A fantastic dinner conversation

Dinner tonight was awesome. Food was great, of course, but conversation!

First, Vaclav talked about his night last night, where two female friends of his got very drunk and started making out, then asked Vaclav to be their...um...he asks, "How do you call a man who owns bitches?"

Then, we talked about my parents' visit (in a month). Mom and dad want to take the Jančařikovi out to a nice dinner to thank them for hosting me, of course, so I suggested we go to Kampa Park, a very nice restaurant, expensive for Prague but normal for its status. This seemed fine, but I became aware of Tomaš not really approving. He gets uncomfortable in restaurants like that, Vaclav and Zuzana explained. They spent a few minutes trying to explain why, but Tomas was getting more and more frustrated, feeling like they weren't representing his views fairly.

So he got up and tried himself, and I finally understood. In his words, he can't go to a place like that and pay that much for a meal without thinking of all the meals it could have bought someone more deserving. He grabbed a dictionary and looked up the word he was trying to use, then asked me if I thought he was stingy with his family, with his house, and of course I said no, because he certainly isn't. A place like that seems really wasteful to him, he explained with lots of hand gestures (for a minute I thought he might accidentally hit Zuzana) and a raised tone of voice. Vaclav explained that for a special occasion, it's ok to go somewhere like that. But still, Tomas stuck by his opinion of being economical, environmental (we never waste water or electricity here), and generally conscious of using too much of anything.

Well, there you have it. Tonight, I pinpointed the major difference in culture between Americans and Czechs, the one to which all other differences can be related. For my family, going to a nice (read: expensive) restaurant for a special occasion is second nature -- we celebrate by consuming more than normal. But this is not a very consumerist-oriented society (yet). They've only started to get that kind of Western influence since 1989. So, as Tomas explained, go somewhere with a nice view, have a beer or a coffee, and that is more valuable than going to a nice restaurant.

I've been trying to find a way to best explain to all you readers how the effects of Communism and totalitarianism are still very visible here, and I think this is a perfect example. Of course! We can't go to Kampa Park, that's the restaurant for Westerners visiting Prague; the average Czech probably wouldn't set foot in it unless he or she was working there. So instead, we'll go to a nice restaurant on Petřin hill, where you can eat outside in nice weather and get the unarguably best views of Prague. That will be a celebration.