I knew the weak dollar was going to make things on our trip expensive, and that really hit home when I was paying $7 for an extra value meal at McDonalds, except I was still at LAX, so go figure. Actually I knew a lot of things were going to be difficult, but proceeded anyway. I guess that is why when one of my friends found out I had been named a Fulbright Scholar he said that he always knew I wasn’t half bright.

So what does it take to move your family one-third of the way around the globe to a country that most people confuse with Yugoslavia or think was once part of the Soviet Union (not to mention still calling it Czechoslovakia, even though it has been the Czech Republic since splitting with Slovakia in 1993)? Well, I found that a lot of advance scouting helped, as did having a family that spoke the language.

Our adventure really all started twenty years ago, after I graduated from high school, when I spent one summer in Sweden as part of a Lions Club youth exchange. I still think of that experience as being the turning point in my life -- the one event that I can point to that led me to where I am today. Somehow experiencing life outside of the USA gave me a different perspective. Of course it didn’t all happen in one summer, but that started me along the path of traveling around the world, trying to understand the how and why of people in various countries. My travels took me from Asia to Europe to South America, and even to New Hampshire, where after five years I still hadn’t figured out the local culture.

Of course I had a specific way of traveling that allowed me to learn more in a shorter amount of time: I took advantage of people’s kindness. For example, if someone ever said “hey, if you’re ever in Tokyo you’ll always have a place to stay…” then I made sure and showed up on their doorstep before they moved. That’s how I met my wife, Katerina. She was visiting her Aunt who had emigrated from Czechoslovakia after the Soviet crackdown (read invasion) in 1968. By chance Katerina ended up in my hometown, attending the same party I was. I knew that the following summer I might be in Europe, so I took the chance to ask if she had a bed or floor I could sleep on. Somehow I managed not to get slapped and we started talking, which led to dating, which led to several trips to Prague, which led to marriage and two daughters.

Everyone in my family speaks Czech except me, which gets me back to the beginning -- why I decided to move my family one third of the way around the world in the middle of winter: because I need to learn the language to find out if my family talks about me behind my back.

Actually I thought the trip would be good for all of us. Although our older daughter Katerina speaks Czech very well, our younger daughter Michaela understands Czech but prefers to answer in English. I knew six months in Czech school would make her truly bilingual. Plus it would be a chance for all of us to understand our family’s heritage better. Katerina still has her parents, a brother, and a sister in Prague, plus we have 5 nephews and nieces here. Surprisingly, she was probably the least enthusiastic about the move. As she put it, she had lived in Prague most of her life, why couldn’t I have gotten a Fulbright to go to the French Riviera, or Italy, or someplace like that.

Last spring when I received word that I had been named a Fulbright Scholar to teach in the Czech Republic this semester it was a bit of a shock. First of all, the competition for Fulbright Grants is intense. Even though I am very proud of my teaching and scholarly activities, I did not know if I had much of a chance. Second of all the logistics hit me like a brick, who would take care of the house, our mail, our dog? Luckily the work side of it was made easy by a very supportive Provost and Dean. One thing I have admired since joining Chapman almost three years ago is the support the school has for excellence.

On the personal side things came together very nicely. Between neighbors, friends, and relatives everyone pitched in and offered to help take care of a small part of our lives when we were gone. On the Czech side we had Katerina’s sister and parents to help us find an apartment and a car to buy. We will never be able to repay everyone for everything they have done to make this transition so easy.

As we stared to calculate how much luggage the airlines would allow us to take and how much we would need when we were there we knew we would have to ship a large crate of things in advance. One problem was that we would be in Prague for three seasons, winter, spring, and summer, which meant three times as many clothes. Plus with me teaching there I would have to take a work and casual wardrobe. After checking around we found a very reasonable shipping company, but their minimum shipment was 100 cubic feet. After loading up the crate with Christmas presents, clothing, and everything else we thought we would need, it was only about half full. So I headed to Costco to buy as many things as I could that took up as much space as possible for the least amount of money. Super-sized packages of Kleenex, paper towels, and toilet paper filled up a large chunk, as did huge boxes of cereal, pillows, sheets, a comforter, a king size foam topper for our bed, and 4 large jars of peanut butter. When some people heard what we were sending over they automatically assumed that we were sending things over that weren’t available in the Czech Republic but that is not the case. Nowadays you can find everything there, and many things make it to the Czech Republic from Western Europe and Asia before they make it to the USA. The idea was that we had 100 cubic feet to fill, and we might as well buy it here and have it there when we arrive.

Actually I think many Americans are surprised when they visit the Czech Republic, and by Prague in particular. In many ways Prague is ahead of America and Western Europe. Given that there was almost nothing new here 15 years ago, and everything has been built since then, most of the things like shopping malls, movie theaters, restaurants, banks, cell phone networks, gas stations, car dealers, department stores, etc. are better than the equivalent that we have in the USA. Plus the old part of the city has avoided being destroyed by war for 500 years, so you have one of the best preserved old European cities with all of the amenities of Western Europe. This can actually be distracting sometimes; it is hard to get things done because you have to stop to smell the roses, so to speak. For example, one day Katerina and I went to a post office near Wenceslas Square in downtown Prague to mail some postcards. It was unbelievable. The entire inside of the post office was this amazing art nouveau mural with completely refurbished antique furnishings. We had to just stop and stare, it was magnificent. It seems like the city is full of little jewels, and if you’re not careful you can spend an entire afternoon just wandering around instead of going out and buying milk like you were supposed to do -- not that that has ever happened or anything.

So finally after figuring out how to live in one country while not entirely abandoning life in another, we headed off to Prague before Christmas. I had been in the Czech Republic before at Christmas time (once to get married), and there might not be a more beautiful sight than the Christmas market set up in Old Town Square at dusk.

We had a few hiccups along the way, a flight canceled from London to Prague, the crate with all of our Christmas presents arriving a week after Christmas and so forth, but overall I don’t think we could have hoped for such an easy transition.

Mark Twain is quoted as having said that “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Looking back at the last 20 years, I think that I have gained a broad, wholesome, charitable view of the world, and maybe my time in the Czech Republic will continue my education.