Three random, unrelated thoughts about the Czech Republic:
- I was about to take a picture in a grocery store, where a very upset man interrupted his stocking of the shelves to run over to me, yelling urgently for me to stop in Czech. Strange, I thought. Are they worried I was photographing prices for the competition? I couldn’t think of another reason. Then I started seeing signs forbidding the taking of pictures, at places like a cathedral and a shopping mall. (Really, how many people take pictures in a mall except weird people like me?) At least three different tourist attractions charged a not-so-nominal fee if you wanted to take pictures inside the attraction. All of this makes me wonder: Do the Czech people have an aversion to pictures? If so, why are there so many camera stores in Prague? If there is an aversion, is it a holdover from the Communist era?
- I would like to get my hair trimmed. I am too scared to get anything other than a simple trim. Anything more stylish would be a waste anyhow because I usually air-dry my hair and then, at some point in the day when I can’t take it any longer, I end up pulling it back in the heat. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a haircut, so I didn’t get one in Spain. I thought Prague might be a good place to get a haircut, but after arriving, I quickly changed my mind. While there are some girls who look cute and stylish like many of the French and Spanish, there are many more with a decidedly 80s or 90s look. The hair in particular is not good. There are lots of mullets, both of the male and female variety. (Even more than Pittsburgh, if you can believe that). There are cuts that are not so much mullets as they are just large on top and flat everywhere else. There are feathers. And there are just too many haircuts featuring large, teased bangs for me to be able to entrust a random hairstylist to give me a simple trim. I think I’ll keep growing my hair for a while.
- Thank goodness there is English everywhere in Prague, or we would be lost. Czech is one of those languages with random consonants inserted in places where I would think there would be vowels. They also like to add the letter y onto the end of words we recognize, which makes the words cuter. Dezerty. Bus linky. Sean likes to pretend he can just add a y on the end of English words, but this does not work any better than his efforts to add an o or a to the end of words in Spain.
Too bad you didn’t pack your “Poison” or “Guns and Roses” T-shirts. You may have been able to trade one of them for picture taking time. I am serious about that!
As for a haircut- I’d advise against it if they are stuck in the 80’s. Although, the 80’s are “back in”, supposedly. Do they have Aquanet?
When you get home, you may be able to understand half of our hockey team, or at least you can say “deserty” and they’ll understand 🙂
The y at the end is for plural like the s in English. It is actually pronounced like i. The consonants are typical for all Slavic languages especially Polish and Czech. Also the vowels may not be as stressed and clear and may vary significantly from the Latin and Germanic languages. Then because of that some consonants sound different than what is written. Therefore there is hardly any difference when somebody Slavic says dog and doc (I try hard myself).