Czech Holiday

I packed fervently, excited for my first weekend away from work in Munich. I had been in Germany now for 4 months, it had been a stressful experience. I was ready for a weekend of time spent with an old friend, looking forward to meeting new friends and seeing something new. I was catching the 9:00 AM train going to the Czech Republic, I would be in Pilsen around 2:00 PM, the same day.  As I was dropped off at the Munich Hauptbahnhoff, my boss warned of getting to drunk, and told me to have a good weekend. I pulled my backpack up on my shoulders and tromped through the slushy snow at the train station.
     
    I got my own compartment, cranked the heater to get the chilly weather out of the leather seats. I had begun that morning with the hopes of being completely alone and silent on the trip down to the C.R. Just me and my Ipod, a beer (yes it was morning) and some silent window watching. This however was not the case whatsoever.  Just as the train was pulling out of the station, a couple smiled and popped their heads in, “Oy, you got room in here mate?” I smiled in acknowledgment of the completely empty compartment around me. The two made their presence known with the grace of an elephant walking through a garden.
    I noticed through my earphones a muffled sound of groaning and complaining coming from the young Aussie. His girlfriend just scowled at him, rolled her eyes and said, ‘You know it aint my fault! You’re the one who couldn't resist the Hauffbrauhaus challenge. You were bloody well pissed last night!” She saw me eyeing them, and smiled. I couldnt help myself and took the earplugs out to get the juicy details of this poor boys demise at the taps of the famed Hauffbrauhaus. The boy grabbed his stomach, tossed his dirty truckers hat to the side revealing a mass of matted, not very well groomed blonde dreads. “Ohhh s**t!” we heard him dashing though the small walkway of the jostling train to the facilities.
    The girlfriend just started laughing, “You know, the beer here is a bit stronger and hell of a lot better tasting then we have down in Australia?” I shook my head, “I had no idea, I thought you all drank down there?” she laughed in reply, “Yeah, a lot of people think that. I mean it is not necessarily not true, but down there, eh, you gotta drink a hell of a lot more then you do here to get pissed. I don't drink, I don't like the taste of it, but I drank for the first time last night...you know the Hauffbrauhaus? Yeah, who doesn't right? Well...anyway, we got this flyer, right? It was a pub crawl, well we’re on holiday, ya know? So naturally my boy here, he decided we’re up for it....well here we are now, he’s in there hugging that disgusting toilet, he puked in the trash can at the station, and we have another 8 hours on this jostling train!”
    She said all this with a smile, she spoke really fast and the entire time she was digging furiously through her small travel purse/backpack. He on the other hand, had returned from the bathroom, looking retched. His eyes bloodshot and puffy looked pained and tired. “I don't know if its a good thing, but I just don't have nothing to puke you know?”  Rubbing his stomach with one hand, and replacing his dirty truckers hat with the other he asked me where I was headed. I explained to them that I was on my way to a friends in Pilsen. I had met him in Alaska during a summer job, and now I was a weekend holiday from work. They were on a European jaunt following a death metal band, their next stop was Prague. We spent the remaining ride swapping stories about various adventures, asking and answering each others preconceived notions about one another cultures. When it was time for me to leave, we hugged and wished each other good travels.
    I hopped down the steps on to the Pilsen translation platform. Looking around, the building in front of me was big and grey with green signs and there were a lot of people standing around, against the walls. I spotted my buddy Michal sauntering up the platform, smiling his goofy sheepish smile. We hugged and looked at each other, and hugged again, we hadn't seen each other in almost 5 months. He said in his matter of fact way, “So, we go now to get a drink, and if you are hungry we will do that as well?” I smiled and told him that this was his weekend to show me everything that he wanted me to leave with from the C.R. I was coming to him as a clean slate, I had no expectations or fears of what to expect. All I had been told about the Czech Republic was that there may still be some white supremacy issues. I was relatively unconcerned about this as far as my safety goes, because even though it is a problem still in Europe, I had no intentions of including myself in anything that would remotely include me in any type of that environment.
    We walked from the train station across a bridge, with Michal pointing buildings out and giving a brief history or interesting fact about it. It was great to see him, it was great to see how excited he got when describing the history of his country. Walking was slow going because of the immense amount of snow on the ground. I asked him about why there was no service to take the snow away, like they did in Germany. He just shrugged and told me that the state will not pay for those services, if a store owner wants their walk to be clear then they can pay for someone to come and clean it, or they can do it themselves. But as far as the social services that other countries have, the government in the C.R. just did not have the funding.
    We made our way to the local pub around the corner from his house, where we enjoyed several frosty Pilsner s. Feeling nicely buzzed we slipped and slid our way to his apartment that he shared with several other college students. After a cup of really really strong coffee, we ventured back out for some more ‘sightseeing’. It is at this point where my memory starts to become quite heavily impaired. We made our way around town starting at a nice quiet pub, which if I remember correctly, we decided to leave because it was a bit too quiet. Or was it that we were not quiet enough?  Like I said, I remember very limited details about my first night with Michal exploring Pilsen. The following is the best I can do from putting facts together through an odd camera roll, and foggy memories.
    After the quiet pub, we walked through the streets in the snow, finding ourselves in a small bakery. He picked out a favorite snack of his and had me buy one for myself, and I bought some candy for the little kids in Germany. We stepped outside, and I wholeheartedly  bit into the wafer snack I had bought. With shock, I bit into a very dry and not very flavorful thing that tasted very much like the Holy Eucharist smeared with chocolate. I laughed out loud, saying, “Oh holy s**t, why am I eating this! I thought this was chocolate!” I have to admit, that I have become quite spoiled when it comes to my chocolate consumption.  As we made our way through the streets to various pubs, we became increasingly loud and rowdy. It was a fun change from my usual outings in Germany, we laughed and walked down the middle of the streets yelling jokes at random people.
    There was a point in the middle of our night that we were on our way through the main square and garden/park, that we stopped to talk to a friend. It was during this little interlude in the park, that I chose to show off my alcohol inspired singing talents. Im not entirely sure of my set list, but apparently I got quite a few fans standing in the snow covered park. This is one of those times that I wish I had not been quite so drunk, I wish I had my faculties about me to at least take some pictures. Moving on through town, we slipped our way back towards his house, when we were stopped by a cute couple of old women walking through town. They insisted on taking our pictures, and it was not until the next morning that I realized how goofy we had been. My camera had been happily switched into party mood, and there were about six pictures of Michal and I posing in odd positions that looked very regal if it had not been for our goofy faces giving us away.
    The next morning, after our night had been slept off, Michal took me to a small restaurant down the street from his house, where we ate a wonderful bowl of soup that immediately took the harsh feeling of our previous night out of my body. The soup had a beautiful oily broth with a wonderful reddish brown color. The broth is of beef stock, with small liver dumplings and vegetables. Michal said that this dish is one that is definitely a staple of the Czech diet, not only for the hangover remedy, but especially in the winter time. Early in the morning, the bakeries are full of customers getting their daily bread. Even with the amount of snow on the ground, the squares were quite full, especially the square with our next sightseeing attraction.