Don't Worry, Mom: Interacting with Czech People

Before I left home, I was a little worried about the language barrier and interacting with the locals. When I landed in Germany I got a little worried about how I was going to communicate with everybody. When I got off of the plane I had to go to a checkpoint and tell them how long I was staying and get my passport stamped. This was my first real interaction with anybody from Europe and I was scared to say anything. I walked up to the man in the booth and started with hello. He looked at me and asked me for my passport, in english. At this point I calmed down a bit and was relieved that he knew english, but I realized that since he worked at an airport, he probably talks to a lot of people that speak different languages. After I talked to him, I got a little nervous again, thinking that I got lucky and found someone who knows english. As I walked around the airport I didn't really talk to anybody except for my dad. Once our next plane took off, the attendants and our pilot spoke english, but the same thing ran through my head that they knew english because they meet a lot of people, from a lot of different places. My dad and I landed in Prague and called an Uber to get us to our hotel. Our driver spoke some english, which made me feel a little better, and we arrived at our hotel with all of our stuff and in one piece. Then we had to call our host because the door was locked and needed to get in to put our stuff away. She also spoke english and at this point I was getting pretty relaxed about the whole language difference. We started walking around Prague and meeting shop owners and restaurant employees who spoke english, so it was very easy to get around. During my stay in Prague helped out a lot with being nervous and scared to talk to others. Once I met my group and we made our way to Olomouc, I started thinking about the language barrier again, because Prague is the capitol of the Czech Republic and figured they get people from all over the world visit them. That feeling of being nervous grabbed me again and I was waiting to see what Olomouc brought. Once we arrived, our trip coordinator helped us get our sheets and room keys, so we didn't have to talk to anyone yet. The following week, we talked to people who are use to speaking Czech and not english. However, while we have been here, we have met many people who speak english and can talk to us. It has been awesome to meet these people and live in an area where everybody is very nice and helpful, and can understand us. So far, I feel like it is very easy to communicate with new people, and if we can't talk to each other, we can use hand gestures and pointing. Pointing is a real lifesaver sometimes. When we travel to new towns and countries we can still find new ways to talk to others who don't speak english, and we have picked up a few phrases here and there, and that has been very helpful. I've heard about other people I know having problems with the language barrier, but so far I have been pretty lucky with it. I am getting a little nervous for spring break though. Although, we will be with our professors for the first half of our spring break, nothing to worry about hopefully. I am very excited to see what Austria, Italy, and Greece bring, I'm ready to see if we can talk to others or find new ways to show what we are saying. Also, if we get caught in a pinch, pointing can always save the day, because I'm pretty sure pointing is universal. Besides the language differences, it is very amazing hanging out in a new culture. We have the opportunity to meet a lot of new people along the way. Our professors that we travel with and have in our classes are very nice, and teach us a lot about what we see. Everybody here is very nice, and I haven't interacted with one person who seemed annoyed or wouldn't help out. We did however run into one guy on the tram who was asking us why we chose to come to the Czech. He didn't talk to us a whole lot about it, but was mainly just curious why here. Other than that one experience though, I have had a spectacular time here so far and am very excited to continue this adventure. We have a lot more planned to do before we head back home, and it all seems very very fun.