PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC – Soft Lockdown Week Two
What do you do when every restaurant, cafe, bar, cinema, museum, gym, pool and indoor rockclimbing wall is closed?
You go for a walk.
And that’s what I did Sunday.
Let me give you a two-minute tour (It was a cold, short walk.)
Classy Prague
If you’re new to Vitamin V, Prague is where I got my start as a teacher. I lived here from 2004 to 2018. Then I went home to the US for 23 months. And now I’m back.
Every week I’m in a new apartment. Because there are no tourists, short-term rentals are incredibly cheap.
Maybe I’ll get a real apartment later, but right now, after months of barely leaving the house during the covid scare, I’m enjoying the moving.
My first apartment was in a building from the 16th century.
My current flat is inside a building called Lucerna.
Have you ever heard of Vaclav Havel?
Havel was born into a rich family. Then the communists took everything from the family. He wrote plays and became famous. He said bad things about the communists. The commies put him in prison. Then he became President and got to hang out with cool people like Frank Zappa and Mic Jagger.
A good story with a happy ending.
Anyway, the Lucerna building was built by Havel’s grandfather.
It’s got a lot of style.
Here’s the elevator I take to get downstairs.
It’s called a paternoster. I’ve only seen them in Prague. If these existed in the US there would be a line of lawyers waiting for someone to get injured.
Here’s the entrance to my favorite cinema in the lobby.
In the old days, they didn’t know what to call the new technology of film. So they chose the word “kino” which is short for “kinesthetic”, the Greek word for motion.
My favorite statue just across from the cinema…
Here’s the original just a few minutes away.
And finally, a short walk up the street from Lucerna, perhaps the most historical building in all of Prague…
Why is it so historical?
Because that’s where Prague Language Centre (PLC for short) used to be located.
And that’s where I first worked as a teacher.
One day, there may be a Netflix documentary series you can watch, or a 10 volume history you can read, or perhaps at least just a small sign…
But until that day, I’d like to tell you some stories from those days.
A new teacher in a new country.
Teaching English for the first time.
What did I learn?
What can you learn?
Could be interesting…
That’s tomorrow.