Alright…so we left off in our final
night in Prague. Next stop on our European adventure was North-Western Czech
Republic. My grandma comes from a small town
called Kynšperk which is very close to the German border. When I say
‘small’, I don’t mean Hobart small, I mean one-shop small. Essentially the town
equivalent of me. I’d been communicating with my cousin, Little Liba, so my
family were expecting me at some point, but they are not the easiest people
with whom to make contact. At least, I thought they were expecting me.
(Also, I should clarify that Little Liba is the name we use to differentiate
between my cousin Liba, and her mother, Big Liba; likewise my uncle Big Mirek
and my cousin, Little Mirek.)
I was very sad to be leaving Prague,
but also excited to be seeing my family again, and more of Europe. What I was
not excited about was getting from Prague to Kynšperk (or even from our room to
the lobby) without my apparition licence. My bag is kind of big.When I
say ‘big’, I don’t mean "big" like a serve of Gold Class wedges, I
mean big like Greece’s economical and political problems. Let me put this into
perspective: I weigh 40 kilos and my bag weighs 20 kilos. Kaitlyn says I look
like a turtle. If I stand with my back to her, she can't see my head; I am
literally just a bag with legs. Pretty rank, muscly legs too, thanks to the
endless cobblestone-trekking thus far undertaken.
Somehow, we made it to the train
station and made our way to purchase tickets for our 10.20am train. As we
patiently waited and moved to the front of the queue, two (separate) people
literally shoved us out of the way and pushed in front of us. Advice From an
Objective Foreigner: Speaking on behalf of all tourists, we are aware that we
are tourists in your country. However, although we do not pay taxes, our visit
– in particular our predilection for drinking - has injected enough money into
your economy to warrant our position in a queue to be acknowledged. In other
words, I don’t give a shit that you live here, I was waiting first.
As cynical as I am, I have a tendency
to take everything I read on the Internet as Gospel (including my Facebook
relationship status which hints at a slightly less-depressing love-life). Just
because the online time-table says the train leaves at 10.20am, doesn’t mean it
does; it was one hell of a waddle to reach the 9.38am train on-time. As I was
attempting to navigate the steps without rocking backwards and landing on my
shell, I heard a whistle blow and, next thing I know, the train was pulling out
of the station. We eventually found a carriage which only had one other person
in it. And what a person she was – a really sunny, winning personality. Now I
am aware that I am somewhat notorious for my derisive and sarcastic nature, but
comparatively, I’m goddamn Sandra Dee. I have no idea what her name was, but
she was from Finland and had recently moved to the Czech Republic. When we
expressed positive sentiments about Finland, she looked at us like we were
insane. ‘It’s horrible. The most depressing place in the world. Don’t ever go.’
‘Oh…okay…’ Awkward.
Her delivery wasn’t even sarcastic,
but miserable and monotone. ‘It’s just f$!@ing awful. If I’d stayed there any
longer I would have died. I would have killed myself. Talking about it makes me
want to kill myself.’ Okay, then let’s stop talking about it. Turns out
"F$!@ing Finland" wasn’t
the only thing that made her depressed. In fact, I don’t think anything didn’t.
The twenty cent coffee she brought on
the train: ‘This coffee is horrible. I think drinking it might kill me.’
The nice Czech lady who sold her the
allegedly horrifying coffee: ‘Why is she so
f$!@ing happy?’
The temperature on the train: ‘It is
so hot in here. I just want to kill myself so I am not hot anymore.’
When we were approaching her stop, I
offered to help her carry her stuff off the train. (I promise it was because I
believe in "paying it forward", and not because I wanted to push her
off and make all her dreams come true.) As we pulled into the station, I
mentioned to her that this town was the only town in the Czech Republic to
suffer any extensive damage during the War. ‘Oh good. It looks f$!@ing ugly.
All the ugly buildings will remind me of being in Finland. I won’t get
homesick.’ I guess one could consider this a glass-half-full view of the
situation.
It was nice to have the carriage to
ourselves so we could openly discuss all the good which exists in the world and
not fear assassination. However, all too soon our train trip was over and we
arrived in Kynšperk . My family – the Wolfs – run the solitary shop in the
town, so when I’ve been there in the past, I’ve just arrived at the shop
because there is always
someone there. Despite having not
been able to get in contact with Little Liba that morning, I said to Kailtyn
we’d be fine to rock up to the shop. It was one of the very few times in my
life I was wrong. Because of my cousin’s wedding, there was a big sign in the
window declaring the shop closed until Monday. And it wasn’t as if I could duck
into Macca’s and use the free Wifi to Facebook her. (This town is yet to even
experience the wonder that is dial-up Internet.) Hoping there would be someone
in the building (they live above the shop), I knocked on the door…but there was
nada. So we lumbered across the road to a park bench and sat. And waited. Keep
in mind it was a 39 degree day, and this was right about lunch time.
Looking back, the whole situation was
kind of funny. At the time, it was not. Sitting there in this tiny town (in the
country where Hostel was filmed), having nowhere to go, having no phone,
no food, no alcohol…then, suddenly, we weren’t alone. We heard this low,
humming
sound. Kaitlyn looked at me. ‘What
the [hell] is that?’
‘I have no idea….’ I didn’t share
these thoughts with her at the time, but it did momentarily flash through my
mind: Eastern European country, on the German border… The humming sound began
to get louder and louder, but we still couldn’t see anything. Even I was
starting to get a little concerned.
‘Seriously – what the [HELL] is
that?’ Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the wall opposite us. Then about 100
metres away, this man on a motorised wheelchair emerged from around the corner.
As he progressed towards us, it was one of those inappropriately amusing
moments when we looked at each other and tried not to laugh. Then it stopped
being inappropriately amusing and became quite scary. As he neared us, he
slowed right down for the last ten metres, before coming to a complete stop in
front of us. And then he just stared. And it wasn’t a friendly
who-are-these-new-people-in-town kind of a stare, it was a
would-it-be-worth-the-bother-transporting-these-girls-back-to-my-rape-dungeon
kind of stare. I thought I’d try and break the ice. ‘Ahoj’ (hello). Nothing.
Just more staring and silence. And that was the best I had as, in recent years,
my Czech has fallen by the wayside.Not that it mattered - what else could I
have possibly said to him? ‘My family live here and we are just visiting, so
please don’t go Jack-The-Ripper on us’? ‘These earrings aren’t at all valuable
– they were $5.95 from Diva…but you can have them if you really want.’? He
continued to look from Kaitlyn to me; I continued to look from him to Kailtyn;
Kaitlyn continued to look from me to him. And then he put his chair back into
gear and slowly continued his way up the road.
And he was the only sign of life we
saw for a half hour. Kaitlyn even said to me at one point, ‘I keep expecting a
tumbleweed to come rolling down the street past us.’ Either that or John Wayne
on a horse to save the day. Then I had an epiphany – aka employed some common
sense. And I went and rang the doorbell on the front door. Instant
reaction…only not the one I was looking for. Jacob, my cousin, opened the
window above and bellowed down what I believe was a terse message of ‘The shop
is closed for the day’. I yelled back in really simplified English – ‘Jacob!
It’s Claire. From Australia.’ He just stared at me. Clearly he did not
recognise me…which made sense seeing as last time he saw me he was running
around in the back garden naked. He shut the window and for a few moments I
thought we might be top-and-tailing the night on the park bench…or trying to
track down Jack to see if we could sleep in his torture chamber. Then my aunt
appeared. She too appeared to not recognise me for a moment – probably because
I haven’t grown at all since she last time saw me. Whether or not Little
Liba had told anyone we were coming, I will never know, but I guess it is
entirely possible my general vagueness is genetic.
Big Liba ushered us inside and
simultaneously phoned Little Liba and rustled together an enormous plate of
food for us. Then she sat down at the table with us and we embarked on a series
of crazy hand gestures as a form of communication. When I said my Czech has "fallen
by the wayside" in recent years, my current skill-level is probably best
defined as "virtually non-existent" or, even more accurately,
"shit-house". So when Big Liba’s friend turned up to do her washing
(the few words I could understand, coupled with the fact this lady arrived
armed with a basketful of clothes and placed them in the washing machine
allowed me to ascertain this), it was a welcome relief…at least initially. It
was good to begin with as we were able to use broken Czech, beyond-broken English,
and an iPhone dictionary to have some meaningless conversation, the highlight
of which went a little something like this:
BLF (Big Liba’s Friend): ‘You are
very brave travelling all this way from Australia.’
Claire: ‘Ummm….yes and no…’
BLF: ‘How old are you?’
Claire: ‘24’
BLF: Jaw hitting floor and eyebrows
hitting ceiling.
'24? No?!’
Claire: Ano (confusingly this means
‘yes’ in Czech)
BLF: ‘I thought you were maybe 15.’
Claire: (Internally: You and everyone
else.)
With the pleasantries over, our party
of silence continued. Any observer would have been forgiven for mistaking our
shindig for a Quaker Gathering. Then finally, after what seemed like hours, but
was realistically only about a half hour, Little Liba arrived. Problem:
although better than my Czech, the break between visits had caused a slight
rusting of her bilingual skills. It didn’t take me long to realise our visit
had all the makings of a terrible sitcom. More awkward, broken conversation
ensued, and for the third time we had the same fragmented conversation about
where we had been, where we were going, how long for, where we met, how I look
like a child, what we studied at uni.
By the time we started walking back,
it must have reached - if not exceeded - the predicted maximum of 39 degrees.
It was freaking hot. Another thing about male Czechs – particularly those in
this village – is that they are as fond of going shirtless as their female
counterparts are of ill-fitting, tight white lycra pants. And I’m totes down
with this when a guy looks like Christian Bale or Mark Salling…but let’s just
say my predisposition for a protruding ribcage does not come from this side of
my gene pool. My fondness for beer, on the other hand, clearly does, which
brings us nicely back to the quaint, rural scene in which we were all sitting
in the sun around a wooden table, drinking beer and using the alcohol to break
down the barriers of our language differences. Except for poor Kaitlyn, who
does not enjoy beer in the slightest. After politely declining their offer of
some local pivo, she asked if she could have some water. They were more
than happy to oblige. I too had some water, only mine came courtesy of
Kaitlyn’s oral cavity, as she sprayed my face and upper body with a mouthful.
Turns out the water she had was "Czech Water" – an entire glass of
pure, home-brewed vodka. One might think this is a nasty trick but, in reality,
it is simply completely incomprehensible for my family that someone would not
want to drink.
Now, according to the gentleman who
took my Responsible Service of Alcohol course, the only thing that can sober a
person up is time; not coffee, not water, not a cold shower – just time. I,
however, beg to differ. After a couple of nice, cold beers in the sun, I was on
that magnificent precipice of buzzed and tipsy. Then my little cousins, Adelka
and Lucka, brought over some rabbits for us to pat. After playing with them for
a couple of minutes, and learning that their names were Susie and Ferdinand, I asked
whose pet was whose. Turns out Susie and Ferdinand were dinner, and with that,
two of the shirtless men took them around the back of the shed, whilst a third
followed with some tools. I can assure Mr RSA that this sobered me up better
than any 4.00am kebab and a twelve -our sleep-in ever could.
Next time on ‘Culture Shock: Two Urban Aussies In Rural Czech Republic’, we avoid eating Susie and Ferdinand, spend a day in a spa town, attempt to cope without the Internet, watch Big Liba’s Friend become Big Leaching Friend, and celebrate as Kaitlyn and her liver embrace living like an Eastern European wog.
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