Prague International Book Fair

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Today Nancy, Denitza, one of the CAT students from Bulgaria and I went to the Prague International Book Fair. Denitza was interested as her father is in the publishing business in Bulgaria. Nancy and I were simply interested in seeing the books and the library materials on display. Mirka had tickets and told us she would meet us at the ticket booth between 11:45 and 12:00 noon.

The book fair was held in a beautiful exhibition building that was built for the 1891 exhabition. I have not researched it, but I expect it was something like a worlds fair. The building sits on a large plot of land, beside a huge park. The park used to be the royal deer park. It doesn't seem very sporting to me to have deer confined in a park and then to "hunt" them. But the king and his friend have to have their pleasure, right?

Almost no American publishers were present. But there were books in just about every European language. And, there were tons of book on learning to speak or read English. We monolingual Americans are really fortunate that English has become the international language of our time.

There is a joke here that goes:

What do you call a person who speaks three languages. You call them trilingual.

What do you call a person who speaks two languages? You call them bilingual.

What do you call a person who speaks only one language? You call them an American.

Students have told me there are lots of American jokes, but that is the only one they will tell me.

After the book fair Nancy and I walked the length of the deer park, well almost the entire length. My guess is we walked almost two miles before leaving the park through an old gate in what looked like a former city wall. Just inside the gate we saw several beds of tulips and read that last fall the Netherlands gave Prague 10,000 tulip bulbs. We wondered why they selected this particular spot to plant them. When we left the park we found the Netherlands embassy sits just outside the park. From their front door they can see the tulips.

We were in a part of town we have never visited and had no really good idea of where we were. A gentle had just begun to fall, so we, after a bit of discussion, jumped on board the first bus that came along. Low-and-behold the next stop, the last stop the bus makes, was right beside a subway station and we knew exactly where we were. With rain falling and the day getting late we headed home.

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Just seeing those snails makes me wonder if they are not squandering a great resource. You could export them and make a fortune. I am enjoying your journal. Take care. Carol Lerian - Carol Lerian