The next series of Near-Normal Traveler Blogs
reviews our tour/cruise with Viking. Since I’d
 |
| Alexej on the right |
not taken a formal tour of
anywhere in years, I had a bit of adjusting to do. First, and happily, I wasn’t
in charge of anything. Second, and irritatingly, I wasn’t in charge of
anything. In this episode we were taken around the old area of Prague by an
excellent local tour guide. Alexej had been speaking English and doing tours
for about 20 years – since she’d been in high school. When she began taking her
required foreign language courses, the only language provided was Russian.
However, midway through her junior year, Czechoslovakia became the Czech
Republic; the students in the language classes refused to learn any more
Russian and demanded to learn English. Luckily, their teacher spoke English and
could comply with their wishes. That summer Alexej’s mother got her hired by a
tour company and she’s been leading groups ever since.
