Travelling is good for you: Prague in 1991

I have been a habitual traveller to Prague since 1991 and since then, I have never looked for a new country to travel to. I used to teach English there every year in what is called the Southern Town, or Jizni Mesto. This area was built by the Communists and looks comparible to a surrealistic, H.G.Wells-like district where the houses are all grouped together like a pile of supermarket boxes that have been scattered over the floor. This is by far not a reasonable example to lead by in explaining the shape of Prague. This city has virtually remained intact since its construction. Its name in Czech means "Threshold", and was the result of a combination of villages, the oldest being Brevnov to the east of where the centre is.

When I arrived for the first time, through coincidence, I went by hitch-hiking from Dunkirk. Normally I needed to get a train to Oostende and one of those old ricketty communist period buses to Prague. You know the kind - where to turn on the air conditioning, you ask your neighbour if he minds opening the slide window. I was very lucky to find two Germans on the boat who would drive me to Dresden, before I took a train. The whole journey cost me £10. At Holesovice Station in the North, I took one look at the surroundings and thought about taking the next train to Budapest. I was, though, there on a mission. A Czech girl, Renata, whom I was madly in love with, ordered me to give an important message to her fiancé, a Palestinian called Farid. Renata was at that time an Au Pair and well-loved expert at ironing in our house as well as every other one in the neighbourhood. It was then that the easiness of travelling around this city was not as simple as I imagined at first glance. It seemed that I had been commandeered by a taxi driver who virtually begged me to let him take me to my destination: Holland Street, No.23. I had arrived there 7 hours earlier than planned, and so it was early morning.

My hostess, a Czech lady with sunken eyes from being woken up by a bell that would fit perfectly on a French Police car, invited me in. She knew Renata from England where they both worked in the same castle as general slaves to the Indian masters. She offered me a drink, but I declined due to all the rumours of people who had heard rumours from the people who had heard rumours about the state of the drinks (I was the only one who actually went there to find out for myself). After breakfast, I went to visit Farid, the Palestinian whose girl I wanted to run away with. I had only seen him on a photo and when I was given directions to his house, including a cable car, I was starting to wonder about this place. I took Tram 22 to Ujezd and then a cable car. When I fumbled with my ticket, and worked out that I should not hand it to the unsociable guard who thought I was German but insisted on talking Czech, I climbed into the "Lanovka". By the top, I was speechless. On the left was the Hradcany, on the right the Vyšehrad and in front of me, the most exquisite museum of architecture anywhere in the world. Having found Farid in the halls of residence where he lived, I almost started to cry. I wanted to hate him, he wanted me to stay in his room as guest of honour - for the whole month. We had so much fun together with the other Arabs that I forgot very quickly about my vendetta for the love of Renata. In Prague, I was told, there are three women to every man. In the evening, we were invited to a disco. Never in my life had I been ill through an adrenaline attack. When they sobered me up with a litre of Prazdroj, now one of the beers I will always treasure, they told me this was the usual look of Czech women - simply outstanding to the point of fainting.

The next day, I discovered the place where I should have been born. Farid personally took me to every place of interest there was (He was an architecture student at the Technical University so I was in good hands). I had discovered a great and lasting friendship from my curiosity about Renata's love life. During the next month, I had seen every building in Prague, knew its history, and how to get to it. I blended into the Czech crowd like a sugar crystal into hot water.

After two weeks, though, I fell out of that category for a split second. It was my birthday, and I was invited out by another Palestinian and his girlfriend. In the restaurant was a waitress, Lucie, who took my heart. She spoke only Czech, but my own ability in the language allowed us to have a slight understanding. She also spoke a smattering of German which made it easier. She asked me for English lessons, and I asked her for a date. The following morning, we met at the National Theatre. While I waited for her to turn up, a Polish money changer came wandering up to me and asked me to change with him. I, with the sly grin of someone metamorphosing from an astute businessman to a destitute tinpot beggar, said yes, and he conjured up a hundred crowns and three notes amounting to sixty Polish zlotys, about 0.001p. Despite showing me the lovely money, he somehow managed to switch it in his hand so I was left with bugger all. My mood changed instantly three times in eight minutes, for Lucie, the girl who could pass for Claudia Schiffer's more beautiful younger sister, swanned around the corner and saw me with worry all over my face. I looked like a pleading fawn when I finished telling her the story and she immediately bought me a drink in a cafe around the corner. I felt so ridiculous.

The next two weeks seemed to last for ages. I met Chuck, an Australian author living in California. His story was more desperate than mine. Chuck was travelling around Europe with two women. He and I became friends immediately and when he left to go by train to Vienna with them, we knew we would not see each other again.... until six hours later when I met him in the car park looking decidedly shaken. He told me what happened: they boarded the train with their passports and visas when there were five minutes to go. The women asked him to buy a bottle of water from the shop, and the train decided to leave four minutes earlier. All he had in the world were his clothes, an alcoholics anonymous contact card and 200 crowns. After three days, and hours of phoning every embassy and foreign ministry involved, as far and wide as the USA, Australia and Austria, we located his luggage and visas: in a locker in Vienna Hauptbahnhof. Where were the women? In Vienna? No. We discovered that they were visiting friends in Paris, with the ticket to get his things out. Then, we phoned his brother in Australia to send him some cash through American Express. When we went the next morning to collect it, the cashier ended the hope and excitement of sending me on an all expenses paid mission to Paris and Vienna by saying: "Passport, please." What was even more ironic, was that he had some more luggage in a locker in Pilsen, and the only way to get that out was with a ticket tucked inside his jacket pocket next to his visa in Vienna. Prague is exciting, and you can just about travel around it without paying, but do not fall for tricks and do not hope for too much from the people in the street: they have this uncanny ability to hit you around the face without touching you. After that, while walking around the city, we saw an Indian restaurant - the only one in Prague at that time. Chuck murmured, "ooh, it reminds me of home."

For the next week and a half, I was completely broke, to the extent that I succumbed to leaving my political non-alignment and temporarily joined the ranks of raw capitalism. I decided to show the rather naïve Czechs what it really was. I noticed they were the most lethargic people of any nation I had ever met. For instance, in London or Paris, people rush about on the Metropolitan railways as if they were heading for the last train out of hell. And if a train comes into a station, everybody surges forward like it was Saturday afternoon at the Kop in Liverpool stadium. Not in Prague. On the Prague Metro, if a train was coming in, they would keep standing on the moving escalator until they arrive at the bottom and then they would run, all missing the train together. Anyway, back to the point. Chuck and I were in deep need of some money. So, at the hostel where Farid lived, we decided to ask the manager of the small bar if we could take over the food department. All they had to offer was hranolky (or two teaspoons of plain, thin, tasteless sticks doing impersonations of potato chips) with Párek (a grilled piece of unrecognisable meat in the shape of a mutilated sausage). I said to them that we would be able to cook some other, less unappetising meals for the hungry traveller. Chuck and I put together our last money, 100 crowns, and proceeded to the slop shop (it was called this by the English Native speakers as it contained the ugliest foods (and cashiers) available on this planet.

That day, our plan to earn money took a vast step up. We bought some pasta, some eggs and some milk. We used Farid's herbs and his dishes, and so, having taken the food out to the bar, we sat and ate it there and then. That was the plan... Because shortly after a passing group of five Catalan people virtually got on their knees to ask us to cook some more for them. They gave us some money and we cooked them something. After that, a whole flood of customers barraged their way into our restaurant. The Czechs stood by as if they had never noticed this going on before. It was virtually incomprehensible to them, and yet, they were becoming more capitalistic than the capitalists. Václav Klaus, the Prime Minister, at one time, even told the British government how it should operate itself (actually, any nation has better methods than the British government of the late 80s and early 90s). Even the people were becoming thieves. I suppose they could not believe us because our capitalism was honest, a hard afternoon's graft. The Czechs were only used to the idea of ripping the foreigners off and running away with as much money as they could. In the centre of Prague, prices were sometimes five times higher than just 100 metres outside the centre. Chuck and I earned a reasonable wage which allowed me to get a ticket home in time for college.

I decided to leave Prague on the next bus, with an extra £20 that I borrowed from David Vaughan, the husband of Renata's best friend. During the course of the next few months, Prague was in my mind day after day. It was even more special than any other place I had visited. I met a lady, Eva Poncova, who promised to find me a job. I thought it would be highly impossible that I would get one, and promptly forgot about it. In June of the next year, it was my mother who telephoned me to tell me that I had to work all week to earn some money, as I had been offered a job the week after in Prague. I hastily arrived in my city, where a lady, Drahomira Kolarova, whose name was kinder, or rather less sadistic than her character, said I was to stay with a spooky lady who neither she nor I had met. The next morning, I was to start work at eight and finish at one. I would repeat this for two weeks, where at the end, my salary, lower than the other teachers as I was unqualified, would be given to me.

I reluctantly fell out of bed at half past seven and found myself perched up against the door at the school where Mrs Kolárová was counting how many seconds late I was. She went berserk when I had the gall to say "Good Morning", and smile. She eyed me up the passage and into the classroom. I quickly closed the door to her and taught the class. During the break, I invited some of the class to the pub, called "Stodola". In particular, a German lady called Grit, a boy called Honza and the cutest girl I had ever laid my eyes on, Dana. Very quickly, we started to eye each other up in the class, highly unprofessional. Then one afternoon, after a mammoth drinking session at "Stodola", it all fell into place. When Drahomira Devil Woman found out, I think her body hair must have fallen out. All day, she mulled around like she was scouring the floor for it.

She hated my teaching methods, as I never used text books because I hardly ever benefited from them when I was a pupil, never gave homework as it made the subjects I was studying become boring, and my class without doubt had the largest attendence of all of the twenty-odd classes. What's more, every member of my class passed the tests set (except one, but she was a dropout). I was also the only teacher to receive a present from the whole class at the end of the fortnight. This proved to me that I should never listen to another teacher's advice about how to teach a language. I now had enough evidence of my own to prove it. When I asked the class on the last day how old they thought I was, I had a response of 24, 25, 22, 31 and 27. There was a large wave of shock when it was revealed that I was 19. I realised I had achieved something that not many other people of my age had done or were likely to do.

Grit, the German lady with a laugh like a drainpipe, and the best humour for miles around, asked me to live at her house. I could eat, drink, have the spare bed, and take hot showers when I wanted, as long as I taught her daughter English. She would even pay me 100 crowns per hour for the privilege. I obliged, and moved in immediately, as the place I stayed in before with this other woman, contained a truant daughter with a penchant for drugs and nocturnal violence. She had a good brain, but never used it. She was offered a free place in Mensa, but turned it down to go and get herself a tattoo (which her mother discovered on Christmas Day of that year). Then, she would wait up for me to come home, so it would be unreasonable of me to come back at three in the morning. I therefore decided to stay at Farid's house when I was late. Nevertheless, Grit and her angry daughter with the care of a mother deer yet the spitefulness of a jealous buck let me stay there. We had wine on the balcony on barmy nights and beer when I asked. Grit looked after me like her own son. I did not show the full gratefulness I should have. The clique from the leftovers of the class was so intensely close that we all had nicknames. All in all, we used to hang around Stodola. Then came the fateful day when Dana went to the countryside. She went every year with her parents to this little village called Castrov, near Kamenice nad Lipou in south Bohemia. I stayed in Prague moping. She would not be back for another month. Therefore, I had to stay and eye up other girls in night clubs with Farid and his gang.

My pittance lasted three months, whereas in the UK it would have lasted a round at the pub and a packet of peanuts. And in those three months most of my basic university of life education was gained. The Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia as it was then, is not the same place as it was in those wild days before they became just like any old Europeans, but Prague is still the place I visit most, still the only place I feel at home, still the place I leave in tears each time, and yet I will never live there. I have an apartment there in the suburbs but it will be forever my pied à terre because I would never quit my beautiful job here in Belgium.

If you are visiting Prague, take a look at the selection of photos I made:
http://www.goslitski.net/template.cfm?action=prague
and if you want some advice on what to see and do, feel free to contact me.