By Emily Prucha
About removing shoes in the Czech Republic.
"When I first arrived in Prague, my American roommate and I were told that Czechs take off their shoes before entering someone's house. Although we weren't required to remove our shoes during our TEFL training course, we noted that our teachers and support staff often did, wearing "indoor shoes" or slippers instead. The first clue of how this tradition would affect me came one morning when our downstairs neighbor pounded angrily on our front door. She stormed inside and stomped around in her street shoes, presumably mimicking what we did, and then pantomimed putting on slippers and scuffled noisily in her stocking feet. Chagrined, we vowed to remember to take our shoes off, at least to prevent bad neighborly relations, if not to conform to a culture we were still trying to understand."
