RE: Prague

Hi,

I travelled to Prague after the Vienna IETF in 2003.
It's a city; you need to take city precautions.

There are signs of poverty, mostly outside the city center. I was
surprised when I arrived (by train) by people aggressively trying to
rent me a room in their house, and by taxi drivers who grab your bag
and try to lead you to their taxi. Things might have changed by now,
or not.

I accepted a room in a private home from a person at the airport, 45
minutes by train outside of Prague, where people are striving to make
enough to join the middle class. My landlord was a doctor, who found
it more profitable to rent rooms in his house than practice medicine.
Most IETFers will be better off financially, and will show it, so we
become obvious targets. 

In three weeks of travelling through the Czech Republic and Slovakia,
with no reservations and usually renting a room (a zimmer) in private
houses, I met many wonderful people and never had a problem. I
travelled alone at night usually. I was probably lucky, since I did
not take many precautions that are simply common sense.

Prague is a wonderful tourist spot with good food, good bier, quality
shopping, lots of culture, and many interesting things to see. I rate
it as one of my favorite cities in Europe.

So I agree that Prague is very survivable. 

David Harrington
dharrington(_at_)huawei(_dot_)com 
dbharrington(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net
ietfdbh(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Crocker [mailto:dhc2(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2007 12:03 PM
> To: IETF Discussion
> Subject: Re: Prague
>
>
>
> Edward Lewis wrote:
> > I will attest to Prague being survivable.  I have been there once 
> > already and suffered no ill effects and was not robbed.  
> I.e., don't panic.
> ...
> > At 14:52 -0500 3/6/07...:
> > ...
> > > Under the entry for taxis from the airport they say "Warning:
> > > Prague's taxi drivers ...
>
> When the IETF started having the meetings outside the U.S., 
> there seemed to be 
> two basic reasons.  One was to adjust the burden of attendee 
> travel, with a 
> slight shift towards more fairness for attendees from outside 
> the U.S.  The 
> other was to have our presence in the locale serve to 
> encourage improvements 
> to the local infrastructure.
>
> The former is obviously still valid.  By and large, the 
> latter hasn't been for 
> a number of years. So it really is not reasonable for us to 
> go to places that 
> have poor Internet services, except that I'm one of those 
> folk who think that 
> having to go through a meeting venue learning curve for 
> installing and 
> debugging the net makes our meeting more fragile than it 
> should be.  But even 
> that issue has gotten far less risky around the world, even 
> for first-time 
> IETF presence.
>
> But it occurs to me that there is an additional benefit that 
> has been lurking, 
> and I think it just surfaced:  We kind folk from the U.S. 
> tend to have very 
> little understanding of what is "normal" elsewhere in the 
> world.  Even those 
> of us with real travel experience often are so sheltered in 
> those trips, or 
> narrow in our venues, we have no serious basis for 
> appreciating what to worry 
> about, and what to merely be cautious about.
>
> A month before the Paris IETF, I was in Paris, at the same 
> convention center, 
> and had my wallet stolen as I was leaving the Metro.  First 
> such experience. 
> Very traumatizing.  But I'm hard-pressed to view Paris as 
> more dangerous than 
> any large U.S. city.  And Amsterdam has public signs warning 
> of pick-pockets. 
>   Should we avoid it, too?  My Paris trauma came at the end 
> of a fabulous day, 
> and although during IETF week, I had a bit of a tremor when I 
> had to use the 
> same metro station, it was, still, the same, wonderful Paris 
> of the travel books.
>
> Frankly, I have the same worries about Prague as John. I have 
> read the same 
> sorts of cautions that he has and must admit that seeing such 
> cautions show up 
> in a Frommer's is pretty unusual.
>
> So, I fully intend to be on guard.  (And I am staying at a 
> place that will 
> require serious use of the transit system.)
>
> But, then, that's the lesson:  Some places are seriously 
> dangerous.  We should 
> stay away from them.  Some merely warrant caution.  And most 
> places that 
> American's worry about are no worse than most cities in the 
> U.S.  Just different.
>
> Yes, it can be a challenge to find credible ways to 
> distinguish between the 
> two, but it's clear that the otherwise review of published 
> reports is not 
> sufficient.
>
> d/
> -- 
>
>    Dave Crocker
>    Brandenburg InternetWorking
>    bbiw.net
>
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