Letter from Prague | All stories

Czechoslovakia’s founder and first president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk is hugely respected by many Czechs and still referred to as the tatínek (daddy) of the nation. But who was the great man’s own father? According to a book that has received a lot of attention lately, it may have been none other than Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph 1.

I have a fault, if it can be described as such, and am normally too early for meetings and interviews. The problem is that I plan out trips and factor in a very large safety margin for public transport failures, problems finding the right building, and unforeseen events. It was thus that I arrived at the headquarters of the Bohemian and Moravian Trades Union Confederation building on Winston Churchill Square recently and had ample time to contemplate the bulky metal statue of the late British statesman and war hero.

All in all, the Czech Republic is pretty well journalist trained right now. Press conferences usually begin at a civilized time, the optimum being around 10 o’clock; you don’t really have to listen to what the people say if you don’t want to because they usually give out a summary bit of paper before or at the end, and questions are optional.

One is so used to black-and-white photographs depicting Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the founder of Czechoslovakia, as stern, dignified, even iconic looking that a video posted on YouTube in which he playfully speaks to camera is almost startling.

If there is one transport option that I swore that I would never again repeat in my life it is the all night coach trip back to England. This is the real red eye option with the trip taking around 15 hours. This probably sounds pretty wimpish to those who cross continents or semi-continents on the likes of Greyhound buses, but my world is made up of much shorter horizons.

When some people think of the word "nightmare", they think about a bad dream- I know I do. Usually, when I think about the word "nightmare", I imagine a recurring dream that I’ve had where I’m running away from something or someone in a dark alley and I’m moving in slow motion.

I decided it was time to update my profile picture on Facebook and I needed to go to the Lennon Wall to do that. As a study abroad student in Prague, I didn’t go to the Lennon Wall during the first month I was here, like everyone else in my program, because at first, I didn’t think it was worth it. I would see the pictures on social media with the typical John Lennon quotes to accompany them, but to me, it wasn’t a big deal.

My freshly acquired driving license gives my name as Ian Richard Willoughby. That is indeed what appears on my birth certificate. But strangely my middle name Richard, having played virtually no role in the first half of my life, has come to the fore in the second half, spent here in the Czech Republic.

During my first weekend in Prague, I went on an academic trip and we made a stop to use the restrooms. I remember reading a sign on the door that said “5 Kč to use the restroom” and saying aloud, “you have got to be kidding me”. At first, I thought the sign was for show and I wouldn’t have to actually pay, but I was wrong. When I got to the front of the line, there was someone at a counter collecting money before I was able to use the facilities. I couldn’t believe I had to pay to use the restroom.

No matter how fast I’m walking through the city, one of the things that can make me immediately slow down is the aroma of food. I like the smell of food, I like trying new foods, and of course, I like eating food. Without doing much research on the Czech Republic, one of the things I was most anxious and excited to experience was the food because I didn’t know what it would entail.