First wedding anniversary

We stayed in a hotel that claimed to have Gothic foundations dating back to the 14th century on the main Karlova Street - two minutes from Charles Bridge. Aparently, the building originally housed goldsmiths. Looking at the building and its architecture, I could believe how old it was. The entrance was through a big black wooden door and each room occupant had a bunch of old fashioned keys (not chip based plastic readers) to first open this big gate; then, a smaller wrought iron gate; a new(er) wooden door to the gallery of rooms; finally open the room door. It had two levels below the ground level...very interesting, maze like place.

We welcomed THE day, sipping Champagne and watching the hustle bustle of this east european city, the lit up castle providing the backdrop. Having been to Bratislava, we discussed how Prague/Czech Republic looked and felt a lot more prosperous than Slovakia...
12:00 midnight, the city was still bustling, younger generation all set to hit the night life - Prague is so well known for.

 After ages we shook a leg untill the wee hours of the morning at Lavka. The music was not our favourite, the crowd around us was way younger...but what the heck!!

It was definitely cold, but all those Christmas Market goodies kept us warm. There was a lot on offer even for vegetarians like us. The mulled wine, along with some yummy Trdlo, Langose, roasted Chestnuts kept us warm enough to walk around the Old town, braving the weather.

The decorations and lights everywhere with light snow made it all look quite pretty.

Other than the 'romance' of celebrating our anniversary together, Prague, to me, offered lots of interesting aspects that could be delved into and explored further. Some of them are:

• The Marionette (puppets) scene...I learnt that Prague has a long tradition of puppet arts and theatre.
• Walking through the city, browsing various books, looking at paintins, I realized there are very many characteristic styles of illustrations to be found here especially for childrens books and storytelling.
• Wooden toys
• The 'Black Light Theatre' : We watched a 1 hr show 'Aspects of Alice' presented quite a fascinating show.
• The place of Kafka

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Overall, loved being there!

Learning by introspection: 2

For an Indian like me, cultural diversity starts at home. I have been an advocate of cultural diversity all along. My family breeds it. We have different religions, different nationalities in it. I always considered cultural diversity as an opportunity to learn from one another and get different perspectives to things. So, here I am:

• Living and adapting to a new culture in Germany
• Working with the most culturally diverse set of colleagues ever
• Married to my husband who is from north india - a different cultural background than mine. I belong to south india.

While the positives of cultural diversity still remains, I now experience the darker sides. The whole concept of diversity falls dangerously when:

• one culture starts to be judgemental about the other
• one culture starts to force itself on the other
• one culture claims superiority over the other
• when the parties are not open minded to give each other their space and time

A multi-cultural experience can become a nightmare when any/one of these situations come up. There are lots of challenges involved in making a culturally diverse relationship to work:

• Striking a balance between keeping ones own identity and integrating with different cultures so one does not stick out like a sore thumb.
• Stereotypes are the first point of easily available reference of any culture. One has to make efforts to break some of them down and communicate the realities that these stereotypes tend to generalize/over simplify.
• Language and spoken communication has its challenges. The sense of humor is different - phrases mean different things in different cultures.
• Remain objective and refrain from being openly judgemental about a culture (despite personal opinions one may harbor within)
• Sometimes visuals work better than words while communicating...because translation can often miscontrued the meaning of words.

However in my experience a BASIC prerequisite to making any headway and achieving the potential of cultural diversity is to be OPEN MINDED and NOT JUDGEMENTAL.

If we start out with a judgement - especially a negative one, on a particular culture, most often it will be counter productive. This is like closing doors instantly on someone who MAY have been curious or interested in knowing more about your culture otherwise.

The idealistic me still looks at cultural diversity as more positive than negative...and I wish people were more receptive to it - treat it like an opportunity to unravel what was a mystery...treat it with the surprise and delight of opening a gift - not knowing what will be inside...

I also realize that every country has its domestic cultural differences as well. A learning here is that dealing with "international" diversity is RELATIVELY easier than "domestic" diversity because domestic diversity carries the baggage of some deep rooted social stigmas, social heirarchies etc - things one tends to be (initially) oblivious about when dealing with an "international" diversity scenario.