Beyond popular Prague: A city of contradictions

According to the answer I gave to the German border control agent just shy of three am the previous night, the reason I was visiting Prague this weekend was “tourism.” Insert eye roll here. Being a tourist was exactly the opposite of what I was trying to be while in Europe for the semester. The term I preferred was “traveler,” and the minute I stepped out in the streets of Prague I knew I was more than a tourist here, and by the time we were 15 minutes into our walking tour around the city, I could tell that the capital of the Czech Republic would accept me as a curious traveler who wanted to absorb as much of the city’s complicated past as I could.

 

 

 

 

 

This curiosity was only strengthened earlier that morning, when I woke up in the bus, this time not to intimidating border control agents barking for my passport, but to tall, beautiful pines lining the road in the early morning light. It was at this exact moment that I realized how close I was to Poland, and my ancestral heritage that lay beyond since I had now reached Eastern Europe for the first time. I think this made Prague special for me, more so than I thought it would be (I had booked the trip on the pretense of cheap beer and a castle…both, in fact, turned out to be my least favorite parts of the trip).

 

 

 

 

The Czech Republic’s history is complicated and chaotic, but also widely unknown by many in the world, as they were used like a pawn throughout World War II, then suffered under Communist Rule before nationwide revolt. All this history makes you believe they are a resilient society. My experience of the city coupled with its history was only made more puzzling by the reception of the people. It was either extreme warmth or total contempt, there was no in-between. So while the country was traded back and forth by other nations, it’s people seemed to have remained black and white.

 

 

I was sure the Czechs were a kind, warm people, from our enthusiastic and hilarious tour guide, Givvy, to a thrift store owner who went so far out of her way to direct us to her newly-located shop, marking up a map for us and advising us what tram to catch to get there. But then came the ticket attendant at the castle who made my friend cry after refusing her student visa and making her pay the regular price. Not to mention some of the service in the restaurants. I like to hope it was the language barrier that caused their curt and unfriendly service, but I guess I’ll never know.

 

 

 

In the end, though, the good outweighed the bad. There was the waiter who gave us free shots of their traditional Czech liquor that tastes like Christmas. “Complimentary” shots are a common hoax in Prague, so before we drank them we made our waiter promise they wouldn’t show up on our bill, and he followed through. He even split the bill for us (an anomaly in Europe) and let us use card (again, anomaly). There was even the Starbucks worker who gave us the bathroom code before we purchased anything, telling us in a hushed tone as if he was giving us the secret to life itself.

 

 

 

 

 

I found the best moments of my short weekend in Prague were the ones my friends and I spent exploring on our own, off the agenda and off the beaten path. Lingering over our warm hostel breakfast we could plan our day and feel relaxed before we set out into the cold. Once we figured out the tram system thanks to our trusty map from Sophie’s Hostel (hostels ALWAYS have the absolute best maps), no one could stop us. We wandered around back streets and perused Prague’s Shakespeare & Sons English bookstore. We were amused by crazy street performers, before meandering back across St. Charles’s Bridge just as the sun was setting over the Vltava River.

 

 

 

Throughout it all, I absorbed the history of Prague as much my body absorbed chills as Givvy explained to us Hitler’s wishes to turn the Jewish Quarter into a museum of an extinct race. The thought of this was extremely disturbing, but the result is a beautifully preserved quarter of the city. It is now a permanent bookmarker of history that survived a destructive war and an evil dictator’s ambitious plans. We were inspired by the words of many on the John Lennon Wall, taking photos not only so that we could share on Instagram, but so that we would remember the wisdom and the hopes of those before us.

 

 

Our weekend culminated in the famous Prague Pub Crawl, as it does for many young travelers, where we ventured to five different bars before making it to the famous five-story club. After receiving what I deemed our “pub crawl pep talk” from our tour group leader, we were met by a large group of people, made up of all kinds of Europeans and not just Americans.

 

 

 

By the first bar, we had made friends with two sweet Finnish girls, until one of them only wanted to talk politics and the other only wanted us to take more shots. By the third bar, my friend had found the love of her life in the form of a Scot celebrating his 21st birthday with his twin and closest friends. By the time we had reached the fifth floor of the fifth destination, two other friends had taken shots of absinthe without telling us, and had vowed themselves in love with two married men, who happened to be dressed as priests to celebrate their friend’s bachelor party. Only in Prague…

 

 

 

 

Upon reflection, maybe it was really this aspect of Prague that made it special to me. Not the castle or the architecture or the cheap beer, but the diverse people who all came to this same place from different walks of life, willing to share their stories in this complicated setting. It may be a city of many vices, but if you look carefully, it’s easy to see the beauty seeping through the cracks.