Brno - The raucous pub and the Bar that doesn't exist

Brno (say BURN-o … well, sort of), the second largest city in the Czech Republic, is a 90-minute bus ride from Bratislava. It’s located in Morava (Moravia), the eastern half of the country. Brno and Bratislava have more or less similar populations: 379,526 (in 2018) for Brno vs. 432,508 (in 2019) for Bratislava. 

Being as close as it is to Bratislava, Brno makes an attractive weekend getaway. Zuza and I made two weekend stays there, and because some of the sights we saw overlapped, I’ll combine both visits in the next few entries.

 

Piatok (Friday) 3. novembra, 2017 (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol. XI and a travel notebook)

 Whoopee hey-hey! It’s a weekend getaway to Brno and a break from Bratislava. I need to remember to take my passport—just in case! Zuza’s going for a milonga (tango event) and I’m going along for the sightseeing. She made reservations at an Air B&B flat and bought our tickets on Regio Jet, one of the bus lines offering service to Brno. I wanted to go by train, but the bus was cheaper and Zuza was buying. The bus ride was comfortable, but we had an annoying attendant who came by every ten minutes to check something or make sure our seat belts were fastened, or to offer snacks or beverages. His English was horribly accented, nice bloke though he was, and he spoke fast which garbled his speech and made it very difficult for me to understand him. It was easier to listen to his announcements in Czech than it was to understand his English. I asked for a sparkling water--which I got, but Zuza never got the tea she ordered. It was included in the price of the ticket. We arrived in Brno anyway before too long, which was good because any longer on a bus and my legs get cramped. That’s why I prefer going by train. We had difficulty finding where to catch the #67 bus we needed to get to our flat, so we grabbed a taxi instead. We were hungry and we both needed a beer or three.

 

Our crash pad was located in a 1930s-era block of flats. These are nifty, spacious homes built on quiet residential streets during the First Republic of Czechoslovakia (1918-1938). The owner, a young guy heading out tomorrow for his honeymoon in Iran, had renovated the flat by himself and left all the original doors and window fittings. The door separating the living room from the entry hall had a little round porthole window in it. It so reeked of the 1930s I was half expecting Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to come waltzing out into the room We wasted no time getting unpacked, then sauntered into town in search of some much-needed dinner. I’m a sucker for a good pub, and it wasn’t long before we got sucked into the Stopkova Pub. Gravity will do that to you. We chose a Pilsner Urquell-branded pub on Česká Street in the old town center. This place was hopping on a Friday night, and really raucous, too. I half expected some drunken guys to come tumbling out into the street, wrapped up in a brawl, except this place was more civilized than that. We were lucky to find a free table, and we plunked ourselves down beside a group of four 40-something Czech guys, all of whom were completely wasted. Let’s see… four guys times, let's say, 5 beers, so that means at least twenty beers had been served at that table prior to our arrival. I managed three Pilsners on my own, plus some damn fine guláš and knedlicky (dumplings). A lively group of Spanish university students was seated around another table nearby, and it was a contest as to which group was the loudest. I think the four Czechs won. Zuza and I conversed as best we could despite the noise around us. When we were ready to leave, things were getting sloppy at the table next to us. One of the Czech guys spilled his beer all over the table which required two staff members with an army of towels to mop it up. Another of the guys was fortunate to rescue his phone before the beer washed over it. By now they were onto their ninth…? twelfth?? -- God, how should I know??? -- beers, plus they were doing shots of I don't know what. I was curious how and when they would get home. Perhaps I should also have considered IF they would get home.

 

We left the Spaniards and the Booze Brothers to fend for themselves while we marched on down the street and over one or two blocks to the Bar Který Neexistuje, or The Bar That Doesn’t Exist. That's what the sign said, but we saw it otherwise and I can say that it does exist. It’s rumoured to be the best bar in all of the Czech Republic, if you believe the sort of stuff you read in magazines or on the Internet. It had a very retro feel to it, like we'd stepped back in time. First, it was our Air B&B apartment and now this. This bar had all the hallmarks of the 1950s "Frank Sinatra" America combined with a splash of the Czechoslovak First Republic. All the hipster barmen and barwomen were dressed in period clothes and hairstyles, and lots of old jazz, swing, and retro pop music was playing. The only way you could tell it was actually 2017 was by the bluish glows on people's faces as they stared at their cell phones and by the piercings and tattoos covering some of the bartenders. The collection of alcohol and spirits behind the bar was most impressive. If the world was going to end tomorrow, this is the place I'd want to be. One barman was busy off to one side, mixing this and concocting that, inventing new recipes and perfecting old ones. He meticulously jotted everything down in a scruffy notebook as if he was taking notes for a chemistry exam. It was close to eleven at night and the place was hopping. Neither Zuza nor I are much into cocktails, but this place was simply amazing, and you feel compelled to try a drink and be transported to another time and place. Zuza ordered a “Malinko Elegance” consisting of raspberry plus fennel, “Lillet Blanc” (a French aromatised wine-based aperitif), and raspberry balsamic vinegar. When she'd put that one away, she then ordered an “Azory”, which was lime plus smoked salt, basil syrup, jasmine tea liquor with a splash of rum, and black sesame seeds on the rim of the glass. Meanwhile I had a “Drink Brno”, made of Beefeater 24 gin plus cold brew coffee, salted caramel, and champagne. It was so good, and since I couldn‘t decide which concoction I wanted to try next—they were all so divine—I did the sensible thing and ordered a second “Drink Brno”. The damage was reasonable, too: only 610 Czech crowns, which is something like 24 euro.

The impressive liquor collection at Bar Který Neexistuje

 

Sobota (Saturday) 4. novembra, 2017 (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol. XI and a travel notebook)

 

Headache! But nothing that a little Ibalgin couldn’t cure. I think the cocktails might have done that. But I was cured in time to head out for breakfast. The sun was out and it was mild. We walked to a place someone had recommended to Zuza, called the 4 Pokoj, or Four Rooms. After trying to squeeze into a tiny corner table, we migrated to the bar, and that was much better seating there, although there still wasn’t much elbow room. The service and the coffee were great but I wasn’t that thrilled with the food. I chose the #Brexit breakfast—your basic English breakfast. It was just OK. The sausage was good, as was the toast, albeit it dry. But the spinach and tomato “mixture” was odd and way overcooked. I don’t care for eggs, and the mushrooms were steamed rather than fried. And what about the beans? They were conspicuously absent. Don’t English breakfasts usually come with beans? I’ve definitely had better English breakfasts. I probably ought to have had the yogurt, fruit, and muesli that Zuza had. But I bet this place is better in the evening, and I’m sure they serve a mean cocktail, judging by the well-stocked bar they had.

 

After breakfast, we hit the shops—stationery shops for me and cosmetic shops for Zuza, then together we raided the Barvič & Novotný bookstore. Since the bookstore was founded in 1883, as the sign says, I assume this is the original location. The building was at least that old and featured a staircase to get to the second and third-floor books. This is your classic bookstore, and it reminded me why I enjoy bookstores: they're so much fun to explore. We both walked away with a couple of books each—mine were mostly study guides for Czech language, which I expect might help me in learning Slovak. There’s not nearly as much material available for learning Slovak. Zuza ended up with a cookbook or sorts.

 

Midday brought us back to our room for a rest and to drop off our loot before we headed back into town to see the enormous “Gothic Revival” Cathedral of St. Peter & Paul (Sv. Petra & Pavla). It sits on top of a hill overlooking the city, kind of keeping an eye on it, and it was a little tricky finding the path to reach it. It’s accessible from “behind”, meaning you start from the old town center rather than approaching it from the train station side, which looks sort of obvious. It was incredibly windy up at the cathedral. We poked around the cathedral for a bit. Zuza lit a candle in memory of her recently-departed father, then we headed down to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner. We chose a traditional Czech restaurant which looked as though it may have had its start in the 19th century. A group of English teachers from Ireland had gathered at a large table next to ours, discussing the pitfalls of teaching. They went on to describe how their Czech students, or Czechs in general, are Islamophobic. I tend to avoid hanging out with my fellow English teachers--some of them, anyway--because I can’t stand listening to them complain about the host nation. You can always move on if you don’t like the local culture. At last they paid up and left and Zuza and I were alone. It was a totally different atmosphere from the pub last night.

Cathedral of Sv. Petra & Pavla

 

Before long, we moved on so Zuza could get home and get dressed for her tango event. I entertained myself by watching a couple of DVDs the apartment owner had on hand: a Swedish drama with Czech subtitles, then a German one about the former East Germany, and then something about Russian spies. It had been a good day, and this time no headache.

 

Daytime view of the Stopkova Pub, ul. Česká

 

 

Olomouc - With or Without Commercialism - Day #2

A mural of T.G. Masaryk, one of the founding fathers of Czechoslovakia, seen in Bezručovy sady 

Sobota, 26. V (Saturday, May 26), 2018 – (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol 9 and another travel journal)

 

I was up with the sun and a splitting headache. I think it is the result of last night’s last nightcap over an hour after leaving the restaurant. It’s not good to have a beer or two with dinner, wait an hour and then have another one.

 

Our Saturday morning kicked in when we went next door to Sophie’s Café for breakfast. We had cold cuts, cheese, and croissants with jam and butter, and some pretty amazing coffee. You don’t need Starbucks in these parts with such good coffee. Nope, no oats nor groats this morning in Olomouc. We wanted to explore the town and some of the shops, and since most businesses are open only half a day on Saturdays, we had to get a move on. Our first stop after breakfast was a bookshop. I bought a hiking map of the region of the Czech Republic where I lived in 1994 and 1995, and Zuza bought Czech translation of a book by a Norwegian writer. Next, I went to a stationery shop while Zuza found a cosmetics seller. We’d heard of some rose gardens in the area, and this turned into a walk to the botanical garden through the Bezručovy sady “moat” park, which afforded a nice view of the remains of the medieval city walls. We found the botanical garden, all right, but not the roses. Entrance to the garden is free, however a visit to the toilet costs 5 kčs. It was also hotter than we’d anticipated, so I’m glad I didn’t wear my jeans. However, I forgot my cap, and I was painfully aware of the strong sun, leaning toward the shade whenever I could.

Part of the old city wall in Bezručovy sady 

 

We passed some more churches, including the Chapel of St. John Sarkander, where a priest was once imprisoned and tortured. Because it was getting hot, we began a quest for some liquid refreshment. This brought us back into the center for lunch at Restaurant U Mořice. We sat on their terrace in the shadow of the giant cathedral and ordered ginger ales. It was quiet here, away from the bustle of the center. Eventually we ordered beer and lunch, enjoying the good service of the restaurant and the breeze out on the terrace.

 A door at the Chapel of St. John Sarkander

View from our table of the massive Gothic cathedral of Sv. Mořice, Olomouc

Lunch is served, Czech style

After lunch we went inside the cathedral to see the glass windows inside with the daylight outside. It was an impressive few minutes of time well spent. While we were walking around, sucking in the awe-inspiring artwork and reveling in the sheer solitude afforded by the cathedral, a group of very bored-looking Asian women tourists were seated in the pews, lost in their cell phones; their faces alight with the glow of the screens. It made me wonder what compels such people to travel so far from home to see things they’re not even interested in. I couldn’t come up with a suitable answer other than perhaps they were bored with the lack of commercial options here. I concluded that I was fortunate not to have to climb aboard a plane and fly a long distance to see such a sight as Sv. Mořice. I decided I could wait until I got back to the room to tell Facebook and the world any news from the day’s adventures.

Inside Sv. Mořice Cathedral

 

A trip to a simple shopping mall across the street was fruitful for me because I found a Czech phrasebook to complement the one I have at home in Slovak. Every now and then I need a refresher on how to ask for simple things. I used to think phrasebooks were for tourists, but they can come in handy even for long-term residents who have studied the language. In any event, I would wager a guess my Slovak might be ‘that’ much better than my Czech. And here, at the local shopping center, was the only sign of retail commercialism we found in Olomouc. You don't see chain stores or brand-name franchises any place else but here. We walked around a bit more. Zuza found a place selling the famed--or infamous, depending upon how you feel about certain smelly foods--Olomoucké tvarůžky. This is a local and very stinky cheese that you either have to try or you don't. It's aged with meat, apparently, and is a tradition here. It comes in a few forms, and the shop sold it in a kind of cold creamy form, reminding me of a sort of God-awful frozen yogurt. I didn't try it, since I'm not a lover of smelly foods, and this is the sort of thing that, if it weren't at least for goulash, would send me running for McDonalds--except that if a Mickey D's existed in town, I certainly didn't see it. Finally we returned to our room and took a long, well-deserved afternoon rest.

Pen and ink sketch of the side door at Sv. Mořice Cathedral

In the evening we thought to go to a wine festival that was taking place on Horní náměstí (Upper Square) but when we got there, we decided against it. It was too warm to be drinking wine, and there seemed to be little or no food to go with it. With the bright late afternoon sun, any wine I consume would result in a splitting headache. Instead, we walked around to find a place for dinner. Had we walked to Dolní náměstí (Lower Square), we’d have had a better choice of eateries. But as far as we were, we decided to try and find something here. After searching the area out, we found U Červeneho Volka, a Pilsner pub, and tried that. They had reasonably good goulash and Greek salad (which Zuza claimed wasn’t really Greek because of the peppers they put in it), and a nice “vintage” atmosphere with lots of décor, but with horrible 90s-era club music playing. Zuza was really tired so we didn’t stay here too long.

We walked back home, skipping a nightcap this time. It wasn’t even 8 pm. We tried finding a tea room (we’d seen one), but we weren’t able to find it so we gave up and went back to the room. Later, I went out alone for a short walk further down Denisová Street. I still felt a pang of hunger and contemplated getting a pizza from Telepizza, down the street from our flat, but decided against it. I tried looking for a place to stop in and get a beer (the nightcap desire finally hit!), but nothing looking like a pub was open, nor were there any shops selling beer. The only places I found way down the street looked really dodgy or sleazy. They were probably full of well-oiled belligerent locals who’d sooner beat you up than look at you. Small local pubs can be like that. But the lack of any small grocery shops or drug stores was frustrating. It’s like the whole center of Olomouc is in a sort of commercial retail vacuum. It was as if the center grew over the centuries until it industrialized and then never made it past 1887. You can really appreciate it until you really need something and then it’s just annoying.

On Day #3, nothing particularly exciting happened. I wrapped up my travel notes as we wrapped up our weekend in Olomouc, checked out of our room, and we headed back to the commercial jungle of Bratislava.

 

 

 

Olomouc - Night at the Churches - Day #1

Piatok, 25. V (Friday, May 25) 2018 – (excerpts from my journal The Pressburg Diaries, vol 9.)

Crappity-rainy morning. It was a rough start to the day. It was horribly humid and I was sweating like mad when I arrived for my Friday morning lessons. The usual room in the company where we held our lessons was being used for an audit, so we had to find a last-minute replacement. It was a bit chaotic. I just wanted to get on with the day and get home to begin packing for the trip. Attendance during both lessons was rather low today. As luck would have it, my students in the second group suggested ending class a bit early, which gave me an advantage.

I rushed home and packed. Our train to Břeclav, just inside the Czech-Slovak border on the Czech side, was due at 16:10 (4:10 pm), but was 10 minutes late arriving at Bratislava. Nonetheless, only 30-some minutes later, we were in Břeclav. I’d brought with me the new tourist “Wanderkarte” sticker booklet I’d recently acquired, a special edition 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. I’ll use it for commemorative stickers of all the places I visit in the Czech Republic. I’ve already started a similar booklet for Slovakia. And as if by magic, once we left Bratislava and crossed the border, the weather cleared up. 

We had twenty minutes in Břeclav to get our connecting train and therefore we had time to buy snacks and magazines at the shop inside the station. Our train to Olomouc was crowded with Friday afternoon rush hour commuters and school kids, but we had armed ourselves with seat reservations. By nearly seven in the evening, we were in Olomouc.

Olomouc. What an interesting name. OH-loh-moats. Oh, those oats? Immediately after getting off the train, I found a tabak (small kiosk selling cigarettes and newspapers) and bought a city map of Olomouc. Sure, I can use GPS on my phone, but so what? I collect things, and having a map of Olomouc (which I was unable to find in any bookshop in Bratislava) proves we visited it. Next, Zuza hailed a taxi which drove us to our Air B&B lodgings at Denisová Street. The young woman in charge of the apartment arrived to check us into our recently renovated 17th-century unit. It was really nice inside, simple, yet tasteful, all plumbing and furnishings courtesy of Bauhaus and IKEA respectively. So now what?

Entrance to our flat on Denisová Street

Dinner? That took us to Morgan’s Restaurant in the center, where we sat outside on the terrace, next to a group of very giggly young Czech women. I think they were having some kind of bridal shower and they had consumed a lot of champagne. Nonetheless, we ordered. Zuza had chicken wings and I went for grilled chicken with thyme and grilled mixed veggies, and mashed potatoes. Nothing wrong with that dish! And three Radegast beers later (Zuza had a dark beer), just after sundown, we waddled off to explore Olomouc by night.

Olomouc by night

First we walked through part of a park (named Bezručovy sady) that looked as if it had at one time been the moat (an Olo-moat?) that went round the city. People were out and about really having fun. Olomouc on a Friday night is not a bad place to be. Some of the cobblestone streets at night reminded me of Rabat in Malta. Completely different cities, but at night, I guess, they have a similar flavour with light reflecting off the cobblestones. We walked into a simple 17th-century capucine monk monastery called Kostel Zvěstování Páné (Church of the Annunciation, 1655-1661), little did we know what awaited us: we’d stumbled into Night at the Churches! This is an event unique to Olomouc, which was the seat of the archdiocese at one time. It’s sort of like Rome on a mini scale, I suppose. Just as museums in Bratislava fling their doors open to the public and one admission gets you into as many museums as you can manage during the annual Night at the Museums, so in Olomouc do all the churches open their doors and let people walk right in for a look-see. Two very enthusiastic nuns greeted us at the doors and gave us each passbooks in which they stamped that we had visited this church. We walked around, admiring the woodwork and the altar, and then moved on to try and get to as many more churches as we could. Out in front, two capucine monks were playing an orgel and singing funny songs from children’s TV shows to the delight of a crowd of 10-12 who had gathered.

Kostel Zvěstování Páně, or Church of the Annunciation

Next, we went on a hell-bent mission to find the next church listed in our passbooks. Quick! We had only until eleven pm and it was already half-past ten. Our frantic “church search” took us to the ancient and majestic Kostel sv. Mořice (Church of St. Maurice). This rather gothic-like church was like, wow. Impressive! Parts of it were Renaissance and Baroque, too, but the whole thing dated back to the 12th century. Yeah, gothic. It had a beautiful altar, an organ, small, but an organ nonetheless, dating to 1716. We decided to check out the earthen-floored crypt, or what had once been the crypt. Now, with the electrical wiring dating back to the 1930s, it looked like where I imagined the Nazis might have interrogated partisans.

Underneath Kostel sv. Mořice

With our heads spinning from this huge cathedral and all the fascinating things we were seeing, we decided a nightcap was in order. We headed for Olomoucká Citadela for a Svijany (a great Czech brand of beer) on tap for me and a Kofola (that omni-present, rooty, herbal-flavored, quintessentially Czechoslovak answer to Coca-Cola) for Zuza. The thing about Olomoucká Citadela was that we felt as if we’d stepped back into the 1500s. Everything here went for true period correctness. The tables were heavy wood planks, the chairs were simple ones made of wood, simple Michelangelo or DaVinci-style Renaissance drawings adorned the walls, and even the hefty barwoman looked like a character straight out of a Shakespeare play. I wondered how to say in Czech, “Will thou bringst me an ale, Madam?” We were the last to leave when the Madam Barwoman was ready to shut down for the night. 

Olomouc

Outside, in the pub’s window display, we saw a mannequin of a knight in armour who’d probably been run in with a sword. He looked really dead, which was exactly how we felt after our first day in Olomouc. 

Dead in Olomouc

Heading home, Slavonice, Day #4

Slavonice

Monday, 8. April 2019--  (excerpts from my journal The Euro Traveller, vol. 2 and a travel notebook)

 

The party’s over. It’s time to go back to reality in Bratislava. At least we don’t have to leave at the crack of dawn, so we were able to sleep in a bit. We paid the hotel bill after dinner last night to ensure the kind, blonde waitress who had been so helpful got the generous tip she deserved because she informed us she wouldn’t be here today.

 

It was a very lazy morning. We sort of slathered like butter over hot toast down to the restaurant for breakfast. Indeed, our blonde waitress was not here, and I was glad we paid last night. After our leisurely breakfast, we went back upstairs to pack, then we dragged ourselves outside for a last walk around the Old Town center. I found a bookshop selling guidebooks to Slavonice. At last, an hour before leaving, we’d found a guidebook! It was in Czech, but it was still a guidebook, and it had some good maps.

A shop window in Slavonice

Houses in Slavonice

 

Being in a rush is the pits, but having time to kill can be a bore. And even after taking quite a lengthy walk around town, we still had an hour to kill, murder, execute… whatever, until our bus to Dačice. I realized shouldn’t have drunk the glass of sparkling water with breakfast with a six-hour bus trip ahead of us. I used the toilet as many times as I could—to be safe. Finally, at 13:05 (1:05 pm), we boarded the local bus to Dačice, driven by a thin, balding fellow who reminded me of the Slovak actor Csongor Kassai.

 

It’s always hard to go back to reality after a nice, relaxing weekend. It’s even harder when you have to endure a six-hour bus ride, which required three different buses. Arguably the most beautiful part of the trip was the ride from Slavonice. The bus took some very pretty, rather narrow back roads through picturesque village that time and the rest of the Czech Republic had forgotten.

 

In Dačice, we got out and had almost an hour to kill at the newly-renovated bus station before catching the “long distance” bus to Brno. Here we watched families and their kids playing and stuffing their faces with whatever snacks they had scrounged up at the shops in the bus station. Finally, we were back on board the bus for the long leg of the trip. The route took us through the center of town where we saw a sculpture of, you guessed it, a giant sugar cube! And why is that? Because apparently the sugar cube was invented in Dačice, or at least the inventor came from here. I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of it from the bus, but if you Google “origin of the sugar cube”, trust me, you’ll find something about the Moravian fellow named Jakub Kryštof Rad, who began sugar cube production after he was granted a five-year patent in 1843 for his sugar cube making process.

 

I was glad I hadn’t finished my pizza from the night before last because I had two leftover pieces with me in my backpack, and these served as lunch, in between handfuls of peanuts, until we could get sustenance someplace else. The bus took us more or less along the route as we’d come on Friday, through every little village and cabbage patch with names ending in –ice. You do pass through some nifty little towns, most of them didn't seem to have names. Well, of course they have names, but I just couldn't see them from the bus.

Just a town somewhere in Morava, Czech Republic

We made a pit stop at one point, and I was sure to take advantage of that. I was able to find a public toilet so I didn't have to run behind a shed and zip my shirt into my fly. But the public toilet looked as though it hadn't been cleaned since the Soviet-lead Warsaw Pact nation invasion of 1968.

A nasty public restroom along the way

We rolled along endless country roads until, at last, we came into the urban jungle of Brno. I was actually quite bored during the trip as I find it hard to sleep or read on such journeys.

 

We waited in Brno quite awhile for our bus back to Bratislava. The driver was late because he and a buddy ran into the bus station to grab a bite to eat. But once we were on the bus and pulling out of the city, this was the smoothest, easiest part of the trip because the bus was one of those huge coaches, and it was motorway (freeway) all the way. By 7:30 pm we were back in Bratislava.

 

The Ghost of Maříž, Slavonice, Day #3

Abandoned house in Maříž

Sunday, 7. April 2019--  (excerpts from my journal The Euro Traveller, vol. 2 and a travel notebook)

I’m really glad we decided to stay till Monday. I couldn’t face another seven-hour bus and train ride today. I wrote to my students and canceled Monday’s lessons.

Initially, we were thinking of going to Telč (‘Teltch’) to see that medieval city, but it’s an hour away with rather sporadic local trains, and then we’d have just four hours to do and see anything before having to get back to Slavonice for the night. It’s probably best saved as a separate trip in the future. Instead, Zuza suggested walking to the village of Maříž, just a hop, skip, and a jump away from here, right on the Czech-Austrian border. After breakfast and a stop at a local shop selling colourful pottery and ceramics, we walked to Maříž (say ‘MAHR-zheesh’), which was about 3.5 kilometers from our pension at Slavonice. It was cool and overcast, but there was no threat of rain. Maříž is home to a style of pottery called Maříž pottery, imitations of which are sold in the shop we visited in Slavonice. This style of pottery is known for its use of bright colours, almost like Italian or Spanish pottery. The whole thing was started by artist Kryštof Trubáček (1958-2000).

The ceramics shop

The village itself is a virtual ghost town. It was cleaned out after World War II when newly reunified Czechoslovakia expelled all German-speaking residents from its border regions. After the Communists took over (in 1948), no Czechoslovak citizen was allowed to settle there because it was too close to the border. I guess the authorities didn’t want anyone getting ideas of potential freedom by jumping over the border to the Austrian side. We didn’t walk to the actual border ourselves to confirm whether there were any remains of the “Iron Curtain”, which survive in many places in both the Czech and Slovak Republics along the frontiers with western nations. However, once we entered the remains of the village, we saw many old abandoned houses and barns. Everything was eerily still and quiet. Only a small church had been resurrected, as were two or three houses and other buildings. The only real signs of life were the ceramics shop, the town’s only restaurant immediately next door, and a “farmhouse”, as we called it, which featured several quits and patchwork items for sale. We visited the ceramic shop briefly. Here, genuine articles of Maříž pottery are for sale: plates, bowls, cups, candle holders, coffee mugs, and so forth. You can also use their workshop to make your pottery, glaze it, then the staff will fire it in their kiln and send it back to you.

We walked down one street (after deciding not to walk to the border). There were lots of still good but otherwise abandoned houses. Some looked as if they were just waiting for their owners to return. Still others were in varying stages of decay; vines and decades of plant and tree growth slowly claiming them. At least one house had been completely rebuilt in a modern style, yet one simple enough to fit the feel of the place.  This is an artists’ community, and apparently the population of full-time residents is about 5.

From this “house street”, we went through a sort of park to see the remains of Maříž “castle”. It seems to have been more of a manor house than a real castle, although its foundation dates to 1372. It had been continually added to over the centuries and then rebuilt in 1717, and reached its final form in 1908. But after World War II, there were no heirs-apparent to the property, and as the village was abandoned, the castle was looted and eventually fell into ruin.

Maříž "castle" ruins

Maříž "castle" back in its heydey

We were getting hungry now. We walked back up to the restaurant and went in. The place wasn’t very big, maybe six tables, but all of them were full. I think Zuza and I were the only non-German-speaking patrons. We were forced to share the end of one table with a pair of two older Austrian men. Initially, I had a difficult time following their conversation. They clearly spoke a regional dialect; not at all the standard German I learned in high school! Eventually, one of the men turned to us and asked, “Könnt ihr deutsch sprechen?“ I replied that I could, so I started a conversation with them, translating here and there for Zuza. Now it seemed easier to understand them. I supposed they were speaking more or less standard, especially after I told them I didn’t understand the Austrian dialects very well. They asked us a lot of questions, where we were from, and so on. They had biked over from Austria and said they frequently bike across the border for lunch. They were rather surprised to meet an American from Oregon in this remote corner of Europe. We even got to cracking jokes about the American president. "Er ist ein Trottel!" one of the men said, basically calling him an idiot. Even Zuza understood it without me having translate! We laughed a lot. It’s fun to meet people like this and have totally spontaneous conversations.

Lunch was really good. Zuza had baked eggplant with mozzarella on top, and I had Svíčková na smetaně with Karlovy Vary-style dumplings—basically boiled beef tenderloin with a creamy root vegetable sauce, whipped cream and cranberry sauce, served with bread and onion dumplings. It’s a Czech speciality.

 
After lunch, Zuza wanted to stop at the patchwork handicraft house, basically an old restored farmhouse. The owner, a wiry 60-something dude in dreadlocks, welcomed us warmly. He was shuttling wheelbarrows full of earth to and fro, and pottering in his garden. The place sort of reminded me of a hobbit house. His wife does all the patchwork. Zuza found one nifty shopping bag made of denim and bought that, after chit-chatting with the lady for quite a long time. She said she and her husband live in a flat in Slavonice, but they bought this house and stay here during the spring and summer months when they can garden and sell handicrafts.

The restored farmhouse

Finally we began a slow walk back to Slavonice. My feet hurt and we were both a little tired and ready to go „home“ and relax. The distance for the walk to Maříž, around, and back was about 10 kilometers in total.

Long live Maříž 

 

 

To the castle! Slavonice, Day #2

Landštejn Castle near Slavonice

Saturday, 6. April 2019--  (excerpts from my journal The Euro Traveller, vol. 2)

So here we are on Day #2. I think the consensus is we'll stay till Monday because the trip here (and back) was so long. Sitting at breakfast, I feel like drawing something, but I realize I'm pushing myself. I'm not as visual as I am language-oriented. Writing is far more natural, so I think I'll stick to that for now.

We chowed down on breakfast, which was wonderful, at the inn's restaurant. I had two freshly-baked croissants, still hot so the butter melted and ran everywhere, a fruit salad, and the most divine coffee I've tasted in ages. Our waitress said it's Manaresi. The plan of the day is to hike to Landštejn Castle. We left the inn about 10-ish in the morning, and under damp skies, started the hike on the red trail. It should be about 13 kilometers This took us past the Proteženy fish pond and past numerous pre-World War II bunkers built of thick concrete. Razor barbed wire and steel "criss-cross" barriers remain here, or rather, were put here more recently, to commemorate the historical border between Nazi Germany and Czechoslovakia, circa 1938.

The Czechoslovak border with Germany as it was during Hitler's time

Eventually, the nice, easy trail through the woods came to an area called Pfaffenschlag. How's that for a name? This was, at one time during the Middle Ages, a settlement. Supposedly there are ruins of said settlement, but we didn't find anything other than more old concrete bunkers. Finally, the trail came out of the woods unto an open meadow, and this brought us down to the town of Staré Mesto pod Landštejnem (Old Town Beneath Landštejn). But Zuza spotted a Jewish cemetery ahead, so we skipped the notion of setting foot in a pub and went straight for the cemetery. Zuza found the oldest tombstone, dated 1610. We paused for our "sandwiches" of mortadella and rolls, bought at the Co-op last night. Zuza said the place had a "magical" atmosphere about it.

We left the cemetery and walked through town where we picked up the red trail again as it left town. This was the final stretch, the last 3 kilometers or so of the hike. Here, we had open countryside, however, we were greeted by the foul odor of manure in the air. It didn't help the wind was blowing it right in our faces. I was glad when we got back into the woods again, leaving "Hovnovice" (Shitville) behind.

As is often the case when we hike, Zuza likes to point out the different kinds of plants and flowers. She majored in biology and knows a lot about them. She often asks me the English names for the various species we come across, but I really don 't know the names half the time. I guess I'm not a biologist.

When at last we came to a small clearing, we were just below the castle. The castle itself is mostly in ruins--Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance styles combined. Zuza recalled the time she came here, years earlier, with her son and a small group of families and they camped here. We walked up, bought tickets, and went inside for the self-guided tour. 

Inside the ruins of Landštejn Castle

We bungled down to an old manor house pub, just outside the castle entrance. There, we treated ourselves to semi-dark beers and I had some odd-tasting "meat" soup.  The beer was far tastier, even if we hadn't hiked 13 kilometers. It got a bit chilly, despite the sun coming out, so we had to bundle up. We determined that hiking back was not an option at this late stage of the day, so the only other option was to call a taxi from Dačice, interrupt the drive while he was working in his garden, and have him come to the castle and take up back to Slavonice. The trip cost 450 kčs, so around 12-13 euro, but it was worth it.

A bit off the beaten path in Slavonice, Day #1 - April 2019

Friday, 5. April 2019 --  (excerpts from my journal The Euro Traveller, vol. 2)

We left Bratislava for Brno by bus at 9 o'clock in the morning. Our bus left late so we were pressed for time, once we got to Brno, to make our connecting bus for Dačice. We had to rush to platform #44 inside the enormous covered bus station. We made the connection with just five minutes to spare. But now we were in for a looooong bus ride through the Moravian countryside. This was a local bus, so that meant stopping at every village and cabbage patch along the way. As I normally do in such situations, I severely limited my liquid intake: no coffee, barely even water, so that I wouldn't need a toilet. I took a bottle of water, but sipped it judiciously. Although we stopped five minutes in Jemnice, which bought me enough time to run here and there in search of a loo, I was not desperate. I managed to find a shed of some kind and ran behind that. In the rush to try to make it back to the bus before it left without me, I zipped up quickly and inadvertently caught my shirttail in the zipper, ripping that part of my shirt. Damn, it was a nice short sleeve travel shirt, too. At least if I'd been completely desperate for a toilet, ready to burst, I could've justified tearing my shirt. I made it back to the bus in time to depart and spent the next ninety minutes in utter boredom until, at last, we arrived in Dačice, otherwise known to the world as the Sugar Cube Capital. Rumour has it the sugar cube was invented here. (We confirmed that on the trip back when our bus passed a sculpture of a giant sugar cube!) Now in Dačice, I was parched, but I had access to a toilet (onboard the train) so I drank water and made up for the previous four hours or so. We waited about forty minutes and then caught a local "putt-putt" diesel train twenty minutes or so to Slavonice.

Slavonice is definitely out of the way. It would be better to come here by car, as it'd take about half the time that two buses and a train require. Slavonice is a well-preserved Renaissance-era town, about five kilometers from the Austrian border. We walked from the train station into the cobble-stoned center of this town that time and the rest of the Czech Republic seemed to have forgotten. (Indeed, few of my students or any Slovaks I knew had heard of this place.) We made a bee-line for the pension and restaurant, where Zuza had booked our room. The pension was built in a house dating to 1547. Our room was like something out of a Shakespeare play, what with its width and the vaulted ceiling, bed at one far end, etc. After getting checked in and refreshed, we went down to get something to eat in the restaurant. At that point, we made a resolute decision to stay until Monday (rather than Sunday, as was our original plan) because we couldn't justify making that six-hour bus trip back to Bratislava again with only one full day in between. I mean, come on! If we're going to come all this way, let's stay at least two full days and make it worthwhile! 

In the restaurant, with an impressive selection of alcohol at the bar, which also featured busts of famous Czechs, I ordered an 11º unfiltered pilsener beer and spaghetti "aglio-olio", or spaghetti dressed with just garlic, olive oil, and chilies. The pasta lacked consistency, but the chilies-garlic-olive oil combo was pretty good and nicely balanced. But one wouldn't expect to find good Italian food in an out-of-the-way Czech town! Finally we decided to get out and explore a bit. we gazed at the old city walls and looked at the selection of old houses in town, each with a completely different façade. Some house were recently renovated while others were abandoned and lifeless, as ghosts of the past. 

It was a challenge to find a working shop of any kind. The tourist information center was closed, working just limited hours in the off-season. Slavonice is definitely a sleepy place on a Friday! But that's far better than the busloads of selfie-taking tourists you see in bigger tourist traps.

We ended up finding a Jednota CO-OP where I was able to find a few beers I'm not able to find in Slovakia and to get a few snacks to keep on hand in our room. After our walk, we came back to relax in our large, cozy suite for a few hours until we decided it was time for dinner. Not having been overwhelmed with the spaghetti at lunch, I wanted to be sure to find a good place for dinner. Other than our pension and restaurant, there wasn't a smashing choice of eateries. As near as I could tell, there were three other choices, all on the main square. One of those looked really shady. We crept up the stairs only to realize the place looked like a dive, and when he heard creepy drunken laughter and singing, we decided that it probably wasn't what we were looking for. I imagined Zdeněk Pohlreich, the Czech cooking celebrity and equivalent of Gordon Ramsay, rolling his eyes and giving the middle finger salute without even sampling the cuisine. This place was off the list. The second choice was a hotel, but the restaurant was for guests only. OK, then, we'll just tip-toe on out the door. Don't mind us. That left just one last choice, which we settled on. It was a typically Czech restaurant. I started off with a 10º Gambrinus then had a Kozel black beer. I ordered breaded chicken filets with "American" brambory (seasoned potatoes). This was as quintessentially Czech as you can get. It reminded me of the meals I used to get at any number of the post-Communist era eateries I frequented in the mid-90s, back before "gourmet" or "international" food made its trendy appearance. The decor was also about that same era, everything from the old farm tools hanging from the ceiling to the 1980s classic door and fittings window fittings one would come to expect in the post-Communist Czech Republic. My food was tasty and well-prepared, if not fancy. I only wished the filets had come with more lemon garnishes. I really don't know what Mr. Pohlreich would have said about this. But I could imagine what he'd have said about the deep-fried cauliflower Zuza ordered. She said it was awful because they used frozen cauliflower instead of fresh, and it was still frozen in the middle. Mr. Pohlreich would've tossed the platter out into the street. It's a good thing the restaurant didn't have a fish pond or he'd have poisoned the poor fish. Dinner cost 200 kč (not even 10 euros), then we came "home" and slid onto the sofa to watch mindless TV talk shows. Actress Lilian Malkina was a guest of the Karel Šíp Show, and following that a documentary program about actor Ladislav Potměšil.

Settled in at the Pub - Autumn 1994

By October 1994, I had settled nicely into a cozy life in Příbram. I had already taken a long bus ride to England in September to visit a friend. Remind me never again to take a 22-hour bus ride when the bus's only toilet is broken. While it was nice to at least say I'd passed through London, I didn't really have time to see much there. A week later, and after doing the lengthy bus ride in reverse (this time it was closer to 24 hours because we got held up in Calais where the snooty French immigration officials refused to let a man on the bus from Cameroon through without a transit visa), I was back in Příbram ready to begin my first classes.

Stan, the school director, got me set up in a large, fully retro-furnished apartment in a quiet residential neighborhood in Příbram. The landlady, Mrs. Kohutová and her giant, scruffy black mutt named Chantal, lived right below me, and it was rent-free for me. The house was built during the First Republic (early Czechoslovakia in the 1920s-1930s) and all the furniture dated to the communist era. I nicknamed the guest room, next to my bedroom, The Commrade Room, because I imagined it was the type of room Lenin would have been most comfortable staying in, what with the stark, realist sculptures on the desk and the glass-fronted  bookcase and awkward "chandelier" (if it could be called that) hanging from the ceiling. My room seemed the cheerier of the two, and I had a great view of Svatá Hora (Holy Mountain), a monastery at the top of a hill overlooking Příbram.

My bedroom in Příbram

View of Svatá Hora from my bedroom window

I was teaching between three and five classes per day, five days a week. My students ranged in age between 13 and 53, or thereabouts. By this time, I largely stopped writing in the journal I'd brought with me to Prague simply because I could not keep up with the day-to-day happenings. (Back then, I didn't have the system for writing regularly that I do now.) My classes were mostly in the afternoons and evenings, so I spent my mornings preparing for the lessons. Some days, a lot happened that I could have (and should have!) written about. Other days were fairly mundane. That's life, isn't it? But it wasn't long until I started to get to know some of my students. Of course, what better way to get to know people and relax than to go to the pub!

My acquaintance with a man I shall call Pivo (beer) Brother A began in October 1994. His buddy and co-worker, who sat next to him in the same Friday afternoon class, was Pivo Brother B. The Pivo Brothers taught me almost everything I know about beer. But Pivo Brother A was the "pub leader", and he usually suggested and arranged the pub dates. They were about my age, although Pivo Brother A was a few years older. I will never forget that one Friday afternoon in class when Pivo Brother A broke the ice. Up till that point, the class had been very polite, diligent, and quiet. But that all changed when Pivo Brother A raised his hand. I called on him, assuming he had a question about verb tenses.

     "Yes?"

     "Mister Chris. We have a proposition. Let us go to the pub with you for just one beer."

Of course, the term "just one beer" is a bit of a misnomer; one in the Czech Republic does not go to the pub to drink "just one beer". So the following Friday afternoon, with Stan's blessings, our Friday the group met at a small pub in the center called U Havlinů, not far from the school. We met at the pub at precisely 3 pm., the time our lesson should have started. Soon, the other groups I taught arrived, and believe me, we did not stop at "just one beer"! While I certainly didn't expect the whole affair to end after one beer, I also didn't anticipate finishing at eleven pm., after eight pints of beer! Not wishing to be ill from the effects of too much beer, I decided it was wise to eat something with the beer. Most pubs serve little more than soup, bread, or even just potato chips or pretzels, so unless you start the pub crawl at a restaurant, you won't get a proper meal. At one or two pub meetings, the Pivo Brothers ran to the nearest shops--the bakery for some bread, and maso a uzeniny for salami or cold cuts--and returned, their arms ladened with bread rolls, ham, salami, and mustard. At our table, we constructed basic sandwiches which we had with the beer. "Czech sandwiches!" Pivo Brother A exclaimed.

We stayed basically until the pub closed and kicked us out. 

At U Havlinů with a number of my students. Pivo Brother A is at the far right, showing  "Czech sandwiches".

I rolled out of the pub with the other "survivors"--those who didn't have to go home and report to their wives or husbands before a certain hour--down the street to the Silver Club where we played billiards and staved off our hangovers as best we could with shots of Fernet Stock or Becherovka, the Czech equivalents of Jägermeister. The bitter liquor had a surprisingly wonderful, soothing effect on me, and the next morning I was not hungover.

The second noteworthy pub adventure came a few days before Christmas. I was due to go to stay with a friend in Germany for the holidays, and the night before my departure was really not the best time to pull a late nighter in the pub. However, I did not want to miss a pub adventure with my students and be labeled as an outcast! (The Pivo Brothers would tease me if I chickened out on a pub date or didn't drink more than two beers.) It was cold and there was a dusting of snow on the ground. 

We started in a restaurant (so I could eat!), drank one or two beers, then moved on to U Havlinů. As with the first pub meeting, students came and went, as their schedules permitted. Virtually all of my students of legal drinking age came by, even if only for a short time. Even the teenagers came for a soda or a cup of tea. At first, our table was small. But as more and more people showed up, we pushed together more tables to accommodate everyone. At the height of the evening, before the "early birds" had to report home, there must have been about twenty of us, gathered around the tables and quaffing beer. I believe the "survivors" ended up at the Silver Club again for more billiards and Becherovka. Merry Christmas hugs and kisses followed, each time one of the women had to leave, and for the men, it was fierce handshakes and bear hugs. I don't think I've ever kissed that many women at once--or ever. It was truly a Christmas celebration, and I was grateful for the warmth and camaraderie of these students and the people of Příbram.

The next morning, feeling very woozy, I packed my bags, took the Cup Tour bus one hour to Prague, and in the afternoon, caught a train for Germany, which got me to my destination in the far west of the country by midnight. I couldn't wait to get back to the Czech Republic after the New Year and party more at the pub.

Karel (je) Gott - The singer with the golden voice

Karel Gott is a sensation like no other in this part of the world. He is considered the most successful male vocalist in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. On July 14 this year, Gott celebrated his 80th birthday. Yesterday, October 1, 2019, we lost him to acute leukemia.

If you can imagine Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Frank Sinatra and maybe Neil Diamond all rolled into one, that is how I would describe Karel Gott, or Kaja, as he was affectionately known to his fans. He had it all: the looks, the voice, the charm, and the style. And he could sing across multiple genres, too. Gott won Czechoslovakia's and the Czech Republic's top music awards (Český Slavík--Czech Nightingale) a total of 41 times. He achieved measurable success outside Czechoslovakia, especially in the German-speaking countries. Even Poland has heard of Karel Gott. He supposedly sold up to 100 million records worldwide, with about a quarter of those in the German-speaking world.

Karel Gott was born in Plzeň (Pilsen, in the western part of what was Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) on July 14, 1939, and since the age of six he has lived in Prague. Initially, he wanted to study art, but he failed the entrance exams to UMPRUM (Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design) and so he began training as an electrician instead. He was working as an electrician in the late 1950s when he tried out at an amateur singing contest. However, he was not very successful. Later, he decided to train as a professional singer at the Prague Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera. Because he was also interested in jazz and popular musical trends, he was also trained in more contemporary musical styles. 

By 1962, Gott was singing professionally and released his first single on the Supraphon label: a duet with jazz singer Vlasta Průchová. He continued to take private singing lessons, despite leaving the conservatory, until 1966. As his popularity grew during the 1960s, he began composing his own songs and touring the country and abroad. By 1967, he was performing in Cannes, and a bit later, in Las Vegas. Gott went on to enjoy popularity on television, and he has made several appearances in films, often appearing as himself. 

In 1990, Karel Gott decided to retire from performing and gave a farewell tour. However, the tour was so popular that he was forced to reconsider his decision. By 1996, he re-established his popularity and won the Český Slavík every year but for one or two. He was awarded the Distinguished Merit Award by the Czech government in 2009, and in 2014, he released his autobiography in German Zwischen zwei Welten (Between Two Worlds). 

Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 2015, Karel Gott continued to remain active almost until his death. He enjoyed painting, and he exhibited his works in various galleries throughout Europe. He leaves behind two adult daughters from previous relationships and two younger daughters with his current spouse. This past year, Gott released a new song, sung as a duet, with his 13 year-old daughter Charlotte Ella Gottová. In less than a single day after its release, the YouTube video got hundreds of thousands of views, proving that the unmistakable voice of Karel Gott is still as popular as ever. Yes, Karel je Gott -- Karel is God. Kaja, may you rest in eternal peace.

A few Karel Gott singles from my collection

U Fleků - Friday, 19. August, 1994

Friday, 19. August, 1994--

It's pátek (Friday) already. The weekend is already here. Man, the time really flies, and I've been here only a week! Today should be considered historic, for it begins the first of my numerous pub crawls. This is, after all, a grand part of the culture, and one does not learn the culture by sitting back and watching it pass by!

The adventure began at U Fleků. This is an old, traditional pub dating back to the Middle Ages. It was just a year ago that I began getting ideas about going to the Czech Republic, so how appropriate that a year later I should find myself at the famed U Fleků.

Radka and I secured a table in the beer garden and we began gulping down our 11º beer.  (Czechs measure their beers in degrees. A 10º beer is about 4% percent alcohol by volume, 12º is about 5%, so 11º would be about 4.5% alcohol by volume.)  This was a nice dark beer, brewed right on the premises. And there were plenty of German tourists here. I think they come here to get cheaper (and dare I say better!) beer than they'd find back in Germany. A group of five older women--Czechs, most assuredly, sat in rumpled stockings at a table directly behind us. Let me tell you, they were having the time of their lives! They all must have been in their 80s, and all of them were already well-oiled, at least they were by the time we received our first beers. The waves of hysterical laughter that washed over the beer garden! In between the steady heaves and sighs of the "oom-pah-oom-pah" of the tuba playing polka music, the women's laughter rang as clear as a church bell on Sunday morning.

Before long, three Germans joined Radka and me at the end of our ridiculously long table. These men were having just as much fun as the 80-somethings were. The men's hysterics soon got Radka and me laughing too, and it was because of one of the men's corny facial expressions. He looked to be the eldest of the three and he was not particularly handsome. He introduced himself to us as Garbage Face. Enough beer will do that to you. A man dressed as Švejk was walking around the beer garden with a squeezebox. He sported an old Austrian-style uniform, with baggy military trousers and a frumpy grey cap. He strode past us, hugging and squeezing that dear old accordion, and he gave us a hearty "Ahoj!" Another man with a sousaphone wrapped around his body like a metallic boa constrictor about to devour him was dressed in similar World War I garb, and it was like 1918 all over again.

As the evening wore on, a few Czechs (who seemed to be among those who had not fled the city to escape the throngs of tourists) joined us as well. One of the men in this group had a round face, bulging green eyes, and a bow-like mouth. He looked quintessentially Czech to me, if you could call Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin's "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" skit quintessentially Czech. Nonetheless, for this man's charm, I had a warm impression of him. He was articulate, too, and he later offered to buy Radka and me a round of drinks. We offered him the shots of Schnapps our waiter had brought us as a courtesy. The man with the buggy green eyes gulped them down with a vengeance. When his own beer finally had arrived, he held it aloft to propose a toast, then put it down on the beer mat as his eyes were suddenly drawn to some imaginary speck on the wall. Suddenly he burst out laughing. His antics were hilarious, and he made a funny face as he lit up a cigarette. Finally, he went off into a long intellectual debate with his comrades as Radka and I went about drinking our beers.

Now my attention was focused back on the Germans. When at last it came time for them to settle their tab, they were in shock by the amount--it was well over 2,000 Czech crowns! The youngest of the three turned to us and said in crisp English, "I shan't be able to eat after this." He took a piece of bread from the basket on the table, wrapped it in a napkin, and slipped it inside his sport jacket. He proceeded to rummage through each and every coat pocket and his wallet for every scrap of spare change he could find. His buddies chipped in whatever they had, and when all their money had been accounted for, the man licked the tab and slapped it to his forehead. Everyone at the table burst out laughing, including Garbage Face. The younger man then added, "Ja! And Garbage Face is his nickname!"

After they paid the bill, the three Germans needed to ease their pain a little, so they asked the waiter for a final round of "medicine" (shots and a final round of beers for Radka and me). At last, U Fleků closed for the night and they set us all out on the street on our drunken keesters. We thanked Garbage Face and his colleagues for their hospitality and watched them stagger off in the opposite direction. The Czech man with the bulging green eyes and his party had already said their goodbyes and had gone.

 

The Good Soldier Švejk - Thursday, 18. August 1994

Thursday, 18. August 1994--

Yesterday I began reading Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, the quintessentially classic Czech novel about a little man who fights the bureaucracy using his wit, stupidity, and passive resistance. The story is based on  Hašek's real-life experiences during World War I and life under Austro-Hungarian monarchial rule. It's my hope that reading this book will give me an insight into Czech culture as well as its national character. 

Radka was ill yesterday and spent the day sleeping until 8 p.m. when I went to her dormitory to fetch her for dinner. She slept all day again today--probably a sore throat. I managed, thus, to get out quite a bit on my own. If I've learned one thing so far it is to pay in exact change in any restaurant. People will try to short change you if you pay in larger denominations. It also helps to get the receipt and count your change before leaving the establishment. That way, if you're shortchanged, you can be a stubborn Švejk and go to bat!

Strangely, I've met just two Czechs so far: Lukaš and Radka. I think everyone's out of town for their summer holidays. At least I was able to reach Stan, the director of the school in Příbram. Now that I've reached him, he can begin the paperwork for my visa.

There are a lot of nice-looking Czech ladies, but aside from Radka, I haven't met anyone yet. I understand it's not too difficult to meet a "Czech mate" unless you're a sociopathic loser. Nevertheless, Radka keeps teasing me that I'll meet a nice girl once I get to Příbram. 

I brought my (soprano) saxophone, but I haven't played it at all. I haven't even been listening to any of the music I brought with me, either. I suppose I ought to continue with music, but I really should invest some time in learning the rudiments of Czech.

Setting foot in the pub - Tuesday, 16. August 1994

Tuesday, 16. August 1994--

I have already been here (in Prague) five days and I haven't written a darned thing. It has been a strange yet exciting week. This is my first visit to a former communist country. I guess I've been so busy making adjustments and sightseeing that at night when I should be writing, I am simply too tired. Radka, my Czech penfriend, has also been kind enough to take me all over Prague to see the glorious sights. I feel oddly at home here. It's not an enthusiastic liking that I have for this place, but it's just cozy and comfortable. People are educated and cultured. I like that.

The Czech Republic is a country in the process of change. Like an adolescent, it is growing, maturing. There are new reforms taking place everyday. Buildings are being built or rebuilt. New businesses are springing up everywhere. Tourism is increasing at a dizzying rate, and the awkward, kitschy backwardness, which occurs when the old clashes with the new, is apparent everywhere.

Yesterday I got to talk with Lukaš, the owner of the flat I'm staying in which is located directly across the street from Anděl metro station. He lives in the flat with his wife, but I haven't seen either of them since the night of my arrival (August 11). He offered me a beer and we talked warmly. Nothing ecstatic happened until yesterday when my penfriend took me to see the Jewish Quarter of Prague, Franz Kafka's house, and the synagogue. I also tried telephoning Stan, my school director, in Příbram, where I'll be teaching, to tell him I'd arrived safely. However, the number I tried had been disconnected. Oh well! I'll send a fax instead. I need to get in touch with him so we can begin the process of obtaining my work visa.

As I walk through the neighborhoods of Prague, reminders of the forty-plus years of communism are everywhere. The stark Soviet-style metro system, the grey drab of apartment blocks, the buzz of the dysfunctional phone service, the Soviet-made streetcars, and the slow, mediocre, unenthusiastic service in the shops and restaurants. However, post-communist consumerism is taking root everywhere. You can see it in the youthful entrepreneurialism of small, upstart businesses; the privatization of what were once state-owned entities. Then there are the small self-conscious fashion boutiques, and the encroaching greed of two restaurants just three doors apart, jockeying for a few extra customers by offering the same cocktails at slightly differing prices. Everything is springing up in true Western fashion, and dare I say, in greed as well. I can only hope this Czech nation doesn't go the same selfish, materialistic route that the Western capitalist nations have. Sadly, something tells me that it will take the same path to ruin that some of the Western nations have. Yet, on the bright side, there are people eager to move forward, and that makes them likable to me. There appear to be relatively few grudges on the part of the Czech people towards their former Nazi enemies or their Soviet occupiers.

 

 

 

Memoirs of a Pub Adventure

Based on a diary I started keeping in the Czech Republic in August 1994, I came up with Memoirs of a Pub Adventure. There's so much culture in the Czech Republic built around the pub. I'd read some of Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk--in fact, I was reading it when I arrived in Prague, and a lot of that story takes place in pubs. In fact, it's said Hašek wrote some (or most?) of the story in the pub! Beer is a part of Czech life, and I'm always up for a good glass of beer, so it's natural my adventures, too, would include beer and pubs. 

Why the Czech Republic? This was a country I had no strong intention of visiting, much less working in. Rather, it came about as an alternative to the hassles of arranging a work permit in Italy, where I had really wanted to work. In 1994, the Czech Republic was a newly freed country and I wanted to give it a try. It was my first experience in a former communist country. And I loved it. 

The original journal from 1994 still exists, but in a box in my mother's garage back in Oregon. I only wrote in it for the first month or so after my arrival, and not necessarily on a daily basis. Then in 2001, while living in Poland, I came back to visit the Czech Republic, and with my friend Tomáš, I started another journal of adventures in the pub, various pub crawls, even notes about the kinds of beer I sampled, and so on. This, along with the original 1994 diary, plus subsequent other travel notes from around the Czech Republic, got smooshed together into the volume Memoirs of a Pub Adventure, which will start my Eurotraveller adventure.