Staré Město, Christmas Markets and adventures in night vision: Prague Part I

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Quick life update

Apologies for the lack of entries since the summer. It was an executive decision on my part to attempt to power through this semester without traveling/exploring/blogging in order to a) save money and b) continue to survive the course.

Quick course update

As per the English schedule, lectures and clinic for Semester 1 are finished, but we have 2 exams, 3 essays and 1 case study due in January. Next semester is structured differently: the first 6 weeks we have very few lectures (only one module meets on a weekly basis) but we are each doing intensive therapy for one person for those 6 weeks as part of an off-campus placement. I've been assigned to a local SLT service for adults, and although they haven't decided who will be assigned to me, they told me it's likely I'll be working with someone with aphasia.

Which I am massively excited about. Adults with speech/language difficulties due to stroke are - at this point - pretty much tied with adults with developmental disabilities ("learning disabilities" as the British say) for populations I would most enjoy working with.

Anyway...



Last year, I talked about how much bigger the Christmas season is in the UK - starting the day after Halloween (some places, earlier), markets appearing in every city and town...etc. The European Continent is no different; the German Christmas Markets are especially famous.

If you Google "best Christmas markets in Europe," Prague (in the Czech Republic) appears on one or two Top Ten lists. Since, the city has a reputation for being beautiful and amazing year-round, I decided to stop for a few days before coming home for the holiday.

I left on Sunday morning. A guy at a cafe in the Newcastle Airport asked me if I wanted black pudding with my vegetarian breakfast - here's why that's funny.

I stayed in a hostel called St. Christopher's at the Mosaic Hotel. It's very nice - very clean, and the layout of the dorm rooms makes it feel a lot more private than it really is. My only issue was that there's no kitchen; most hostels have a communal kitchen area that everyone uses, because they are used to backpackers who cart around bags of pasta and dried fruit. But St. Christopher's is a hostel that just happens to be in the basement of a hotel, so it doesn't have as many backpacker-type facilities. Other than that, very nice.

In Europe at this time of year, the sun sets just before 4pm, so it was dark by the time I had finished checking in.



Not that that was a problem. On top of the hill is Pražský hrad (Prague castle) and Katedrála svatého Víta (St. Vitus's Cathedral), looking from Staré Město (Old Town) on the other side of the river.



Standing on Karlův most (Charles Bridge), the most famous bridge in Prague. It's lined with statues of saints and connects a really-touristy square on one side of the river to a really-touristy square on the other side.



Crossing the square by Karlův most on Staré Město side, I heard this strange sort-of-but-not-really-Celtic music, and followed the crowd of tourists to find this. I'd never heard traditional Czech music before (I'm assuming that's what this was), and I kind of liked it. The bagpipe-that-isn't-a-bagpipe was especially fun to hear.

The next day I wandered Staré Město some more. This section of Prague is full of narrow, winding streets lined with colorful and ornately-decorated buildings (and, of course, cheesy and/or expensive souvenir shops - I spent a lot of time staring at the glass art in the windows). Every corner you turn, some building or church has a beautiful carving - usually with a religious motif.









The heart of Staré Město is Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square), a public marketplace dating back to the 12th century. On one corner is Staroměstská radnice (Old Town Hall):



...complete with its famous astronomical clock. Not only does it give the time (which is, funny enough, difficult to read on this clock), but also the date, season, zodiac signs of the sun and moon, some Latin date system I don't understand, and apparently the Christian holidays. The zodiac symbols can also be seen on the lower painting.

On every hour, it turned into something of a Disney attraction just before the bell tolled. By that I mean the skeleton (meant to represent death) rang a small bell, and the men would move - one shaking his head, one counting his money, one looking at himself in the mirror - while the twelve apostoles appeared in the two windows just above the clock.

It was kind of ridiculous. Yet tourists gathered in front of the clock starting about about 15 minutes to the hour, and I admit that on one occasion, I was one of them.



On the other side of the square, more traditional musicians. I took a video, but the website I use to host photos has been having trouble with video these past couple days, so I can't post it.



The Christmas market in Staroměstské náměstí was beautiful.





In the evenings, school groups performed songs, dances, plays and one adorable series of recorder recitals. There were traditional dances, and a few...less traditional dances. (The dance to "Gangnam Style" was received with a lot of laughter in the crowd.)



The main market from the top of the clock tower.

On Sunday night, the main market was - as my coursemates would say - "rammed," but it was much less crowded in the mornings and on the weeknights. Aside from the obvious number of people speaking Czech, there were a lot of people with British acccents, quite a few Americans, people speaking French, German and other languages I couldn't place, and a large number of University-student-age people from Asia.

It was interesting to hear so much English spoken everywhere. It's really a "meet-in-the-middle-language." People who speak different languages tend to speak it to each other even when neither is native to English. Which makes sense, since so many people learn it as a second language, but watching Asian students and Czech vendors communicate to each other in English made me feel like I was getting off easily.

I tried learning a few Czech phrases, such as "kolik to stoji?" (ko-leek toe stoy-yee), meaning "how much is it?" But questions were pointless, because vendors would respond in Czech, and I would have to admit I had no clue what they were saying. Once I tried asking "kolik to stoji?" with pen and paper at the ready - look how prepared I am! - and the woman at the kiosk just looked at me like "what are you doing?" and said "50 crowns."

So I gave up.



Unlike in Manchester - where the markets were pretty much all connected - the Christmas markets in Prague were scattered around, most of them around Staré Město. This one was in a long boulevard called Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square).



I tried bracing the camera on the tables in the middle, to capture the stands and the buildings with blurry-looking people walking by. It didn't exactly go as planned.



Especially this one, which is funny and terrifying at the same time. I kind of love it.



These were very similar to cinnamon rolls, only in a barrel shape and without frosting. They were really good.

Traditional Czech food is mainly meat, specifically pork, fish and steak, but because Prague is such a tourist hub, it's in the best interests of every restaurant and vendor to have at least one veggie dish. Pasta and risotto dishes were usually the options; often places served breaded and fried cheese, which was basically like a large, square mozzarella stick with tartar sauce.

Everywhere I went, I tried not to be presumptuous and assume that everyone spoke English (which, in Prague, is actually true). So I used all my new SLT-trained nonverbal communication skills, pointing and gesturing and smiling and all that. But sometimes I got a little overzealous with that, and I think some people just assumed I didn't speak English. Oh well.

Tomorrow, Jewish Museum, Pražský hrad, a few ornately-beautiful churches, and a series of airport-related horror stories (aka why I will more carefully consider the Christmas presents I bring to the US, and will never bring my sonic screwdriver in my carry-on ever again).

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