Military Area – Do Not Enter

Walking around in Prague, there were hardly any signboards in English. (A perferctly acceptable thing really.) The bigger problem was that Czech isn’t really a phonetic language, where words are pronounced in the same way they are written. As a result, you could stare at a signboard for ten minutes at a word before realizing it is exactly the place you are looking for. But, you quickly get into the mode where you separate sounds in your head, and predict what a word might sound like. But I had my share of funnies – going in the opposite direction, missing a stop or two and feeling hopelessly lost when I was two streets away from the hotel.

In all this madness, there’s only one signboard with English that I found. Which had a few words in Czech, followed with a stern – “Military Area – Do Not Enter” in English. I have no idea why, but when I saw that signboard, I sat down on the bench near the fence and laughed for a full five minutes.

IMG_21821

The warnings, they are always easy to read. It’s the other stuff that’s hard to read. Or in a different language.

About Neha Viswanathan

Neha Viswanathan. City-hopping, trivia-gathering, identity-hunting. Obsessions include culture, social software, cities, literature, internet, music, history, marketplace and anything that doesn't twinkle.
This entry was posted in Cities, Self. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Military Area – Do Not Enter

  1. anoop a s says:

    God saved… other wise… dishum.. dishumm…..