Prague Journal

Friday, July 8, 2005.

Today is unseasonably rainy and cold, not a good day for walking around town. I went to the cafe at the Municipal House to meet Peg, a Florida professor of Communication and Public Relations who will be spending part of next year here as a Fulbrighter. She and her aunt Carol are taking a week to see Prague and Peg is using this visit to line up housing for herself for next year, and get a head-start on preparing for her year by meeting with her university hosts and with Hana at the Fulbright Commission.
Our good friends from Denver, Steve and Kyle, are here this week with Kyle’s sister Janice and her husband Andy who live in Florida (and are not used to cold, rainy weather). Our plan was to meet at the Spanish Synagogue for services at 7pm and afterward go to dinner in the dining room at the Jewish Town Hall. Services were nice – a moderate sized, but quiet and diverse crowd – with Petr presiding. The service ended at 8pm and Steve had been told that dinner at the Jewish Town Hall would not be served until 9:30pm, so we went to the Svejk Restaurant for drinks before dinner. We had planned to go to Kolkovna, just across the street from the Spanish Synagogue, since it is one of the restaurants that is known for its Pilsner Urquell tap, but the place was very crowded (perhaps an indication of its popularity) and quite noisy. Shortly after 9:00, we walked to the Jewish Town Hall to see when dinner would start – the orthodox services start at sundown, which is late at this time of year – and were told that the tables were just being set up. I had neglected to get a dinner ticket for myself and foolishly we mentioned that there would be five of us instead of the four that were reserved under Steve’s name. The security guard at the door, who was quite polite and pleasant, informed us that I would probably not be allowed to eat, since no money could be exchanged on the Sabbath. The officious guard inside the town hall, however, decided that I should not even be allowed to enter. Despite the security guard and Steve’s appeals to compromise – giving money to the non-Jewish guard, assuring them that I would forego the dinner if we could all go inside—the man was steadfast. Steve was outraged, so we all left to find dinner elsewhere. Fortunately, we had a very elegant dinner a few blocks away at Ristorante Amici Miei, a much quieter and upscale venue with Italian food, which was more to the taste of these travelers. We had a lively conversation, mostly about business in the Czech Republic, since Andy has recently retired from a career in broadcasting and is looking for somewhere to invest his time and money. Andy and Janice are leaving for a cruise around the Italian and Croatian coasts in the morning, so they will not be able to meet Rick or Howard who return from their cruise tomorrow. I wish we could have had more time together – I barely caught the last (midnight) metro train home.

posted by JWinn @ 11:58 PM