Prague Journal

Thursday, June 30, 2005.

Ari and Elana are off to the Jewish Quarter today; Bill and Peggy to the castle. I met Bill and Peggy at their hotel and took them to breakfast before escorting them to the castle grounds. Then I raced home in the rain to change clothes for the Fourth of July Reception at the American Ambassador’s residence.
Tomorrow is the start of a week-long holiday for Czechs, especially those who are connected with the American Embassy or the Fulbright Association, both of which celebrate both Czech and American holidays. So, in anticipation of everyone’s exodus, the American Embassy hosted their annual July 4th reception today. Now, if this were in the U.S., I would expect to see a crowd dressed in cut-off jeans and t-shirts surrounding grills containing hamburgers and hotdogs and several coolers of soda-pop and beer. Since this is not on U.S. turf, Czech, Canadian and U.S. military, politicians, and celebrities were invited, so it was all but a black-tie affair. Among the attendees were Robert Redford, Madeline Albright, and Vaclav Havel. (Redford, who is visiting the Czech Republic for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival next week, came at the invitation of his friend Madeleine Albright.) After a proper color-guard salute and singing of both the American and Czech national anthems by a high-school choir from Princeton, New Jersey, Ambassador William Cabiniss gave a very lovely tribute, followed by President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Jiři Paroubek. There was, as you would expect, more than enough food for the 500+ guests in attendance, and ample beer and wine and ice cream. The reception was scheduled for noon-2pm, but the high security to enter the Ambassador’s residence resulted in a very long line and a late start to the official festivities, so people lingered (at the gracious invitation of the Ambassador) until quite late in the afternoon.
I had time to change into less formal (and less damp) clothes before dinner, this time at Na Staré Faře, just down the street from our flat. Again, the dinner conversation was as if we were all old friends, even though Rick had only met Bill and Peggy the day before, and Ari and Elana were younger than Bill and Peggy’s children. This time most of the conversation was about their respective castle and Jewish Quarter tours. It’s always interesting for me to hear what others take from these Prague sights, and what aspects of the places and history make the most profound impression to people who have not been here before.
Since we had dinner so close to home, we had time to relax before we went to bed. Ari showed me how to connect my computer to Skype’s VoIP and we had a very nice conversation with his parents in Denver. We must have talked for over an hour. Perhaps it’s not a bad thing that we didn’t discover this earlier, or we would be on the “phone” every evening!

posted by JWinn @ 9:33 PM