A funny thing about couchsurfing is that you learn so many different ways one can live. Shared houses, living
with Mum, or the family, living in a dorm, living with your boyfriend, living alone, living everywhere and treating home
merely as a bed and shower. Different jobs, or studies, incomes (or lack of incomes) and ways to live off such incomes.
Different hours of work and play, different hobbies and past times.
It seems so easy to become stuck with a job for the "security" of it, working for some boss with a boss from dusk till
dawn just so you can afford to live close to work, arriving home too exhausted to cook, going on the computer ...
theres no life in such a life. Guess I better go to Uni.
Our hosts Roxanna and Alex were great people. I'm not talking about them. The two were unfamilair with couchsurfing
but (as I've mentioned) said they'd love to have us for a night after a mutual friend had asked them.
Many Romanians live in Hungary for work, and they stick together. Our hosts as an example. So many of our
questions of the new country and culture went unanswered (though it was lovely to be with the warm company of Romanians,
once again).
Traditional Chzech-Slovakian food is similar to that of its neighbouring, wintery countries. Meat. Pork, chicken;
whatever, just serve them with some rich sauce and maybe some dumplings and your set.
From the beginning, I should have started listing all the famous castles and historical sites I've seen, for my own
memory's sake. Since I havent I wont start boring you now. Moreover, Ive already forgotten their names...
The Chzech people are reserved. They generally seem to drink a lot, and you can smell marijuiana as you stroll past
most park benches. The police here are just like regular people, who hang around to help, rather than accuse.
Here, its decriminalized to carry drugs like marijiana or speed as long as it's a small amount. In the hostel we
staying in in Prague, (two nights later) the police came by due to a noise complaint. There were plenty of joints
being smoked, and drunk tourists continuing to abuse their livers (I wasn't one of those, though, believe it or not).
The police said to keep the noise down, and kept on their way.
In Brno, we awoke early to check out the city. The people are so reserved, I could start singing as I strolled
the streets and assume no one could hear me... and those that would hear me didn't seem to judge.
We went into the underground city, and the man working there seemed to love Australians so we scored a free tour.
The underground city was actually just little ccaves originally, made by the merchants so that they could illegally store
their goods. If one merchant was to find someone else's hidey hole they'd dig elsewhere and everyone would pretend
they weren't aware of the other person (as it was illegal.) Now, all the hidey holes are ajoined as one little city.
One little fact, is that Brno's walls were the only ones out of many who kept Sweeden from Occupying it, though
they attacked.
We stayed in the Mauravian city of Brno from the 17th to the 18th, and unlike in Prague we were really living
where the Cjzech people live. Here, I learnt how active the people are - the families go on bike rides to the forests,
rollerblade thrugh the city, visit the beautiful countryside a few km out from the city...
as for in the main (and beautiful) city of Prague, you mostly just see students, tourists, and chzech people working in
the tourism (or artsy) industries. Overall, though, it was a shame we didn't stay with chzech people (or locals, as we
had in all the other countries thus far.) With Roxanna and Alex, we went out for Mamalinka - a delicious traditional
cake (which was taken actually from an Armenian family) made of honey soaked layers of sponge cake and nuts. Theres
also a chocolate version - simililarly honey soaked and spongey. We tried beer brewed fresh in the restaurent
(as cheap as water :))
Our hosts welcomed us to a second night in Brno, which we spent discussing history and economy and remembering
our Romanian (a wonderful language). The gave me my second birthday present (not sure If I mentioned the first -
the painting by the artist in Budapest??? Its really beautiful. I'm carrying a canvas around the world, hehe)
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