Extreme Telecommuting -- An Office Odyssey


this week in the odyssey
11.15.99 -- 11.22.99
prague, czech republic




At Home in the Czech Republic

Here on the Office Odyssey, we like to stay mobile. We like to fight the scions of stasis and the demons of drudgery. We like to wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, hey, why not go to Bulgaria? Why not Albania? Since those questions pretty much answer themselves (the correct answer being, "umm, because those places suck"), we can then move on to more immediately relevant questions. Questions like, "so, nuclear disarmament, what's up with that?," or "why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?," or, my personal favorite, "say, how long can we stay in this hotel before our savings are entirely depleted, leaving us destitute and sleeping on the ground outside Hradcany Castle?" (hovering in the darkness in that picture there at right).




Hradcany is so cool it's almost uncanny.

The Carpenters -- creators of songs to sing while planning.

Yes, quite a relevant question, that last one. Not wanting to answer it through personal experience and empirical observation, we decided it was in our best interest to get out there and see if we couldn't break our own personal record for finding a short-term apartment in a new city. So far, we've been ridiculously lucky in this regard. Zurich only took a day and a half, while Edinburgh clocked in at a slightly disappointing four days. Oh, sure, we could do the easy thing and try to have this stuff figured out before we arrive someplace, but is that really Extreme? Besides, that would mean planning ahead, something that causes both of us to break out in either hives or spontaneous renditions of old Carpenters songs. Not pretty, I'm sure you'll agree.


Now, don't get me wrong. We actually tried to plan things this time, hives and Carpenters songs be damned. For example, before embarking on last week's epic move to Prague, we searched the internet extensively for apartments, even going so far as to inquire about availability with potential landlords. Unfortunately, it became rapidly clear that each and every person we contacted via the internet was actively trying to screw us. Our first clue that something was rotten in Denmark (and, well, Prague) came when we were quoted a "discounted" rate of $300 a day for an apartment "ten minutes walk from the metro, which itself is a twenty minute ride from the town center." Picturing a cute little apartment in Hungary, we politely demurred, pointing out to this person that $300 a day was more akin to the daily gross national product of the Czech Republic than it was to a realistic rental rate. Okay, so maybe we weren't quite as polite as we could have been -- you try being polite when you're covered in hives and have been singing, "We've Only Just Begun" for 36 straight hours. Undaunted by our unprovoked swipe at the Czech Republic's emerging capitalist economy, our would-be landlord had the priceless comeback of, "Yes, but maybe the people you meet here will not be so honest as me." We stifled our guffaws long enough to hit her with a brief chorus of "Rainy Days and Mondays" before hanging up. Take some advice from those who know -- avoid the entry for "Yankee Go Home Accommodation Service" in the yellow pages. You'll recognize them by their official motto of, "We Gouge You First So That Others Don't Have To."


Though it may look like it, I'm not actually being held up in this photo.

Clearly, we needed to try something different. Eschewing our usual approach of walking around aimlessly and trying to look presentable until someone offers us an apartment (hey, don't laugh -- it works), we decided to take our chances with an accommodation agency we found while walking aimlessly from cafe to cafe, looking at bulletin boards. The agency itself was located on a pleasant little square (pictured at left) in the Stare Mesto (old town), so we were pretty excited when the clerk told us that she had several apartments available just right around the corner. Bracing ourselves, we decided to get it over with and ask just how much five weeks in one of these apartments would set us back. With an apologetic shrug of her shoulders (an apologetic shrug that sent both of our hearts into our stomachs), she informed us that things were very expensive in the Czech Republic these days. Though she'd like to do better, the best she could offer us was 16,000 crowns for the entire five week stay. Could we manage that? After ten minutes of frantic arithmetic wherein we both had to take off our shoes to carry numbers, we figured out that 16,000 crowns amounted to about $450 dollars, two bottles of slivovice, and a butchered goat (the exchange rate is really strange here). Barely containing our excitement, we both shrieked with joy, showered the clerk with hugs and kisses, and then broke out into a spontaneous rendition of "O Sole Mio," Kristanne complementing the performance nicely with a brief tap dance routine on the clerk's desk. Okay, so maybe we didn't exactly "contain our excitement." Showing an admirable faith in her fellow man, the clerk entrusted us with a set of keys, gave us some brief directions, and sent us out to look at one of the apartments more closely, admonishing us as we left to "never dance for me again, silly, happyfooted couple."

What wonders awaited us in our new apartment? Judging from the surroundings of the square pictured at left, we figured we were in for the heights of grandeur, soaring ceilings ablaze with clever baroque flourishes, gorgeous window treatments, perhaps even a doorman who would address me as "m'lord" while carrying our packages to our top-floor flat overlooking the Vltava to Hradcany Castle. Those were our thoughts as we rounded the corner to our new home.


These were our thought as we saw the actual building -- holy schneikies, that's really quite unpleasant. No baroque flourishes. No window treatments. No doorman (that's just me in that picture at right). There was, however, a distinct odor of stale cat urine in the building hallway, so the place was not without its charms. Mmmm...stale cat urine. We were definitely experiencing another quaint reminder of the Czech Republic's fifty year socialist legacy. "How grand it will be," I declared, "to live in a true piece of history! A grand historical reminder of what was and what should never be again! How fortunate we are! Let's move in right away and revel in this opportunity that the grand tapestry of history has afforded us!"

Not buying that? Yeah, neither was Kristanne. She pretty much bolted right after I described the graffiti on the outside of the building as a "shining prism through which we can better understand the lessons of the past." Clearly, my whole "historical advantages" tactic was not working.

After sprinting five blocks to catch up with her, I found Kristanne in a phone booth, ardently pleading with Citibank for an increase in our credit limit so that we might stay in the Sheraton for the next five weeks. "Listen, pal, don't make me come to New York and give you a lecture on the merits of Marcel Duchamp -- I want a credit increase and I want it now." Kristanne is a real believer in the merits of art history as an intimidation tactic. Gently hanging up the telephone, I used an open jar of Nutella (the chocolaty narcotic that irascible art historians can't resist...don't leave home without it) to coax Kristanne out of the telephone booth and into a nearby cafe where we could talk this whole thing over.

Ah, socialist architecture!

Jack in, wire up, drop out.

Two cappuccinos and a half jar of Nutella later, I had calmed Kristanne to the point where she would actually consider entering the apartment. So, back to Uncle Joe Stalin's Wuthering Heights we went, ready to see if the insides of our prospective apartment might not just be the eensiest bit better than the outsides. I really have no idea if they were since the first and only thing thing I've really seen in our apartment is that no-fooling phone jack you see pictured there at left. We'd been led to believe that phones were incredibly scarce in the Czech Republic, owing in equal parts to the telephone company's usurious rates and lackadaisical service (installations typically take months to complete after an initial order is placed). With this in mind, we had anticipated going phoneless for the next five weeks, relying only on internet cafes to take care of our need to stay connected. Now, it looked like we might not need to. Could we have lucked into the pot of gold? Were the Spirits of the Perpetual Dial-Up Connection smiling on us?

In a trice, I was down on the floor to examine the phone plug, seeing if I might not have a matching adapter in the small leather purse of telephone gee-gaws I always carry on my person (you never know when you're going to need a reliable dial-up connection). Bingo! Would it work? We had high hopes, assuming that once somebody had actually managed to navigate the phone company's bureaucracy and successfully establish phone service, they would be somewhat foolish to give it up. Also, the fact that there was no telephone connected to this particular plug was reassuring, too, indicating perhaps that though the line was active, they didn't want any furshlugginer short-term renters running up expensive long distance calls and then skipping out before the once-every-three-months bill came due. Ah, but we don't need a phone! Just a modem! After switching from tone dialing to pulse dialing, we were successfully up and running with our service provider's local number here in Prague. Woo-hoo! I began to do my version of the dance that the clerk back at the rental agency had explicitly forbidden us from every doing again, leaping around the room and chanting, "We're staying! We're staying! Kristanne, we're staying!"


Kristanne, however, seemed to have different ideas. I first clued in to this when she said to me, "Sid, I have different ideas." Sometimes, I'm pretty darn intuitive, I tell you. For example, when I heard Kristanne's next sentences -- "I can't possibly stay here. If you love me, we'll leave now." -- I put my keen powers of intuition to work and figured out that Kristanne actually adored this place and really wanted to stay, she just didn't know why. Sometimes, marriage is all about reading between the lines.

So, I set about doing the proper husbandly thing to do -- showing Kristanne the myriad reasons why she actually loved this apartment but hadn't quite found the proper words to express.

"Honey, did I mention that this apartment comes with a lifetime supply of Nutella and an entirely new wardrobe? It's all included in the rent. Also, it says in the rental agreement that people whose names start with the letter 'K' are legally forbidden from doing the dishes here. Did you know that?"

Though this tactic proved successful, it was one I soon came to regret mightily when we discovered that there was no hot water in the kitchen sink. Oh, sure, there did appear to be some gas-fired apparatus that might theoretically have made water warm (pictured at right), but we couldn't seem to make it work. Reasoning that there must be some sort of gas leak, we decided that the best way to check for said leak would be with a lit match. Oddly enough, the very same rental agreement that prevented Kristanne from doing the dishes prevented me from checking for gas leaks with lit matches. It's a very comprehensive and somewhat malleable rental agreement, to be sure. So, Kristanne was left to do the dirty work, randomly pressing buttons while holding matches to various things that might conceivably give forth a flame. About the time she started holding a match to my dirty socks (unfortunately, while I was still wearing them), we figured that maybe we'd make the best of a bad situation and haul buckets of water in from the bathtub (where there was hot water) whenever I needed to do the dishes. Post-socialist living is nothing if not the mother of invention!

Umm, do you smell gas?

Let's do it again!

Our decision made, it was time to head off to our next Czech challenge -- the grocery store. We needed to stock up on staples since Kristanne insisted that we couldn't possibly keep paying the typically exorbitant Czech restaurant prices of almost $15 for a well-prepared and elegantly served dinner for two forever. Kristanne was understandably delirious. Coming from the UK -- where they charge you $20 every time you use the verb "to be" -- we were both pretty much in a jaw-dropped, tongue-lolling, state of shock when it came to Czech prices. Since I often spend entire weeks with my jaw dropped and my tongue lolling, I was not having a difficult time adjusting. Kristanne, on the other hand, was having a tough time making the switch, often openly accusing me of messing up the conversion rate when it came time to pay our bills (which, aside from that little "butchered goat" misunderstanding back at the rental agency, I wasn't...I swear).

So, off to the grocery store we go, ready to fill our basket with what we hoped would be groceries. It was there that we saw what must now be revealed as the Coolest Escalator In The Czech Republic, If Not The World. Instead of the usual steps, this baby was a smooth-riding belt, canted down towards the bottom floor of the grocery store at about a 45 degree angle (check out Kristanne riding and styling in that picture at right). "How," I hear you thinking, O Non-Believing Ned, "can such a device possibly work? Aren't babushkas in imminent danger of being crushed by runaway grocery carts laden with heavy goods? Is this, in fact, part of some larger conspiracy to rid the Czech Republic of the elderly and infirm? Can no one stop this madness?" Ignoring, for the moment, your uninformed supposition that babushkas are infirm (they're not -- I was very nearly severely beaten by one when I did not have the correct change for the toilet in a local restaurant), allow me to point out that this particular escalator is, in fact, magnetized! Yep, there's a big ole magnet under there that locks your cart down, preventing it from becoming a runaway. And, if through some bizarre accident, your cart does become a runaway, there are also handy "Runaway Cart" offramps filled with sand so that in an emergency you can steer your cart off the ramp before you mow down some unsuspecting innocent. Or, you can just play in the sand -- the choice is up to you.


Having successfully negotiated the challenges of the Tilt-an-Escalator, we set about solving the mystery of just what the hell Czechs consider "groceries." First up was the potted meat section. Measuring some twenty yards of refrigerated counterspace long, this bad boy sported literally hundreds of different types of potted meat products. Amazingly, it did this without once including the time-honored standby, Spam. Somewhat stunned by this achievement, we nonetheless opted to ignore the dubious benefits of the potted meat section, choosing instead to look for pasta sauces. Alas, we were pretty much out of luck here, too, though we might have eventually found it had we not spent a memorable thirty minutes lost in the Acres of Dried Soup section. A mild panic set in as we began to fear for our ability to ever find our way out to the cash register. After agonizing about just what the heck words like "bez," "cesnekove," and, "celerova" meant (wiser souls than us might have remembered to bring their phrase book), we came home to unpack and reap the fruits of our labor. Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole heckuva lot of reaping to be done. As it turned out, we had managed to buy celery salt instead of real salt (ahh, so that's what 'celerova' means!), sandwich bread with giant hunks of raw garlic embedded in it (there's 'cesnekove'!), and, horror of horrors, instant cappuccino mix without ('bez' = without) caffeine. This last one I discovered the next morning as I went to pour coffee into our little coffee brewer and was shocked to find that coffee in the Czech Republic is beige in color and features little sugar crystals sprinkled throughout. Making a mental note never to go to the grocery store without the phrase book again, we settled down to a refreshing breakfast of caffeine-free instant cappuccino and toasted bread with hunks of raw garlic. Hey, who needs croissants?


It wasn't all malaise and misfortune at the grocery store, though. No, some products you can just count on. Some products you can trust just by looking at them. Some products just leap off the shelf and into your grocery cart unbidden. I speak, of course, of the estimable "Colon"-brand dishwashing liquid, a product I had to have if only for the fact that it let me run around the apartment annoying Kristanne by shouting, "Colon -- for that deep down clean." Yes, I am, in fact, exactly that dorky. And if you're slightly disgusted by this brand of humor, allow me to point out that Kristanne barred me from taking pictures of the "Relapse" clothing store, a store whose sign exhorted its customers to "Stool Up Your Image." So, at least I didn't make that joke, right? Right.

For that deep-down clean...

You fold fifteen tons, and whaddya get?

Just when you thought this episode could not possibly get any more interesting, stuffed to the gills as it is with cultural revelations and scenic destinations, it's time to go to the laundromat! Well, it might not be that interesting to you, but Kristanne and I were definitely interested, working on our third week of the same set of clothes as we were. Still reeling from our missteps at the grocery store, Kristanne and I made sure to bring the phrase book along this time, all the better to have ready access to such phrases as, "no starch, please," "why are you smelling my socks, weirdo?," and "do you have any low-paying menial jobs that my husband could do?"

Yes, it's true. Still somewhat peeved about my "deep down clean" chanting from the previous night, Kristanne arranged for me to get a little work outside the apartment, claiming that it would be "good for me, and good for us." So, now I fold clothes 10 hours a day, answering to that lady in the apron you see back there in that picture at left. It pays three dollars a year, but as Kristanne likes to say, "It's all about self-improvement, honey. For example, my FreeCell game is getting much better since you've been out of the house during the day." She's a regular Horatio Alger when it comes to me pulling myself up by my bootstraps.


Of course, it wasn't all domestic thrills and spills this week on the Odyssey. After all, there's a whole city out there, a city, I must hasten to add, which we only have five weeks to explore. Couple that with the fact that Prague seems to get approximately fifteen minutes of daylight this time of year, and you have the recipe for some chilly sightseeing by night. Happily, we are real troopers when it comes to the cold, especially Kristanne. Once I've swaddled her in a fleece shell six inches thick, she's only too happy to waddle out into the sub-freezing November chill, almost to the very limits of the extension cord powering her electric longjohns. In this fashion, we have been able to see almost the entire parking lot in front of our apartment building.

Of course, special occasions require special measures. This past November 17th was the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the more or less peaceful revolution that brought down the communist government in Czechoslovakia in the wake of similar uprisings in Poland and Berlin. George Bush was in town to mark the occasion, being George Bush, as were Helmut Kohl, the widow of Francois Mitterrand, and, of course, the big man himself, Mikhail Gorbachev. We didn't hang out with them, though, since George can't really party like he used to now that his son's in the (ALERT -- BIG UGLY CLICHE DEAD AHEAD) harsh glare of the media spotlight (OKAY -- ALL CLEAR). Besides, it was far more interesting to see how ordinary Czechs marked the anniversary. Far more interesting, anyway, after we finished watching the Scotland vs. England Euro 2000 qualifier soccer match. First things first, right?

Coming out of the bar after the game, we were greeted by a long, reverent procession of Czechs retracing the steps of the students who demonstrated against the government back on that fateful night in 1989. They were carrying paper lanterns and talking amongst themselves, their chilled breath curling above them into the night air. On and on they came, hundreds of them, all making their way to the spot on Narodni Boulevard where the students eventually faced down the police. Today, there is a monument to the revolution there (pictured at right) and people come from all over to leave offerings, light a candle, or just pay their respects. It was really quite moving. We reflected a bit on what freedom means to us and how we should resist the temptation to take it for granted. Then, we exercised our considerable freedom by going to get another beer and returning home before Kristanne turned into a long, skinny, ice cube.

Candles out of the wind.

Quotas...get your quotas here!

Just to crank up the surreal quotient on the Office Odyssey experience, we woke up early the next day to go down to Wenceslaus Square and check out the Commie Carnival (not its real name...I swear). This was an absurdist bit of theater wherein people were treated to a slice of life in the Czech Republic as it was during Communist rule. They did a great job, constructing booths that aped the common state-run businesses of the day. In addition, you had to wait in a huge line to get in, a line they kept from moving quickly just to let you feel the verisimilitude. Uniformed guards made sure that no one in the audience got out of hand, even arresting a few "demonstrators" to great public hilarity (sorta shown at left). Meanwhile, two members of the Communist Youth harangued the crowd with Marxist screeds from a lectern at the front (at least I think they were...I don't speak Czech). Americans were also well-represented among the crowd, happy to at last get the Genuine Socialist Experience the Velvet Revolution cheated us out of. I want my adventure travel, dangit! I want my noble suffering!


Unfortunately, we got kicked out after Kristanne cut right in the middle of a long queue for bread. Unceremoniously dropped outside the Carnival, we elected to head up to the Narodni Museum and check out their exhibits. They had many dead, stuffed animals. We soon tired of these and contented ourselves with marvelling at the really quite opulent architecture (check the picture at right) before heading home to have a nice meal of toasted garlic bread with celery salt and instant cappuccino. Celery salt is tasty!

So ends another week on the Odyssey! Be sure to check back next week as we endeavor to hit more of the highlights of Prague. Other treats include compromising footage of what a Thanksgiving in the Czech Republic is really like. See you then!

This is not my beautiful museum.


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Mocking authority with Kristanne.

As for that picture over there at left, that's Kristanne hanging out down at the Commie Carnival, a slightly surreal experience wherein the Czechs reenact life as it was under the socialist boot of the Soviet Union. Ever eager, Kristanne was only too happy to help out, doing her part by shouting fervent anti-communist slogans at that guard you see pictured there. Unfortunately for Kristanne, however, this particular guard turned out not to be part of the reenactment. Ouch. The good news, though, is that my Czech vocabulary is coming along nicely, having now picked up such useful words as "bail," "lawyer," and, "please don't put my wife in the gulag, sir." There are no problems in life -- only opportunities for more learning.

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