le mot "děkuji" - (Prague)

On Tuesday, I took a train from Annecy to the Lyon airport, where I met up with my fellow travelers.  Two English assistants (Nikki and Katrina) and Anna, Katrina's friend from when they studied abroad.  EasyJet really is a no frills airline.  I opted to just do a carry-on and not pay the extra 15Euro fee per flight to check baggage.  They really do only allow one bag, so it involved a lot of rearranging (putting my purse in my bag with the zipper open, hiding stuff in my coat that I was carrying, wearing extra layers for what I like to call the "EasyJet look").

This is all I took for the Prague-Budapest-London leg of the journey.  And I was wearing the boots!  I left a bag of ski stuff with my teacher.

Nikki had printed off basic Czech words and expressions, and we all practiced "děkuji" (thank you) right away.  It's pronounced "dyay-koo-yi."  We got into Prague pretty late, so we went next door for dinner.  We stayed at the Pension Brezina.  If you ever go to Prague, I highly recommend it!

Anyway, the next morning, we wanted to make sure we could at least say thank you correctly. Nikki and I went to talk to the front desk guy.  The exchange went something like this.

Me:  Hi, we have a question for you.  How do you say thank you?
Czech Man: Thank you.
Me:  No, but how do YOU say thank you?
Czech Man:  Thank you!  You should say thank you in your own language.  Otherwise you won't be smiling.
Me: But really, how do you say it.. Dyaykooey?  Dyekooyeh?
Czech Man: It doesn't matter!  Speak with your mind and your heart.
Me: Okay, I'll take three postcards.
Czech Man: 15 crowns.
Me: Děkuji.

Walked around the main square.  Tried to get a photo of it snowing while it was really sunny out.

Walked up the stairs in the Prague Tower.

View from the Tower

Another view

Now that's a coffee!  This is how an espresso is served in Prague.

Famous Charles Bridge.  It was cold!

Inside St. Vitus Cathedral, as seen in the background of the previous photo.

Anna had the idea to go to the opera.  Front row seats for Il Trovatore.  It was fun, I'd like to go to the opera in Chicago sometime. (Famous part I recognized: YouTube clip.  Wow, the production we saw was a lot more sparse than the one featured on this video.  It was pretty much just the actors and one set of risers that they moved around!)  The subtitles were in Czech and English.

Main square at night, with astronomical clock.

Cool logo at the Office de Tourisme.

I kept saying I wanted to see live music.  We ended up going to Jazz Republic, which was sort of underground, not in a cool way, but in an "on your way to the metro" kind of way.  Haha.  To my dismay, we had just missed "Stan the Man Bohemian Blues Band."  He had played the night before.  There was a big band with many horns in small, enclosed space.  The music was fun, and my group took advantage of the exchange rate and got some White Russians for probably a third of what it would cost in France!

We also visited the Communist Museum.  It was interesting, and at the end featured a video with a song that said "děkuji" many times.

Czech words I learned in Prague (spelling?):

exit - vychod

please - proseem

ATM - bankomat

thank you - děkuji

strawberry - jahoda

strawberries - jahody

soup - polevka

coffee - kava

hello - dobre den

hot chocolate - horka cocolada

of - od

fried cheese sandwich - smaszeny syr

On Saturday, we got up early and took the 7 a.m. bus to Budapest...