Prague Journal

Monday, October 25, 2004.

What started out to be a quiet stay-at-home-and-work day turned out to be a delightful tour of Klado and Beroun, roughly 20 miles west and southwest of Prague, respectively, with John Carey, one of the founders of the Anglo American College in Prague, an organization I have been vicariously involved with since I left Prague six years ago. John is a young lawyer who has been in Prague now for 12 years. In the small-world category, John is a graduate of CU-Boulder; his brother's law degree is from DU. I wish I had thought to take my camera with me today, because the trees in the Czech countryside right now are almost as colorful as New England.
I met John at Brevnov, the oldest Abbey in Bohemia, second-oldest in the Czech Republic, founded by Benedictine friars 993, and returned to them in 1989. At one time, John had hoped to lease some of the unused buildings on the vast acreage for the Anglo American College, but the friars were not keen on the idea, preferring to keep most of the space unused and in disrepair. One building is used for their own classroom instruction, and the cloister itself is a functioning hotel. Brevnov is about midway between Bílá Hora (“White Mountain”) and Prague Castle. Bílá Hora is the site of the famous battle at in 1620 when the Czech Protestant forces were defeated by the Austrians, resulting in the suppression of non Catholics and the execution or exile of Protestants from the Czech lands. We drove from there toward Kladno, known mostly as the “Town of Coal and Steel,” but also for agriculture and, more recently, technology development. Kladno is surrounded by forests and parks, so our drive was picture-postcard lovely. We spent some time at a stable where John keeps his horse (one of John’s passions). Late in the afternoon, we drove through winding roads to the little-known Svaty Jan Pod Skalou (Saint John under the Cliff), which is arguably “one of the most picturesque villages in the Česky Kras natural protected area. The history of the village dates back to the end of the 9th century when, according to legend, the first Czech Christian hermit, Ivan, settled down in a cave under a large cliff.”
A letter in the mail today from my credit card company has convinced me that virtually all the employees there are idiots. I base this assertion on the fact that, having called and written e-mails to them several times, and having gotten e-mail “form letters” and non-answers on each occasion, the definitive answer (sent by mail signed by the “payment research specialist”) to my question of why I had been overcharged (and thereby overdrawn) on my last credit-card statement was that “the [automatic payment charged to my checking account] is calculated from your previous statement balance plus all the charges up to the withdraw of the auto payment,” which I obviously knew, but still don’t know why charges after the statement due-date were deducted before they were due.
The day’s triumph for Rick was learning how to properly order a beer in Czech. We still haven’t mastered the art of asking for another spoon (lžici) or fork (vidličku) when we order one dessert to share (the Czechs bring only as many utensils as dishes ordered, unlike the Greeks who bring as many utensils as people sitting at the table).

posted by JWinn @ 6:08 PM