Wake Up, Prague!

I’m not a superstitious person by any means, but I must say that this morning my walk to work made me a bit flustered and gave me a little worry about the day ahead. As I made my way down Mezibranska street, a lively artery in the Prague vehicular traffic pattern, the air quality around 9am was simply very bad and the cars were quite aggressive. Prague, as pictures indicate, is an amazingly beautiful city, BUT the air quality leaves MUCH to be desired. And, that is an unfortunate thing. Evidence of this is all around, from the blackened statues of the saints on Charles Bridge to the dirty, soiled buildings. One last grumbling: if the vehicular traffic doesn’t get you, the second hand smoke surely will. But what really got me this morning was a honk. I don’t think it was even intended for me; I simply was an unfortunate bystander. For a moment I thought I was in Manhattan or DC. Honking is uncivilized in my book; it is simply rude and very obnoxious.

My hatred of tooting the horn goes back a ways. I still remember walking through our garage and to our car one spring morning in high school when my dad honked the horn in my face just as I was maybe a foot or two in front of the car (literally). Okay, I was late, which was my and my sister Karen’s common practice. We ALWAYS pushed it to the limit in how long we could sleep, and I’m sorry to say we gave little thought to our dad’s need to be in school in time for his homeroom and simply to prepare for the school day. But, I still don’t think he had to toot the horn in my tender ears at 7am. I’m happy to say I’m out of high school and although my dad likes to drive me around oftentimes, I have not been the recipient of any further honks at home.

So, this wasn’t such a nice way to begin on Monday. However, despite these early morning unpleasantries, I have to say it has been a good day. We have a few visitors in from the field who treated us to Bosnian Turkish delight and Kyrgyz nuts, dried apricots, and figs. You might see it’s usually the little things that both frustrate and delight.