Czech it out: my term abroad in Prague

When I reminisce about Prague, I think of the cobbled streets, the distorted shadows of the statues on Charles Bridge at night, the smoky bars and the taste of hot goulash and beer.

It is quite exasperating to live in a country where you cannot speak or understand the language because it is impossible to communicate with the locals and you are immediately targeted as a tourist when you speak out loud the street. After three months in Prague, I only learnt some basic Czech. The only link I had with anyone Czech were my teachers and my Czech buddy who was studying French for his M.A, and preferred practicing French with me. Despite this, daily life was quite easy; I shook my head and smiled a lot. Interactions were usually successful, unless it was with someone from an older generation who could not understand a word of English. There were of course more difficult times like when I lost my wallet and had to declare the loss to a police woman who could not understand a word I was saying: the result is that I am not sure until today if my loss was properly declared. However, as I studied in Charles University and FAMU, I spent a lot of time in the center of Prague where being understood was rarely a problem.

One of my best memories from Prague is going jogging early in the morning across the city and along the Vltava. I would cross Kampa Island and David Černý's giant babies, pass the John Lennon wall (graffitied since the 1980s as a form of rebellion against the communist government) and cross Charles Bridge, invaded by a swarm of tourists from morning until dusk. My trip would conclude at the top of Letná Park where they erected a huge monument to Stalin in 1955: it was then destroyed nearly a decade later and in its place was installed a metronome. The view from there is beautiful and you can see from afar Národní Divadlo (literally translated as National Theatre) with its golden roof glittering in the sun.

Image credits: Fiorella Lecoutteux

One place I loved to visit is a bar my friend discovered near Můstek, in the center. It's an apartment transformed into a bar which sold jewellery, organized indie film screenings, had a shelf full of card games and chess boards and sold cheap beer. It's in this bar that I met a lot of Czech students. They taught me that Kafka and Kundera were not the most famous writers in the Czech Republic, as the first considered himself German and Jewish and the second moved to France in the 1980s. Rather, they told me about Karel Čapek who lived in Prague during the 1920s. He was a journalist, fiction and children writer who was politically involved and was a fervent critic of communism. His dystopian novel War with the Newts is a hilarious yet terrifying account of newts taking over the world because of human greed. I would recommend it to anyone.

What started as a simple Erasmus trip thus transformed into a chance for me to delve into a unique central European culture. The food is very much a mix of German, Hungarian and Austrian specialties but with a Czech twist. People seem to eat a lot of street food and one thing I loved when it was cold was trdelník, cooked dough with cinnamon and sugar. The city is vibrant with culture. It hosted the German festival as well the French cinema festival at Kino Lucerna during the autumn. You can find a little shop across the street from this cinema which sells all kinds of posters to postcards. I especially enjoyed discovering the artist David Černý. During November, the Czech Republic had new elections because of a recent scandal. The artists spoke up against the rise of pro-socialist government led by Miloš Zeman by erecting a huge purple middle finger in the middle of the river towards Prague Castle and the home of the president. Černý has installations all around the city and one of my favorite can be found at the gallery Futura in Prague 5 where there are two larger-than-life sculptures of bodies bending forward, revealing videos of President Václav Klaus. Another installation of his is a fountain in the form of two men urinating in a basin in the form of the country Czech Republic, symbolizing life under the Communists.

Living in Prague is also great for travelling as it is very central; I went to Germany and Hungary over the weekend for a very cheap price and little travel time. Erasmus allowed me to meet people from all over Europe; from Russia and Ukraine to Poland, Germany and Hungary. It was a great mix of people and cultures. Next June, we are all planning on returning to Prague for a week.... because let's face it, we simply can't get enough of it.

-          Fiorella Lecoutteux (Literature and Film student from Brighton)