Weekend trip to Prague..Czech.

Pretty clever title, huh?  Thanks to my dear friend Rebecca, she's pretty witty and punny.

So, this weekend I went to Prague, along with 6 other girls.  It was incredible.  Exceeded all of my expectations.  We went with reservations to a hostel but zero plans. ZERO. We went without a map. Without a guidebook.  Without any knowledge of the Czech Republic.  Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. But it was an absolute blast and could not have been better.

This post might seem negative..but it's not.

I'm not going to write about all of the fun and cool awesome wonderful things that we were able to do and see..I'm going to write about my impression of Prague.

First impression: These people are rude.
example one: on the train ride when we were almost to Prague, a woman working came to our compartment.  Normally when the attendants come, they are wanting to check your ticket. So, of course, I gave mine to her.  I was sitting with one of my feet underneath me, so the side of my food was on the chair. The woman started yelling at me (in Czech, mind you, so I had no idea what she was saying) and pointing at my foot.  So I moved it and she threw my ticket back at me.  When I said sorry she just gave me a disapproving look, shut the door to the compartment, and walked away.
gosh. rude.
example two: Similar thing happened a little later to another girl, Melissa.  We were on the bus, public transportation, you know.  She turned around to talk to someone behind her and went to kind of put her foot on the chair next to her.  Before her foot could even reach the chair, the elderly woman sitting across from her reached across and slapped Melissa's leg. 
gosh. rude.
NOTE TO SELF: two feet on the floor at all times when in the Czech Republic.
example three: Now we were on the tram. We had seats because we got on early but as we went through all of the stops, the tram started to fill up and get really crowded.  A woman carrying a baby came and so another friend, Liz, got up to give her her seat so she could sit with her baby.  The woman took the seat but didn't acknowledge the favor in any way. Not even a smile.
gosh, rude.
(all within the first 2 hours)
I have more examples..but I will spare them.

First impression: the Czech people do not seem friendly and do not find anything humorous. If something is offensive to them, they do will not mask it, they will let you know.
I'm not bashing the people, hang with me here..
Anyone that we interacted with seemed to be extremely put out by us.  They seemed angry, but we didn't know why. We just assumed they were angry people.  If you were to smile at someone, they just looked at you in return.  This is something that I am not used to.  Not in America and not in Salzburg.  Everyone in Salzburg has been so kind and friendly.
oh, how i miss home.

But. I was guilty of the fundamental attribution error.
If you're familiar with psychology you know what that means.  But if not, the fundamental attribution error is basically jumping to conclusions without considering explanations.  ex: you're driving and you get cut off.  Automatically, you call the person that cut you off a jerk and think he's awful.  But really, he cut you off because there was a biker on the side of the road that he saw last second and was trying to avoid hitting him. fundamental attribution error.

Czech people are just so rude, unfriendly, and angry. That's just how they are. Fundamental attribution error.

The fact that they acted rude and unfriendly is true.  But just because they are that way...just because that's how they are is not a good explanation.  That is where the error is.  There are many factors that cause them to generally come across this way.

On one of the train rides home to Salzburg, a few of us sat next to a kind gentleman who was from somewhere in Czech, nearish to Prague.  But we (mostly Rebecca) started talking to him about his life, beliefs, and history of Czech.  Through this conversation, it became evident that we had jumped to some conclusions about these people.  It became evident that there were deep reasons behind the way that things worked in the Czech Republic. 
The man that we were talking to was an English speaker.  When asked when he started to learn English he told us that he had been learning and practicing the language for 17 years now. Until 17 years ago, Czech Republic was a communist country and they were forbidden to learn any other language.  ahhhh.
Forgive me, I know nothing about history so this was all new to me.
Basically, when Czech Republic was Czechoslovakia it was in pretty bad shape.  The man that we were talking to..his sister died at the age of nine due to the communism. During this time, many people in Czechoslovakia lost their faith because of all of the hardships they had to endure through.
ahhhh. It begins to make more sense why my first impression was the way that it was.
Not becoming independent until 1993, Czech Republic is a relatively new country. ahhhh.
For the first time in my life, I was really interested in history.  This is fascinating.  It really does affect the way that people act and the way that the world works today.

Through talking to him more, we also found out that the people of Czech are extremely dissatisfied with the government.  No matter the state of it, whether it's good or bad, they will always be unhappy with it.  This, he explained, makes the people seem angry all of the time.  ahhh, it's coming together.

One last thing we asked him about was the deal with the feet. What in the world is up with the feet? I mean, I know that it's not the most polite thing in the world to put your feet on chairs..but does it really deserve a slap on the leg and a ticket being thrown at you?
The deal with the feet is that the Czech people have a big care for the people after then.  It is considered extremely rude to put your feet somewhere that people will be later.  It's not because they are the rudest people ever.. It is because they care and want to leave things as nice as possible for the next people.

fundamental attribution error. guilty.