Instruction in both Czech & German to drive on the right!
I started this blog more than two years ago, mainly to keep my friends and family back in the UK and elsewhere, up-to-date about my life, work and activities in the Czech Republic since moving here in September 2008 when I took up my new appointment as Chaplain of the English-speaking Anglican congregation in Prague.
I wrote about the original motivation behind my blog in a February 2010 piece entitled ‘Happy first birthday to my blog’. There I explained that I now know that many of my Prague congregation also read this blog and how I always have to be careful about whom or what I write! But what I never really expected is how much more widely this blog would be read. But using the tools provided by Google analytics, I’ve discovered that in recent months, my blog receives on average, more than fifty visitors a day.
One of the most frequent subjects that brings people here are those looking via search engines, for an explanation as to why two thirds of the world drives in left-hand drive (LHD) vehicles on the ‘right’, (as in the opposite of ‘left’) side of the road, whilst one third of the world drives in right-hand drive (RHD) vehicles on the ‘left’ (as in the opposite of ‘right’) side of the road. My two posts from June 2009 entitled ‘Driving on the ‘right’ side of the road’ and ‘Check this Czech car out’ both rank highly in Google and other search engines for enquiries of this nature.
As I wrote back in June 2009, the whole of Czechoslovakia drove on the left in RHD vehicles until the change to driving on the right was imposed overnight by Hitler, following his invasion of the country in March 1939. This is the reason why most of the vintage cars that now offer visiting tourists, guided tours around the historic sights of central Prague, are RHD. They all date from the pre-1939 era.
It has been a privilege in the past few weeks to have Johanna, a young lady from Finland, worshipping with us at St. Clements. She has come to Prague to undertake a creative writing course, in particular researching written accounts of the Czech experience of World War Two. As part of her research at the Prague Military Archive, Johanna uncovered two photographs that illustrate the change in driving practice imposed by Hitler. Knowing my interest in this subject, she kindly forwarded them to me.
In view of the wider interest in this topic, I’m posting them here as they are a fascinating record of how this change was imposed by the Nazi authorities in 1939.
Instruction in both German and Czech to drive on the right!
Not all exterior art and sculpture on Prague buildings, as illustrated in my previous post about Prague architecture, is Greco-Roman in style and only featuring semi-naked figures. It is also possible to find many examples of religious art, usually featuring the Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, often accompanied by angels. However, the picture on the left shows an artistic relief on the outside of a building which had both Sybille and I mystified for some time as to what it was illustrating.
This relief is on the corner of a building in the heart of Prague which thousands of tourists, as well as city residents, walk past every day. It is in Na Mustku, a street that leads into the bottom of Václavské námestí / Wenceslas Square and adjacent to the major Metro station called Mustek. I think it was about the third time that we stopped and looked up at it that the penny finally dropped – it is an illustration of the Jewish High Priest Samuel, anointing David as King of Israel in succession to Saul.
The Biblical story of how Samuel came to anoint David as the future King of Israel, is to be found in the First Book of Samuel, chapter 16. God tells Samuel that he is sending him to Bethlehem and that he will indicate to him when he gets there, which one of the sons of a man called Jesse, is to be the next king.
Within the story is one of my favourite verses of scripture. Seven sons of Jesse are lined up to pass before Samuel. The eldest son called Eliab, is tall, strong and good-looking and Samuel thinks to himself, ‘Surely this is the one God has chosen’.
‘But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things human beings look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”’ 1 Samuel 16. v7, TNIV
The story continues with the other six sons passing before Samuel but with God indicating to him that none of them either, is the one he has chosen to be King. It is only when David, the youngest son of Jesse, is summoned from the fields where he has been tending the sheep, that God clearly points out that here is the future King and Samuel duly anoints him. Whilst I like the artwork illustrated here, I have to say that the artist has made David look little more than a toddler rather than a young man who can tend his father’s sheep!
It is so easy to make judgments about people purely based upon the way they look. Politicians are forever concerned about having the right image otherwise they fear they won’t get elected. In recent years, there has arisen a group of people who style themselves as ‘Image Consultants’, who will help you look and dress in a manner that they assure you will project the ‘right image’, whatever the ‘right image’ is meant to be. Of course, they will also charge you a substantial fee for doing so!
Sadly, many of us do concentrate purely on someone’s outward appearance, the way they appear, rather than finding out who they are and what motivates them. And much as I try to avoid making instant judgments about people based on the way they dress and look, I know that from time to time, I still do so.
Last summer, a lady walked into our Sunday Eucharist a little after the service had begun. Whilst I know that trying to judge a woman’s age is a dangerous occupation, I thought that she was probably somewhere in her fifties. But along with a fairly conservative blouse, she was wearing suede ankle boots, together with a rather short denim skirt. I have to admit that I immediately assumed her to be a visiting tourist who had stumbled upon an open Church and who would disappear again after five to ten minutes. Because we worship in a city centre Church, we do often get people who wander in at the back during services, because the doors are unlocked, and wander out again a few minutes later.
But this lady didn’t disappear – she stayed for the whole service and came forward and received Communion. And afterwards, she joined us for Coffee Hour in the hall on the third floor of Klimentská 18 across the road from the Church. And so it was that I spoke with her over coffee, asking who she was, where came from, and how had she found us.
The reply was delivered in a fairly broad antipodean accent. She was Dawn, from Ballarat, Victoria in Australia. She was touring Europe but was a regular Churchgoer and therefore had put ‘English-speaking Church, Prague’ into Google on Saturday evening, in order to find Christian worship to attend the following day. She told me how much she had enjoyed the service and her only complaint was that our Church website didn’t explain how to get to the Church by public transport. So, courtesy of Dawn, we have now inserted a link to the Prague Public Transport website as part of our ‘How to find us’ instructions, in order to address the issue that she raised.
Dawn also told me that she was going on to visit Turkey, in order to ‘follow in the footsteps of St. Paul’. And before I could say anything, she acknowledged that she knew full well that she would need to dress differently when travelling in rural Turkey. But today was a warm sunny summer’s day in Prague!
I felt duly rebuked after my conversation with Dawn. I had initially, completely misjudged her, purely based on her appearance. But God hadn’t done that – he saw and knew her motives. He did not look on her outward appearance, but instead, saw and understood the thoughts of her heart.
Dawn – if you should ever read this post, I apologise – especially if I misjudged your age! But also, I ask your forgiveness for initially making a judgement based solely on your outward appearance. After all, why shouldn’t a lady in her fifties wear a denim miniskirt with suede ankle boots, if she has the confidence to do so, especially on a warm summer’s day? And as I’ve said previously many times, when speaking to people at the Church door who are busy apologising to me for what they are wearing when coming to Church, “The Lord doesn’t look on the outside, the Lord looks at the heart”.
In my first post of 2011, in which I wrote about ‘Why I like living in Prague’, I explained that one reason was the amazing architecture and buildings to be seen whenever walking around the city centre or inner suburbs of the city. I also promised to write a future blogpost to illustrate my point, so what follows is in part, to keep me true to my word. This subject is also inevitably better illustrated than written about. So, as many people who leave comments or write private emails to me say how much they like my photographs, this post will be more pictures than words.
The photograph on the left is of artwork on the exterior of Obecní Dum / Prague’s Municipal House. The building is national cultural landmark and ranks as one of the most significant Art Nouveau buildings in Prague.
But it isn’t just on a few famous or significant buildings that such wonderful decoration can be seen. The two pictures below are of two buildings virtually next door to each other in the Prague suburb of Bubenec – well off the tourist trail.
The two hotels pictured below are located in a more well-known part of Prague. They are situated side-by-side on Václavské námestí / Wenceslas Square and were both built in the late nineteenth / early twentieth century. As with so many other amazing buildings in Prague, since the fall of communism in 1989, they have been returned to their rightful owners and restored to their former glory. They also still function as the ‘Grand Hotel Europa’ and the ‘Meran Hotel’. I particularly like the intricate metalwork on the balconies of both buildings.
The other very noticeable feature of Prague architecture, is how many balconies and bay windows are held up and supported by carved figures, predominantly female ones. The photograph on the left, illustrates what I mean. However, it must be said that this example is relatively unusual. Why you may ask? Because both figures are fully clothed!
As you will observe when you scroll down, other female figures leave relatively little, if anything, to the imagination!
There are two further examples below which have suffered somewhat from the attention of the local pigeon population. If you look closely at the second picture below, you will see two pigeons sitting on the figure on the left.
Sometimes the figures are purely to beautify the building such as these two examples in contrasting artistic styles. But wherever you walk in the centre of Prague, there is always something of interest and beauty to see.
One thing that I have increasingly realized living in Prague, is that most Czech people do not expect non-Czechs to necessarily be able to speak their language – many of them recognize what a difficult language it is to learn! But what Czech people do expect is that foreigners should understand, respect and follow their cultural manners and practices.
I have previously written a post entitled ‘Eating and drinking in a Czech Bar-Restaurant’, explaining what to expect in contrast to the UK and elsewhere. In this post, I’m going to expand and illustrate a practice I mentioned briefly in that previous post – something that is quite commonplace in many bar-restaurants throughout the Czech Republic.
When your first drinks order has been delivered to your table, the person doing so will produce a slip of paper, mark it accordingly, and leave it on your table. If you have only ordered normal 0.5 litre glasses of beer, then a simple mark will be placed at the bottom of the slip, one for each beer that has been ordered. If you order small 0.3 litre glasses of beer, then a cross for each one will be put there instead.
If after the drinks have arrived, you then also order food, then the cost of each dish is recorded on the top part of the slip. The slip in this first photo shows that we ordered one main dish for 137 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc, together with a second main dish for 99 Kc with a side dish for 35 Kc. By the time I took this photo, I was on my second glass of beer. On this occasion, Sybille was drinking wine and was on her second glass, each of which cost 30 Kc.
At the end of the evening when you are ready to leave, saying “Zaplatim prosim” – “May I pay please”, will bring the waiter/waitress to the table to add up your tab. Below is ours from this occasion, duly totted up – the extra 45 Kc was a digestif slivovice. The total bill of 463 Kc translates to around £16.00, a reminder of how ridiculously cheap eating out can be here in the Prague suburbs. But don’t expect a printed receipt – this simple paper slip is all you’ll get!
This week, my blog is two years old. But having written two posts last month, about all the reasons why I like living here in Prague, balanced by one dealing with my small number of dislikes, my experience earlier this week has forced me to return to a subject that I thought I had overcome and dealt with.
Back in March 2009, I wrote a post entitled ‘Dealing with Czech bureaucracy’. In it, I described our battle to obtain residency permits from the Czech Foreign Police to prove where we live, together with what I referred to as a social security number – rodné císlo – family number, both of which are essential if you want to do anything more than eat and sleep in the Czech Republic.
In May 2009, I wrote about how we had finally managed to achieve this goal even though threatened with ‘A 21st Century defenestration of Prague’! In this second post, I did point out the absurdity of the wording on the stamp put into both our passports. We have been granted Povolení k prechodnému pobytu v CR – Temporary residence in the Czech Republic. But it is neomezený – unlimited or forever. Of course it has to be unlimited because we are both EU citizens and can stay here until we die, should we choose to do so.
As I wrote then, I took this granting of ‘unlimited temporary residence’ as being part of the ongoing Czech mentality that believes that no one would ever want to actually live here permanently. Earlier this week when eating in U Topolu, we shared a table with a young Czech couple because there was no where else where we could sit. Latterly, the young lady spoke and asked where we were from. I did the usual explanation saying that I’m English, my wife is German but that we live and work here in Prague. In return, I received an expression of shock and amazement as to why on earth we should ever want to do so!
Armed with this stamp in my passport, together with my little green folded paper Potvrzení o prechodném pobytu na území – Proof of temporary residence, inside of which is my full name, date and place of birth and, most importantly, my registered address, I have been able to register my car. Also, aided by Bishop Dušan of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, a notarized copy of these documents has enabled me to be registered with the Ministry of Culture, as the person who can officially sign on behalf of my congregation. Whenever there has been a request for ID, just producing my passport and residency permit has satisfied the enquirer. That was until Monday this week.
Sybille has been on for quite some time that she would like to once more have a dog. She grew up with dogs and always had her own until her last one died, just before she went to live in Spain in 1999. Over the past two years, we have regularly walked past the stray dog and re-homing centre run by the city police, located on the other side of the Vltava River from where we live.
Recently, Sybille has been researching the website of the re-homing centre, aided by Google translate, to discover what is involved in adopting an unclaimed stray dog and giving it a new home. One thing was quite clear; you must produce ID to prove who you are and where you live. So last Monday on my day off, armed with Sybille’s German passport and Czech Residency document, we went off to the shelter for an exploratory visit.
Upon arrival, we did are usual explanation of having very little Czech but of being able to speak English, German, Spanish or French. We managed to communicate what we wanted and, upon being asked for ID, produced Sybille’s passport and residency document. The reaction was immediate. No – you can’t adopt a dog from the shelter – you only have temporary residence. Despite pointing out that it was unlimited and that we were EU citizens, the lady and her colleagues remained totally adamant. We had to have permanent, not temporary residence.
Despite being illegal under European law, the whole situation is also utterly absurd. I know of several non-EU citizens in my congregation who have been granted ‘Permanent residency,’ but for a set number of years, which is also a contradiction in terms! And the Foreign Police are not even consistent in their dealing with EU citizens. A fellow British blogger and her husband, who have recently moved to Prague and work together for the same firm, have also been to the Foreign Police to register. The husband was granted ‘Permanent residence’ – the blogging wife has been granted like us, ‘Temporary unlimited residence’.
I and several others have described this whole situation as Kafka-esque. I’ve recently bought myself a copy of ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka, to read and see if I can get my head around this utterly absurd mentality that I am experiencing. And rest assured, I am not going to stop until I have asserted my rights to be treated in exactly the same way as a Czech citizen, even if I leave a few strangled Czech bureaucrats along the way. Watch this space!
