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I’m A Gypsy?

Monday, August 23rd, 2004

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Back in Prague, doors open…a gypsy girl sits down beside me at a bus stop…flirting…wanting me to listen to lively music in her cell phone. I smile and she is encouraged…she smiles widely…waving back at me through the windows of her departing bus.

Later after many bad looks from faces peering at me through narrow eyes, I finally realize I am being taken for Romany…in this country not a good thing for me…it is jarring…who am I…how do I look to these people? In this country, Gypsies are regarded with hostility and open discrimination and on a train to Krakow I experience part of the why when a gypsy family corners me in the hallway… aggressively yelling into my face…demanding money…no way…I am determined.

Later at Oswiecim Poland, called Auschwitz by the Germans, I find out that half a million gypsies were incinerated during World War II by the Nazis.

Czech Jazz in Cesky Krumlov

Friday, August 20th, 2004

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In Prague, we phone the Chinese embassy and they suggest coming for an interview after which they would allow a visa in one week’s time to allow for the processing and paperwork. Because the embassy kept our passports for Visa registration we couldn’t leave the country as planned so we retreated to cooler Cesky Krumlov, a medieval town in the mountains in southwest Czech Republic to spend a couple days in a lovely pension owned by a charming old German man and his wife who served us breakfast in their backyard each morning. Cesky was hosting a three day Czech jazz festival so we heard some great renditions of the Beatles and BB King…the naturally conservative Czech people politely sitting…getting the hang of the Blues.

Young Czech Prime Minister

Wednesday, August 18th, 2004
NikaFEAe66TwIiJDaeZZ7w-2006198180634090.gif The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Stanislav Gross, is 32 years old and looks 20! We are realizing how little information we have gotten in the US in the last ... [Continue reading this entry]

Ripped Off In Prague

Friday, August 13th, 2004
NikaFEAe66TwIiJDaeZZ7w-2006198180634090.gif My medications, that had gotten held up in Custums in Frankfurt, finally arrived in Berlin via fedex. We had planned on taking the train through Austria and Hungary but now we are ... [Continue reading this entry]