Prague Journal

Wednesday, October 6, 2004.

This morning was focused on old projects, both for Rick and for me. We worked at home in the morning; I went out in the afternoon to sign us up for Czech classes at the Prague Center for Further Education. We had grand plans to study together on our own, but I know that will never happen. It’s difficult to study Czech when one spends most of the day working, writing, and editing in English.
The PCFE is just down the street from the Globe Bookstore and Café (a new location from seven years ago, so it was just by chance that I found it). The bookstore is small – lots of used novels in English and also new books in English and German – but the café – in a separate room in the back – is quite upscale. There are banks of computer terminals for free internet access. And a display case with tributes to Alan Levy, the editor of the Prague Post who had died earlier this spring. We knew Alan and are among those who miss him.
The PCFE is also close to the National Theater, so I went to the box office and picked up a schedule of performances. We’re at the end of the Prague Autumn series of operas and concerts, and it would be nice to go to something before the winter weather sets in.
The nice thing about having a broadband internet connection is that you can peruse news easily, including video feeds of the presidential and vice-presidential debates. We had been feeling a bit of isolation, with only the International Herald Tribune and the weekly Prague Post newspapers. English-language newspapers and magazines are quite expensive, ranging from $1-$4 per copy, and the selection in Prague is not as wide as we had seen in Athens. International editions of Newsweek and Time are $4, The Economist is $5.
The downside of having a broadband internet connection is that you find distracting things on the web. Such as:

10 Names Of Newborn Babies in January 2004
-- boys --
1. Jan 2. Jakub 3. Tomas 4. Martin 5. Ondrej 6. Lukas 7. Michal 8. Daniel 9. David 10. Filip
and
-- girls --
1.Tereza 2.Katerina 3.Eliska 4.Adela 5.Anna 6.Kristyna 7.Natalie8.Nikola 9.Lucie 10.Barbora
Where the hell did Peter go?
Ah, here:
Top Ten Most Frequent Names Of The Babies' Fathers
1. Peter 2. Jiri 3. Pavel 4. Martin 5. Jan 6. Tomas 7. Josef 8. Jaroslav 9. Michal 10. Zdenek

posted by JWinn @ 7:24 PM