I landed in Prague at about 10:30, went through passport control and got my bags. I then withdrew money from the bankomat (2,000 kc) and was suprised when they gave me a 2,000 kc bill which is about the equivalent of $100. I sat in the airport reading my lonelyplanet guidebook on Prague for about 45 minutes until Lisa, one of my apartment mates arrived and we shared a cab to our apartment. The cost of the cab was about 600 kc. We got to our apartment and climbed up the 6 flights of stairs (we are on the 5th floor and they start here with 0). We walked in and it was freezing cold because our roomates Andrew and Ivana couldn't figure out how to turn the heat on when they arrived at 6am, so they were sitting in the freezing apartment most of the day. I bundled up in my jacket and sat and talked with Ivana and Andrew for a bit. Andrew is from Westchester the bestchester and goes to Wash U! Ivana is Czeck and she is from Havirov a small town in the Moravian region. People from Moravia hate people in Prague. They think they are too rushed and speak too quickly. People who live in Prague hate everyone else because they are not like them, sort of like New Yorkers.
I then took a nap with my roomate Andrew because he was jetlagged and I had not gotten any sleep the night before due to my 7 am flight out of London. We slept for three hours or so until we had to go to our opening dinner at a restaurant right down the street. We didn't know it was right down the street so it took us about 20 minutes to get there (around a couple of blocks). I ate mashed potatoes and vegetables. I guess they figured if you ordered that, you don't eat meat, because people who got mashed potatoes and chicken had bits of ham in their mashed potatoes. I had my first Czech beer called Krusovice. It was pretty good but I appreciated it more later in the week when I was a little less tired. My favorite so far has been Kozel which is a darker beer. Beer in Prague is unbelievable! Not only is it the best beer ever, it is really really cheap. The average cost is about 26-30 kc which is about 1.25-1.50. That's not for a bottle, that's for half a liter. Everyone always said it was cheaper than water and that is no joke. It actually is! The reason why Czech's like to drink so much is probably because of communism. They have a beer on their way to work, a couple at lunch, and drink and smoke all night.
The next day was orientation. My orientation was a lot shorter than the other track, so a bunch of us went to walk around old town square. Then we met back at the CET center, which is right in the middle of the new city in Wenceslav square, to go shopping. We went to Tesco which is the Czech version of Wallmart as they say, but it was more like Harrods in London, five floors of everything you could ever possibly need including groceries. What is weird is that you have to pay for your items before you leave each floor (i guess that makes sense...). What is also weird is that you have to weigh your vegetables yourself. I keep making that mistake (the two times i have bought groceries). Once, they did it for me and the other time they just took it away and I couldn't buy my bananas, or banans as they say in Czech.
That night, Friday night, we went to the conservative service at the Jewish Community center. We met Rabbi Hoffberg and he talked to us about the Jewish Community in Prague. What is interesting is that only about a third of them are actually Jewish. A lot of people who affiliate themselves with Judaism are doing it because they had Jewish roots that were possibly on their fathers side which does not make them Jewish. Also, all throughout Prague's history, it was normal not to know if you had Jewish relatives. Rabbi Hoffberg told me a story of a man who was coming to his conversion classes and to shabbat services and he lived hours away. He worked on the train tracks and rode the front of the trains at night to inspect the rails and make sure the train was not derailed. One day, Rabbi Hoffberg asked him, Peter, where are you staying and he said that since he could ride the trains for free, he would get on a train Friday night after services, ride it until the morning, go to services and ride back home. Peter went through the conversion and got on a service trip to Israel painting tanks and whatnot. After that trip he came back and said he wanted to move to Israel. He moved to Israel and started attending services at Shira Chadasha. He would stay at a nearby church for free and would eat meals at different peoples houses in the community. About a year later, when his aunt was dying he found out he was actually Jewish. Peter is still in Israel to this day and he is 28 years old and lives in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Hoffberg told me that there were many stories like this one and I'm sure I'll hear more throughout the semester. Saturday morning I went to services at the Jerusalem synagouge. The Conservative community joined this leftish wing orthodox community for Shabbat morning services. They have services in a little chapel called the winter synagouge because the main one is not heated. Rabbi Hoffberg took me into the main shul just to see it and it was beautiful and had wonderful acoustics as a Chazan from Brighton demonstrated at the demand of Rabbi Dushinsky who teaches Chazzanut in the community. He has a very unique story as well (as told by Rabbi Hoffberg). He was a Rabbi in Australia and some other places, then moved to Israel and was stuck in some town in Israel where all the basketball players and rich famous people live. He wanted to do some conversions and other things on the side and the Rabbi's in Israel didnt like that...I don't remember the whole story but somehow he was framed and arrested and put in jail for 30 days. I don't remember the details but read it here:
http://jewishwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2005/03/rabbi-binyamin-bar-zohar-acquitted-on.html.
This should be enough to get you started...I will post more later when I feel like writing...
