Its been close to a month and 5 days since I came to Prague in Czech republic. After having spent so much time I have started missing my vibrant, colorful and happening country and city(singara chennai).
I step out of my apartment and all I see is fog and mist and something which keeps the air cloudy. It is true that winter brings in such weather conditions here, but I sometimes wonder if these clouds are formed by the millions of cigarettes smoked by the the folks here. Heard of chain smokers, but never heard of "united we stand in chain smoking" policy. People dutifully take time off to have a smoke, few of them do it every half an hour. people are the mobile advertisement for cigarettes. You may not get food items as easily as you get a pack of cigarette or a bottle of alchohol. I guess smoking and drinking are part of the school curriculum !!
Smoke apart I found loads and loads of meat being consumed everywhere. Me being a vegetarian face the shocks and cluelessness of the folks in the restaurants when I spell the word "Vegetarian".(langauage has something to do with it, not many people speak or understand english here, so much for prague being a tourist destination). Thankfully, there are pizzerias where I get a garden pizza(one of the two vegetarian pizzas available, the other being a margarita). Ive read somewhere that chicken or beef flavoring is used in such pizzas. Beggers cant be choosers and so cant I in Czech. Thankfully, I cook my own food most of the days. Had a funny incident when my colleagues were gorging on some butter that they had got from a store and were having blocks of those with bread. Me being the auditor, looked at the cover and used our own google translator to understand that it was PORK FAT !!!!!. When I mentioned this, my colleagues were shocked(yeah they do consume non-veg but only chicken, pork and Beef disgust them too, I had company you see).
An of course we have the public display of affection in busses, trams, metros and stops(all of them). From what I guess as school going children, to office going sweethearts to folks in 40s, an affectionate(and often passionate) kiss is common to see. Am definitely not complaining here. I love chennai the way it is.
I have started missing the Dosai and plate meals, I definitely miss the sultry weather that chennai has, and above all I miss my dear family. What others may view as an opportunity to see the world and make some money, is proving to be a boring affair for me. Few more months to go, I just want to control myself from becoming like one the Czechs. I need a Check in Czech!!!!
