans for the next weekend?”

“I don’t think so, why?”

“Good!  The school is next Saturday, I hope to see you there”

No getting out of it now.  I spent the week hoping I might get sick or have something super important come up that just had to be addressed on Saturday and only on Saturday.  That didn’t happen.

I almost didn’t end up going to the ball through sheer idiocy.  It’ll come as no surprise that the tickets for the ball are written in Czech, and me being me, I bought one and didn’t think to ask someone where the ball actually was.  Come 8pm Saturday and I realise I have no idea whatsoever as to where I’m meant to be going.  My solution to this was to stick a scarf on (it was -10C) and just walk through the village, taking a peek inside every pub and restaurant to see if there was any hint of a school ball going on in there.  Twenty minutes later and I’m still looking, badly dressed for this kind of weather, and on the verge of giving up when I reach the last pub in the village, which turns out to be plastered in posters about the school ball.  I go inside and it’s just an empty pub, so I walk up to the bar and show the barmaid my ticket, telling her that I don’t speak Czech.  She smiles and leads me through a corridor to what looks like the storage room, then gestures to a door on the right, which I walk through, and find myself in a large dance hall.  Turns out the hall has a separate entrance at the back.

Although the event was referred to as a ball repeatedly to me by several people, I’d assumed that it was just something of a bad translation and that it was going to be more along the lines of the office xmas party.  The first thing I saw on entering the hall was a ballroom dancing exhibition accompanied by a live band- one of the pupils in his last year and his dancing partner, both suitably sequinned, going through a very intense showcase of various styles, the entirety of the hall seated and giving their entire attention to the display.  Glancing around to desperately find ‘my’ table – the tickets were assigned for specific tables – I then also realised that this ball wasn’t some casual disco, it was a formal event.  Full suits and dresses left right and centre, and I’d turned up wearing a paisley shirt and jeans; I’d essentially arrived at the attire-equivalent of a wedding dressed like James May.  I spotted my table and took a seat, the headteacher had picked my table out for me – it was the table with her two children, roughly the same age as me, and their friends.  They made me very welcome and I had a beer, but my self-awareness over my appearance was only getting worse.  When the dancing exhibition ended the band started playing some more disco-friendly music, and when I was asked to come dance with everyone I gestured that I was wrongly-dressed and made a quick exit back to my flat to get changed.    Dodged my first dancing bullet of the night.

I don’t have a suit here with me, so I did the best with what I have and donned a more formal shirt with a tie and trousers.  The actual ball wasn’t so bad once I’d gotten back, now that I new what I was in for, and there was another dance exhibition on so I was going to be able to avoid dancing myself for a while at least.  Getting onto the dancefloor seemed like an inevitability, though, so I worked my way to the bar and have a few drinks to stiffen my resolve.  It was at the bar that a man I didn’t know offered to buy me a shot.  He knew me by name, and I quickly realised he was the parent of one of my pupils.  I guess being the only non-Czech person working at the school makes me stick out a little, but regardless he was very glad I was there, and kept buying me shots.  Soon enough I was a lot more drunk than I’d prepared myself to be and was sat at the table again, making very crappy excuses not to dance like sudden rushes to the bathroom when I’d see people going around the tables getting people onto the dancefloor.  After a while this got tiring though, and booze leads to bravado, so I started using my broken Czech to try and talk my way out of it instead, saying little more than ‘maybe’ when people would ask me to dance and then ‘one more beer’ to buy myself some time.  I’ve got a history in these kinds of situations of either making a complete fool of myself or insulting a great number of people accidentally, but this didn’t happen at the ball, I just came off as a bit too drunk for my own good.

I also didn’t take my camera because of the formal nature of it.  I guess you could say I dropped the ball on that one.  Pun 100% intended.

Foothold

Well, it’s been five days since I got here now, and I’m a lot more comfortable with my Czech life (Czechscursion, if you will).  My last post was a little on the slim side, as I wanted to hold off on passing judgement until I’d had a little more of a chance to experience things here.  It’s still early days of course, and no doubt in the coming weeks I’ll learn a lot, but I think it’s time I shared a little more of what things have been like.

The View from my front door.  Can’t complain.

We had our first snow since my arrival on Friday, and it made the village just that little bit more picturesque.  Needing to get a few things and wanting to find out where the train station is, I decided to go on a little walk today, stopping in at the local shop on the way back.  It’s roughly -2c outside: not acutely cold but definitely the kind of weather that calls for thermals when you don’t have a heavy coat like me, so I stick my flannel shirt and beanie hat on, play my ‘winter music’ playlist on the ipod (which you can check out here if you’re interested), and head out for a little stroll to get a few pictures.

The village, as seen from the train station.  It’s pretty hilly around here.

Either the town hall or a church, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s bang in the centre, in the village square.

One of the two butcher’s shops here.

The change between urban and rural here is surprisingly quick – you wouldn’t think it by looking at these pictures, but this village is barely 10 miles outside of Prague.  I’d been told before arriving that the city/country line is an almost black and white change, rather than a gradual one, and I can vouch for that being true.  You can probably see from some of the pictures that there isn’t a terrible lot of investment around here, and whist that’s true, it’s not an intimidating or rough place.  It’s quite sleepy, and the people I’ve met have been nothing short of polite at any time.

My own performance with the locals, on the other hand, has been embarrassing, because my grasp of Czech is at best limited, at worst shameful.  The vigor with which I’d pursued learning Czech dropped off a bit with Christmas and New Year’s being the fun and games they always are.  When I’m in the school my Czech isn’t too much of a problem; many of the teachers speak English, and obviously the children are learning English so they try and talk English with me, but when I went to the store in the square for the first time I found myself in a situation where not only was my Czech grossly inadequate, but I had no idea what the name of anything was.   Rookie error.  I could figure out what a lot of things were through a little visual deducing – chicken noodles and beef noodles had their respective cartoon animals on the packet that gave it away, for example, but there was one thing I was struggling with: sugar.  With no reference book to look up the word for sugar, and not having the vocabulary to ask someone what is was called in Czech or where it was, I was basically stumped.  There were a lot of sugar-looking items on the shelves, but how do you tell the difference between a bag of sugar and a bag or flour or salt when you have no verbal reference?

The other item I struggled with was milk, albeit for a very different reason.  For whatever reason, Czech people don’t care for milk that much.  In the UK, where buying a big bottle of milk would be a necessity in your weekly shop, not having any milk in a store’s fridge would be anathema, but here in the Czech Republic people simply don’t drink milk.  They don’t care for it that much, it’s only really used in cooking, and as such can be hard to find, made doubly difficult because I had no idea how to say ‘where is the milk?’. I find some in the end, but only after 3 shopping excursions, and I found some sugar after coming across a very handy grocery reference page on an expat website.

Milk and sugar: the sweet, dairy-based bane of my shopping trips.

This morning a young boy and his dad knocked at my door.  I live on school premises, and from what I gathered the boy had left something at the school yesterday, and they wanted to know if I could open the school for them to go see.  Neither of them spoke English, but we struggled through it, and this little encounter really helped boost my confidence in saying things in Czech, because I had no choice but to use what vocabulary I had.  I need things like this to happen now and then; sometimes you’ve got to have the crutches kicked out from underneath you.  Even though I was just using basic things like yes, no, I’m sorry I don’t understand, it renewed my confidence after the failed shopping trips, and gave me a little more motivation to keep trying to learn.  The people here don’t expect me to learn Czech because most people will want to try and practice their English with me, but I don’t think I could live here for 5 months without trying, that just seems arrogant to me.

This post seems to have gotten a lot wordier than I’d expected, so rather than write a novel for you to work through I’ll end it here and pick it up in a few days.  My next post will be about my job at the school and what it’s like; it’ll probably be better to leave it a few days actually because tomorrow is the school’s open day and I have a feeling that will end up producing a story or two.

Take care!

Kev

Changes

Had the first ‘no turning back’ moment of this adventure-to-be on Friday as I booked my flight to Prague.  One of the nice things about flying and working within the EU is that I don’t need to worry about visa restrictions and regulations, and as such I can get away with booking a one-way flight for now and deciding on my return flight whilst in the Czech Republic.  I’m going to start looking towards things to take with me now; I’ve realised that most of my travel clothes wouldn’t be particularly suitable for working in a school, so getting a few new shirts and jumpers may be on the cards in the next few weeks.  And batteries, if this blog is going to have some visual content I’m going to have to finally get around to buying some new batteries for my camera.

This excursion is going to be my first real adventure into Europe alone as an adult.  I’ve been to a handful of European countries as a kid with my parents, and I’ve ended up in European airports when travelling to and from North America, but this is going to be the first time I really visit Europe in quite a long time.  It annoys me that it’s been so long, but at least I’m changing this now rather than staying in the UK and putting it off.  With every trip there are big differences to get accustomed to, but for this job they’re going to be more notable than my other recent trips have been.

Obviously, staying within the EU means there’s a marked difference in the amount of hassle I’m due to receive when entering the country/crossing borders.  If you’ve ever entered the United States with a document with more clout than a tourist visa, you’ll know that it’s at best a slow, nervy process, where you’re questioned in quite specific detail as to where you’re going, what you’re going to do when you get there, what you’ve been up to, what you’re going to do when you go home again, etc.  That said, though American border guards are thorough they’re also pretty sensible, and you won’t get hassled without due reason, whereas on more than one occasion when I’ve gone to Canada the border guards have been pretty stand-offish.  European airports and borders are dramatically different to this because I’m European; 9 out of 10 times when I’m in at a European ‘border’ at an airport I’ll be waved through pretty quickly.  It’s very strange for me to be this close to going away and not be worrying over whether my visa is right, or that I have all the right documents for my arrival, or rehearsing that interview at the border I’m going to have to go through when I get there.  Where I’m used to having my tickets, passport, insurance, and 15 pages of supporting documents, this time around I’ll have my tickets and passport, and that’s it.  Nothing more required.  I guess things genuinely are a lot more laid-back in Europe.

Laid back is a recurring theme throughout much of this.  On the subject of documentation again, when I asked whether I’d need to get a criminal background check or anything similar to that for the position, they told me not to worry about it.  After some questions at my old uni, the consensus seems to be that Czech people have avoided red tape and stuck with common sense instead, taking my uni’s recommendation as a sign of my integrity and saving both me and themselves a good chunk of time.  The consensus seems to be that life on the opposite side of the EU tends to be a lot less focused on the ‘health and safety’ bureaucracy of hi-vis vests and hard hats for seemingly every other activity or job these days.  I’m not going to get into whether people are wrapped in cotton wool in the UK or if Czech rules and regulations are wreckless, both approaches have their pros and cons, but going from a western European culture to a central European one is going to take some acclimatisation.

Preconceptions

I’ve never been to central Europe before.  I’ve been to eastern countries in Europe like Cyprus and Turkey, but I’ve never been to those countries in the middle that are further north, and I admittedly don’t know all that much about them.  Most of what I know about these places come from preconceptions; the Germans have an infamously bad sense of humour, everyone in Spain has a nap in the middle of the day, and the driving in Russia is only for the brave.  It’s said that this kinds of national stereotyping is often based on some semblance of truth, but obviously a sweeping generalisation is never going to be particularly accurate.  I thought it’d be interesting to share my own preconceptions of what the Czech Republic is like and do a little research to see whether they hold true or are completely wrong.

Preconception 1: Czech people like a drink

One of the things I regularly heard about the Czech Republic when I was a student is that the country is the home of the scariest of spirits: absinth, and a lot of great beers, such as the original Budweiser.

Though not as well known for its brewing tradition in the same way neighbouring Germany is, drinks are typically one of the first things that spring to mind when you think of the Czech Republic, and when a country is known for tipple it’s a fair bet that the natives are pretty fond of the stuff themselves.

Preconception:  True!

Though absinth is a speciality drink that tends to be more of a novelty than a regular, the Czech Republic is officially the most beer-drinkingest nation in the world, consuming almost double the amount of beer per-person than the United States.  Beer (‘Pivo’ in Czech) is an integral part of Czech culture, and appears regularly in foods and soups.  The country is the home of the world’s first Pilsner ‘Pilsner Urquell’, and though it can’t boast as having many breweries as say Germany or Belgium, Czech beer is popular across Europe; I can usually find a few different Czech beers when I go to the nearest supermarket.  Though obviously I’m presuming at this point, I can imagine beer, trying new beers in particular, to be a regular element to this blog.

Preconception 2: The Bohemian Lifestyle

Vincent Van Gogh!  Jack Kerouac!  Django Reinhardt!  Ernest Hemingway!  The Bohemian lifestyle is something that conjures vivid images of creative types living very unorthodox (and often impoverished) lives.  Essentially take the English eccentric and make them much more artistic, expressive, and generally cooler, and you’re on your way to imagining the traditional definition of a person living a bohemian life.  It’s a term that’s lost some of its gravitas in recent years as fashion circles have taken to using it to mean ‘dressed a little weirdly’ but to most a Bohemian lifestyle is one wrapped up in the creative arts.  The old-fashioned English name for the region that is the modern Czech Republic was Bohemia, and a lot of famous Bohemian types, such as Hemingway and Van Gogh, were known to be very fond of Absinth, so the Bohemian lifestyle must surely originate from, well, Bohemia.

Preconception: Wrong!

The association with the word ‘Bohemian’ and an unorthodox lifestyle comes from gypsies in France in the 19th century, who were believed to have come to France from Bohemia.  Modern consensus is that Czech people have very little in common with ‘western’ Bohemianism; Czech people are generally considered quite quiet and polite, with a formidable reputation for being the home of the ‘socks with sandals’ look.  Any big city is going to have its artistic and alternative communities, Prague being no exception, but to imagine the entire country to share in this kind of creative flair.  It’d be hard to get the trains to run on time if everyone was busy smoking and painting, for a start.

Preconception 3: The cost of living

So in my first preconception I mentioned that the big reason me and my friends wanted to go to Prague when I was in college was that it was the home of a lot of really great drinks.  I lied.  Well kind of.  The real reason we wanted to visit was because Prague was known as the place you could buy a pint of beer for 30p and do a full weekend there – flights, accommodation, and spends, for under £200.  When you’re a poor student that’s incredibly appealing, and in truth it’s still very appealing now, though these days I’m fuelled less by tipple and more by adventure.  If a pint of beer is 30p, roughly a tenth of what you might expect in many UK pubs, then surely the cost of everything else will also be impressively low.

Preconception:  True!

A quick search instantly confirms this one.  Though the cost of living in the Czech Republic has risen considerably in the last 10 years, it’s still generally a great deal cheaper than most places in the EU, and the cost of staying in a hostel is impressively cheap.  Being the capital, Prague is the most expensive place to live in the country, but the old ‘beer is very cheap’ adage still holds up, in fact the cost of a beer is often cheaper than a bottle of water.

The thing with all of these preconceptions, though, is even though I’ve gone into them in a little more detail here and denounced one of them, I’m still making preconceptions, I’ve just used google to back me up a bit.  No matter how much I write about it on here the only way I can really account for these preconceptions is to get out there into the country and see it for myself first-hand.