I realised today that maybe you don't really get to know a new place that you inhabit until one of your friends from your old territory comes to visit. I met up with some friends at lunchtime, who are in Prague for just a couple of days and the first thing that they encountered was a general 'clueless-ness' from Czech cafes about skimmed or semi-skimmed milk. I suppose it hadn't occurred to me to ask about it before because I so rarely go for a coffee that when I do, it's like a special 'treat' so I go the whole hog and get a coffee with cream, as if I were on holiday.
I must admit, I've never seen skimmed milk even in the supermarkets, but semi-skimmed is readily available, where whole milk is less so in my little Tesco. Mind you, lots of foreigners shop in that one, so they have to cater to their tastes a little bit. But it's funny how these little things suddenly say so much about the culture. Where in Prague can you buy coffee and retain the choice of skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole milk? The American coffee chains, of course.
Ah, America, land of the fee. If you can pay for it, you can have anything. The immense freedom of such vast choice seems so enticing. But the price tag will stand in your way some of the time, and it's that kind of poverty, either of the lowest classes or of a Communist background, that restricts you to the point of altering your own identity. I perhaps feel more at ease with Czech culture because I'm not from a comfortable, middle class background, so I'm used to things like people 'tutting' if you seem to be developing delusions of grandeur. Such as expecting to have a choice of three different types of milk as well as the choice of coffee or tea. Hell, these days, the choice of flavours of coffee and varieties of tea are necessary options to provide people, but something my Nan would have a field day complaining about having missed out on.
Back in my Nan's day, people were "ever so grateful" for a cup of horrid instant coffee with coffeemate instead of milk at a church coffee morning. They would fall over themselves if you offered them a rich tea biscuit as well. (Quite frankly, I think they might have achieved a higher number of converts to Christianity if they'd served Irish coffees and chocolate biscuits, but they didn't go in for bribery then. At least, not with adults. Sunday school was quite another matter. Kids are still young enough to be 'conditioned'...)
Somehow, years of Communism has meant many Czechs have never quite shaken off the attitude of having to put up with very little choice and that you shouldn't make too much fuss about that. But worse still, is the issue of anything that is ,zadarma', as most Czechs would inaccurately translate it, "for free". Whatever you do, don't get Czechs together in a room and tell them something is free. Even if it's something virtually worthless, almost every single one of them will take it, just because there's no charge. (Note that the president, Václav Klaus demonstrated this instinct perfectly, when he decided to take a PEN that had been provided at a conference. It's just a pen, for god's sake!)
Nonetheless, despite the lack of choice with milk (and a whole host of other things here that you'll only notice once you've lived here a while) my friends were still wooed by the architecture. As everyone is. That row of buildings, known as 'Prague Castle' were the only things keeping me going on very early, very cold mornings when I first got here and had to travel by tram across the river to my meetings at a particular institution. I would look at those buildings and inwardly tell myself, that that's what being in Prague is all about. I may have been travelling around like the waged poor who clean government buildings for a living, but there was that beautiful array, just across the river on the hill, staring back at me. And it thankfully never went away. It was my equivalent of the Chrysler building for New Yorkers. (Prague could not be more different of course. But that would require a whole other blog post to cover.)
Suffice it to say, my friends were pleased to have had a chance to see me and see the cafe I recommended, and they left saying they'd definitely want to come back another time. They liked the fact that so many well-known places are within walking distance and that there are so many interesting buildings. But one winning thing that grips the hearts of many a traveller from more expensive worlds, won out: the price of beer. Alas, I'm not much of a beer drinker, so it means nothing to me, but, hey, each to their own. As far as I'm concerned, I would be very happy living in a country where good quality red wine were easily affordable. But alas, Paris was too expensive to find a flat in, so I had to settle for the Paris of Central Europe instead. Heigh-ho.
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