Isaac
Chun Hai Fung
Newsletter
2002 Issue 10
6th August, 2002.
Central
European Highlights F:
Prague (Part 1)
It was
two o'clock in the morning.
The train
had stopped in Nuremberg Main Train Station (Nürnberg
Hauptbahnhof) already for an hour. Railway workers
were busy detaching different wagons of the train from Munich, as they separate here and go
further on to different destinations. Feeling hot in a packed cabin, we went
out to the corridor to enjoy for a while a breeze of fresh air.
A
Korean backpacker in our cabin had just got off the train. "I decide to go
to Vienna, instead of Prague," said he. Picking up his
backpack, he went to the next platform and got on the night train to Vienna. Leaving behind a vacant seat,
a Hong
Kong
woman who sat opposite him had now a "bed" of her own, having made
out of two opposite seats.
There
was a French couple sitting next to us. They were the lucky ones. Travelling
with their Inter-rail pass,
they got on the night train without any reservation. On that evening, the whole
night train was fully booked. However, due to the fact that Kwong Ming Hay and
his girlfriend decided to go to Prague early in the afternoon, Andy
Law and I got two extra reserved seats which left vacant. The French couple
came early and we let them sit there. However, quite a lot of people got on the
train that night without reserving any seats. Some of them stood all night in
the corridor, while some sat on the floor. Some even lie down there and went
asleep. Personally I would never dare to get on a
night train without any reservation, especially during weekends.
Travelling
on a night train is no comfort at all, especially if one travels in the
cheapest way: seats. One has to pay an extra 25 Euro in Germany to get a bed. (Though it was still more comfortable than going to Amsterdam from Cambridge by night
coach.)
However, it is really a "good" experience.
"Good" in a sense that you can learn a lot there,
and it is really an experience. For
example, I found it really interesting to observe the French couple exploring
the limited space of the two opposite seats, which could be slided
down to form a "bed", and sleeping together in so many different
postures during the night. On my way back to Munich two days later, there were
three American girls in my cabin. I learnt a lot by listening to their
conversation: how one passes the US Foreign service entrance exam, how one
teaches English in Czech Republic, how they travelled alone
respectively in Europe with Eurail passes and their experience
in different European cities.
Because
I wanted to save money, we took the night train of Friday night and arrived at Prague early Saturday morning. When we
arrived there at 08:09, we found Kwong Ming Hay and his
girlfriend there waiting for us. To my surprise, they told us not to go to the
youth hostel which we have booked in advance, because they found it really very
dodgy. It does not look like a proper youth hostel at all. The people
responsible said that they would provide free pick-up service, and they did.
However, Kwong Ming Hay found that the hostel was very far away from the city
centre and could not be reached by Metro, and it was located within a block of
residential apartments. The guard there did not speak any English at all. Even
worse, the hot water supply was suspended until the week after, and we were not
told. They found them being cheated and thus took a taxi early next morning to
Prague Main Train Station (Praha Hlavní
nádraží) to stop us from going there. In the end we
ended up staying in a four-star hotel next to the Senate, the upper chamber of
the Czech Parliament!
Another
funny thing I found in Prague is the problem of
"second" language. In Hong Kong, the second language of most
of us is English. It is really by default. In Germany, most of the signs are written
in German only. However, if they do have translation, the first one will be
English in most cases, followed by French or Italian depending on which part of
Germany are you in. Now, in Prague, I found that the Czech people
were "really"
multi-lingual, at least in the way they put up signs and notices. In the hotel
where we stayed, the notice in the bathrooms was written in Czech, Russian,
German, English and French (or Italian? Sorry. I can't really distinguish
French from Italian.) In the Metro, the notice explaining the tariff system was
written in Czech, English and German. In the Cathedral, there was a sign asking
us not to take photos when there is a Mass going on. It is written in Czech,
German and French, but not in English!
When I
travelled in Germany, sometimes I tried to practice
my elementary German and spoke to the shopkeepers or cashiers in the tourist attractions
in German. Sometimes they would just reply to me in English. Their assumption
was that I could not understand their answers. And it was pretty true in my
case. However, this time in Prague, I found a reciprocal
scenario.
We
were looking for the Metro station near our hotel and we found a policeman
standing nearby.
"Excuse
me, can you tell me how to go to the Metro station please?" I asked.
"Metro?"
said the policeman, "Geradeaus, und dann rechts für
fünfhundert Meter."
So, we
went straight ahead, and then turned right, walking for five hundred meters,
and we found the station.
Thank
God that I have learnt something useful.
Minor
changes were made on 29th April, 2006.
Next Page
Table of Contents of ‘Central European Highlights’
中歐拔萃 己 (一)
布拉格（上）
馮儁熙
清晨二時。
火車在紐倫堡中央火車站(Nürnberg
Hauptbahnhof)停了已經一個小時。鐵路工作人員忙著把從慕尼黑開出的火車的不同車廂分開，讓它們分道揚鑣前往不同的目的地。在擁擠的車箱裡感到酷熱，我們就走到走廊去享受一下清新的空氣。
我們客艙的一個韓國背包客剛剛下車。「我決定去維也納，而不去布拉格了，」他說。提起他的背包，他走到對面的月台，上了往維也納的火車去。他留下了一個空位，原本坐在他對面的一位香港女子現在有自己的「床」了──兩個對著的座位。
一對法國情侶（或夫婦）坐在我們旁邊。他們真幸運，憑著他們的Inter-rail pass，他們竟可上了夜車而不用預定座位。當晚，全班夜車完全客滿。但由於鄺銘熙和他的女朋友提前在下午去了布拉格，羅偉騫和我有兩個預定了的座位空了出來。那對法國情侶來得早，我們讓他們坐下來。可是，當晚有許多沒有留座的乘客上了車。有的人站在走廊上，有些則坐在地上，而有的甚至躺下來睡著了。對我來說，我就永不敢乘夜車而不留座，尤其是在週末。
乘夜車絕不舒服，特別如果你選擇最便宜的方法──座位。你要在德國多付二十五歐圓才能有床位。（雖然比乘夜車從劍橋到阿姆斯特丹來得舒服得多。）然而，這也真是一個「好」經驗。「好」，是因為在這裡可以學到很多東西，和這真是好一個經驗。例如，觀察那對法國情侶如何在這有限的空間下，把兩張椅子放下當作一張「床」，整晚睡在一起的各種姿勢，也蠻有趣的。兩天後在我從慕尼黑回來的火車客艙裡，有三個美國女孩子，透過聆聽他們的對話，我學會了很多：如何通過美國外交部的招聘考試、如何在捷克教英語、如何在歐洲用Eurail passes在歐洲旅遊，以及他們在歐洲不同城市的經驗。
因為我要省錢，我們乘坐星期五晚上的火車，在星期六清晨抵達布拉格。當我們在上午八時零九分到達時，發現鄺銘熙和她的女朋友在那裡等我們。令我們驚訝的是，他們告訴我們不要去預先訂好了床位的青年旅舍，因為那裡很有問題，完全不像一間正規的青年旅舍。那裡的人說，他們有免費接送服務；他們的確有。但是鄺銘熙發現該旅舍離市中心很遠，地鐵不到，而且是在一幢公寓內。那裡的守衛不會說英語。更要命的是，那裡停了熱水供應，一直到下星期，而我們竟沒有被通知。他們覺得自己被欺騙了，因此一大清早就乘的士到布拉格中央火車站(Praha
Hlavní nádraží)阻止我們前往那裡。而我們最後入住的，竟是捷克國會上議院旁的四星級酒店！
在布拉格另一件我感到有趣的事情是第「二」語言的問題。在香港，我們中間絕大多數人的第二語言是英語，那是沒有選擇的。在德國，大部份的指示標記都是只用德文寫的，若真要翻譯的話，首選是英文，其次是法文或意大利文（視乎你在德國那裡）。現在在布拉格，我發現捷克人「真的」會很多語言，起碼他們的指示標記和通告是如此。在我們所住的酒店裡，浴室裡的告示是用捷克文、俄文、德文、英文和法文（還是意大利文呢？對不起，法文和意大利文我不會分別）寫成的。地鐵裡解釋收費的告示是用捷克文、英文和德文。在主教座堂裡，有一個告示，告訴我們在彌撒進行中不許拍照。它是用捷克文、德文和法文寫的，竟然沒有英文！
我在德國旅遊時，有時候我會嘗試練習我的基礎德語，跟旅遊景點裡的店員或收銀員用德語說話。有時候他們會用英語回答我，他們的假設是他們若用德語回應我，我不會聽懂。這亦頗對。不過，這次我在布拉格，我卻遇到相反的情況。
我們在尋找酒店附近的地鐵站。碰巧附近站著一個警察。
「對不起，請問你可以告訴我怎樣去地鐵站？」我用英語發問。
「Metro?」警察回答說：「Geradeaus, und dann
rechts für fünfhundert Meter.」
那麼，我們就往前走，再轉右，步行五百米，便找到地鐵站。
感謝上主，讓我學習了一些有用的東西。
通訊二零零二年第十號
二零零二年八月六日
原著是英文，中譯本完成於二零零六年四月二十九日
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