The Checker Republic

After Córdoba, we went to the Czech Republic - or "Checker Republic" as Elena called it.

History and Political Science were not my strong subjects in school. I memorized what I had to and promptly forgot most of it shortly after my exams. When coloring maps, I made sure that two countries that touched each other were different colors. The few mnemonic tricks I used to memorize the names of the countries and their capitals are now moot. The names of many countries, some of the boundaries, and some of the capitals changed since I was in school!

When I traveled to Europe in the 1980s, the Iron Curtain was still up. There was so much to see and learn over on the "good" side that I didn't pay very much attention to the "bad" side. Everything I knew about communist Eastern Europe, I learned from my dear old dad. For those who don't know, my dad was born in 1908 ... and was a man of the times.

The communists controlled our weather. The communists sent spies to the United States dressed as hippies and rock stars and even priests and nuns. The communists infiltrated the churches. Actually, I think my dad considered everyone who did not belong to the Rotary Club, Kiwanis Club, or Lion's Club, a communist. The communists propagated the idea that it was okay to wear t-shirts out of the house. (My dad insisted that t-shirts were underwear and not to be worn out of the house.)

Today there are still many people who hold those beliefs (such as my in-laws) and I'm not knowledgeable enough (or brave enough) to support or challenge the various theories.

Romana, our first au pair, lives in Czech Republic. She wasn't a spy or a communist or a member of the Rotary Club. She lived with (and joined) the Engel circus for a year. Romana was always smiling and always washing the floors. She smiled while she washed the floors. We have always wanted to visit Romana in the Czech Republic and to see what she was always smiling about.

We knew we would love the Czech Republic (even though during my map-coloring days it was part of Czechoslovakia and ruled by communists). We spent 3 days in Prague and 5 days in the country.

As we expected, the public transportation system including buses and trams and subway trains were in excellent condition. They had the longest escalators we have ever seen. The 1950s buses looked new. There were many more churches and crosses and statues of saints and martyrs than we had expected (though we didn't look closely to see if they had microchips and mini-cameras implanted in them). Except for the obvious organ grinder street musician with monkey, we didn't notice any spies.

The streets and highways were not made for common people (or foreigners). There were few signs and the signs they did have were written in what appeared to be a secret code (Czech). Have you read Czech lately? There is a severe shortage of vowels and there are hats, flicks, and other thingys (diacritics) above most of the letters. I could stare at a word for 10 seconds and it would not register in my simple mind. Following a map was practically impossible. Material printed in English substituted the phonetic sounds (szh) for the decorated letters (ž). The material printed in Czech often used abbreviations for common combinations (čtvrť).

We stayed at a hostel in Prague that was a converted apartment building. It was clean - very clean. We could eat on the floor. There were showers, not baths. You had to hold a button on the showerhead to get the luke warm (not hot) water to flow. I guess sitting in a hot bath or standing under streaming water may have been considered too much of a luxury. And ... the next time we go to Prague, we will bring our own toilet tissue.


Czech money (Czech korunas) is old and has had many years to inflate. One hundred Czech korunas is about 5 US dollars. Pretty soon, they are even going to stop making the 5 koruna coins. It was cool to carry 200, 500, and 1000 koruna bills. It was not cool to pay 50 korunas for one soda.