I was especially grateful because whatever sickness that started in Budapest got worse in Prague. I felt bad for anyone who had to sleep near me because of my loud and persistent cough. I spent the first day there wandering a bit but also stocking up at a pharmacy.
The dorm where I was staying with four other women had its own kitchen, so I took advantage and cooked. The first night, I shared dinner with Molly, from South Carolina and also traveling alone, which was great.
The next day I didn't do very much, other than wander a little. Here's this fact (and a following whiny and self-pitying rant, sorry y'all. I promise I realize how freaking cool it is that I get to be sick in Prague, and I don't mean that in a snarky way.): being sick while traveling is annoying for a number of reasons. I am used to having to take some time for my dysautonomia; it's a reality that if I don't pay attention to my body and rest or drink or sit down when needed, then I'll end up really messing myself up for a while or, fun times, close to passing out in some random location. This sickness was different because it made me an annoyance to other people as well as myself. The coughing was almost comically bad. It also prevented me from exploring the city as I would have wanted, which irked me because of my limited time there. Finally, it really just made me miss my mom and girlfriend and friends, who would've been all up in my business with medicine and Powerade (Side note: Powerade does not taste the same in Europe. At all. It's gross. This is possibly because the EU bans whatever dangerous substance is in it at home.). Okay. Whining over.
After the meds and a day of rest, it was time for Pride! I was really, really excited because Prague Pride is the biggest in Eastern and Central Europe and draws people from all over the region. It also includes a festival. In fact, the city had been holding events for the entire week. I was really interested in an LGBT cultural tour of the city, but it was in French, so I had to skip it. As y'all might have seen, the US Embassy helped to celebrate as well, lighting up in rainbow colors. Normally, breaking out a camera anywhere near an Embassy or Consulate will help you gain some soldier friends and lose a camera, but the here's a picture from the HRC.
The Pride route started near the center of the city and covered several blocks before crossing the river and ending in Letna park, which has beautiful views of the city. The parade was indeed huge. I stood at the beginning and watched until the end, which took almost two hours, before walking the route over to Letna and the festival. There were representatives from many countries and watching the parade made me even more eager to speak with Willem, the very nice International PR person for Prague Pride who agreed to sit down and chat with me as things settled down the next week.
Lonely protestor.
Crossing the river to get to the festival
The festival was in a major park in the city, and so lots of people and dogs had picnics and beer outside. It was a beautiful day.
Walking the city that day fantastic. There is nothing like a Pride festival to make me feel comfortable and at home. There were rainbow flags hanging from restaurants and waiters and waitresses wore rainbow pins, even in some of the posh places just off the center square. Gay and lesbian couples and families were everywhere and openly affectionate. Groups of friends celebrated in the park and also throughout the city.
Even being an outsider to the community and a solo traveler, I felt at home and much less alone than I normally do. This experience, like the one in Berlin and the one in Warsaw, reinforced for me the importance of these big and visible demonstrations of community and solidarity. I still have questions about the way they're going. The CSD in Berlin is especially commercialized and has lost at least some of the political tone that felt more present in Prague. I also wonder about the level of transgender presence and participation and the accessibility of the parades for members of the community who do not live in or near the wealthier neighborhoods where the parades usually occur. Finally, there's the tension between those in the community like me, who find the experience empowering and encouraging, and those who would rather there not be a community or such a visible demonstration at all. Because of the places where I'm spending my time, it's not very often that I speak to someone who would prefer the queers to just shut up and sit down, and I'm interested in that conversation, although I disagree absolutely and fundamentally with the sentiment. Then again, it's difficult to connect with LGBT people who don't want to see their sexual orientation or gender identity as a link the way that I do. All that is to say, I'm thankful every day for the ability to think about these things and have conversations about what it is to be gay or lesbian in these places and what it means to stand up and say it in the middle of the city, the good and the bad.
I spent the days after Pride exploring the city. I went on a walking tour with Gretchen, one of my roommates, and Liz, who was staying at a hostel nearby. Prague is beautiful and has a fascinating history. The Jewish District is, compared to the Jewish neighborhoods in other Nazi-occupied cities, very well-preserved. This is because Hitler wanted Prague to be like a museum of Jewish life after the completion of the final solution. Things like that are difficult to understand and contextualize because they seem so horrific that they cannot be real. Of course, they are real, and walking through these neighborhoods, through Auschwitz, forces the reality of the situation.
In Republic Square
Powder Gate, Republic Square
The Church of St. James
Inside the Church of St. James. There is a 400 year old mummified hand hanging from the ceiling when you enter the church. Our tour guide told us two stories. First: There was a man in the city who admired the jewels on the statues of Mary in the church. He tried to steal them and the statue grabbed his arm. When the priests found him the next morning, he was begging forgiveness and pleading to be released. The priests cut off his arm and hung it from the ceiling as a warning. Second: The church in Prague used to be very corrupt, and butchers had a particular amount of power. Once during a party in the church, someone attempted to steal, and the butchers cut off his arm and hung it from the ceiling as a warning to mind one's manners and as a reminder of who had the power.
In the main square of the city
In the main square, where one of the Defenestrations of Prague took place. They are a fan of throwing people out of windows here.
The gorgeous astronomical clock.
The clock tower. It gets really crowded every hour for the "show," which our tour guide called a massive tourist trick because it's so fast and not extremely flashy. Nevertheless, it was really cool to watch and to see the tower, which has been around since the early 15th century and is the oldest clock still working.
Prague Opera House. Our tour guide told us the following story as fact but it is based on what I later learned was a novel about Prague under the Nazis: During the Nazi occupation, this building was used for official Nazi business, and on its roof are several statues of famous composers, including Mendelssohn. Workers are ordered to remove Mendelssohn but have no way of knowing which statue is him. They remove Wagner, one of Hitler's idols, by mistake, because they made their decision based on his nose.
Charles Bridge from afar
Celebrating Pride all over the city
Fun boats in the river
After the city tour, Gretchen and Liz and I walked to the Charles Bridge, the most famous bridge in the city, but I left fairly quickly for my interview with Willem, the International PR representative for Prague Pride.
Willem and I met at Q Cafe, an LGBT bar and coffee shop near the center of the city. I was embarrassingly late. Although my map skills are getting much better, Prague was extremely difficult to navigate, and despite giving myself the time to, in theory, be there 20 minutes early, I was nearly 15 minutes late. Willem was very nice about it and we chatted for a while over a beer, discussing LGBT life in Prague, Pride, and the differences between Prague and other Central and Eastern European cities when it comes to LGBT rights and community.
Willem mentioned the history of Prague Pride, it's only three years old, and at the beginning, it was "much more political" because the President used words like "deviant" to describe the marchers and homosexuality generally. Still, Prague Pride seemed more political to me than the CSD in Berlin, and Willem noted that there is still a political intention. There has been a lot of progress in terms of the opposition to the parade, and this year, "It was the first time that there was no offense recorded by the police...In the past year, you know, some neo-Nazi got arrested because he was aggressive." Additionally, Willem talked about the city of Prague realizing some of the economic potential of pride; "It's an industry. You have so many tourists coming and spending lots of money here. It's really starting to become an estblished festival." This is an interesting pair with the political intentions of the parade, the idea that the city can profit from those who are marching as a result of their marginalized status.
When it came to the impact of Pride on the community, he said, "I think for Prides generally, all over the world and maybe here especially, it makes the topic visible, and people will start to talk about. It might not be always positive, but they know something's going on, and they start to discuss it. I think especially in the Czech Republic, in Eastern Europe, it's very important." When I asked about the difference between Eastern Europe and Central and Western Europe as well as Prague's place in that, Willem noted that in Prague and the Czech Republic, there's a desire to belong to Central Europe and the West. The Czech Republic sees itself differently things are different there, in many senses. "One of the reasons is that it's not such a religious country. Poland is very Roman Catholic. The influence of the church here, it's much less. Czech Republic is close to Austria and Germany. It's had a lot of influence, even though it was part of the Eastern Bloc for so long. There's this attitude that they really want to belong to Central Europe and Western Europe. It's fairly different attitudes. I think the Czech Republic, when it comes to former communist countries, it's the most liberal, but still, there was a survey done by the rights agency of the EU; within the LGBT community, how many people are openly gay. In the Czech Republic, it's only 11%. It's a very, very small percentage, so this year we have this topic of coming out. It was the theme of our Pride week. We had several events leading up to the parade. Of course the parade is most visible but we really try to have a program with different debates and events. We had a debate on coming out in politics. We had a US Congressman, a UK Member of Parliament, a Dutch Member of Parliament. There was a debate about coming out in sports, about coming out for HIV-positive people. It was really picked up by the media and they were really discussing it with us."
When I asked about gay life in Prague, Willem described Prague as progressive and easy but noted that life in the country is much more difficult. For that reason, Pride is especially important as a national movement. "In Prague, being gay is really easy. It's not a problem. You see couples holding hands, showing affection, not just during Pride but throughout the year. I think also that the attitude of the general people in Prague, they really don't give a shit. But when you go to the outer cities, the smaller cities, it's a really different mentality. It's a totally different atmosphere. What I really like about Prague Pride is that it's becoming a national movement."
Prague Pride is also drawing visitors from other countries, like Poland and Hungary, and that presence is growing each year. "We do surveys every year. First, it was a little less than 20% foreigners, last year it was around 28%, this year we estimate the same although we don't have the numbers yet."
When discussing the controversy that comes with Pride, Willem told me that yes, the more flamboyant side of Pride brings PR problems, but banning anything is not the answer. "It's so important for every Pride parade around the world to be inclusive. You shouldn't be censoring anybody in the community."
Willem talked about the influence of Russia in the Czech Republic. Apparently Russia funds groups that oppose Pride and LGBT events, constantly making it more difficult to find and keep sponsorship. "For the first time, we had a Czech beer company sponsoring us, and they were heavily attacked by our opponents. I think they were sponsored by Russia. One word for gay in Czech means warm, and they had this whole campaign, 'Don't drink warm beer,' which was don't drink gay beer. I think it will backfire, but of course we didn't like it because it's still hard here to get any sponsors, and then they are heavily attacked, so next year I'm not sure if they will support us." But, he said, "What I like about Prague Pride is that it shows that a post-communist country can be open, can be liberal, and it doesn't have to be gloomy. I think it's really important to be a beacon in the East. Next year we'll have the theme of 'East Meets West,' because we think it's such an imortant issue, especially for Prague being a bridge between East and West. We want to bring countries from all over the world to exchange ideas and to learn from each other."
On his hopes for the future: "I would like Pride to a combination of a human rights event and a celebration. Often when you look at the bigger Prides, like Berlin, it's very commercial, and I think it's always very important to keep human rights central. On the other hand, I would like it to become bigger, to be more colorful. I would like it to be this even that is coming out of the gay community but that is for everybody. I hope that there will be a shift in the Czech society so that people can be gay without any issue." It was especially interesting to discuss the balance between celebration and politics, which has been a question throughout my project so far. Willem's desire to make a political statement that draws attention while also providing a space for joy and community seems ideal, but getting that balance does not appear to be easy.
Liz, Gretchen, and I had dinner that night in the center of the city. I earned the nickname Typhoid Mary because my cough was back with a vengeance, so it was an early night for me.
On my last day in Prague, I walked with Gretchen to the Castle, climbing through orchards to reach the peak of that side of the city. It was incredibly beautiful, and we sat and had lunch while we appreciated the view and recovered from the climb.
Walking through the vineyards to the castle and monestary.
Gorgeous view from close to the top of the orchard
The monestary at the top of the orchard
Eating lunch with this view of the city. Amazing.
The Castle itself is massive, but, as our tour guide told us, more like a palace than a castle. It's made up of several different buildings, including churches and residences, and it doesn't look like a castle. It was also the sight of a defenestration, which signalled the start of a long series of religious conflicts, but nobody was hurt after being hurled out of the window. On the side of those being thrown, there was a story of angels lifting the righteous to safety. In actuality, a very large heap of horse manure softened the landing enough to prevent death or serious injury.
My favorite part of the castle was the Golden Lane. It was once home to goldsmiths and craftsmen of various kings, and later Franz Kafka wrote there. It's a series of very small houses lined together on the road just outside the castle. When I say small, I mean very small, tiny, both in terms of size and height. I had to duck to enter and looking around involved turning my head just slightly. They are really charming and have been restored to include decorations and tools for various inhabitants. The top floor of the lane is now a museum full of armor and weaponry, as well as torture devices. I was finished one of the Game of Thrones books at this point so it was fun to combine that history with what I imagined the books to be.
Stairs leading down from the castle.
John Lennon Wall. Tourists can paint over it with whatever they want, and there is often Beatles music being played by a local or visitor.
After a day of exploring, I left for the night train to Warsaw and returned early the next morning to the Oki Doki, where I would spend my last week in the city.
Train car. I had been warned about taking night trains, so I was a little paranoid, but I slept on my backpack, which I've learned is generally good policy. A strange guy came and introduced himself to me. He was drunk or hyped up on something, and that was mildly disconcerting, especially when he started to ask questions about my travel plans and whether or not I was alone, but everything was fine. By the time I reached Warsaw, there were five other people in the cabin with me.
This week I´m particularly thankful for:
1. Prague Pride and Willem, who gave me new perspective
2. Molly, Gretchen, and Liz
3. Miss Sophie´s Hostel
4. Having a train car to myself, if only for a little while
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