Changing Travel Blogs
Learn about our performances and adventures by reading our travel blog. Greathouse of Music has created many original compositions and performed European folk music, which has been recognized worldwide. After growing up in music households, we have had a lifetime to connect through music with each other—Helena and Mark—and the public. From accordion solos to classical modern vocals with choreography, each of our shows is unique and highlights our strengths as performers, with Helena singing and Mark playing the accordion.
One of the reasons why our performances are memorable and original is due to the stories behind the music. Since meeting in the fall of 1968, we have lived many adventures and experiences that inspired our travel blog. Not only did we meet in Germany, but we have been lucky to visit other countries in Europe and South America, learning about their cultures and sharing our beautiful music.
Visiting different towns, we were inspired to write about humorous experiences to share with people who have followed us for years or recently. Get to know us better by reading or listening to our stories below. For more information about our unforgettable travel blogs or to book a Czech and Slovak performance, contact us today.
Audio
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Introduction:
This mostly non-musical page will include adventures that we experienced over the course of many years as we traveled to various places on five continents. In each instance, we wrote the material either during or very shortly after the travels ended. The locations are mostly, but not exclusively, in the Czech Republic or Brazil, where our families and relatives are located. These blogs or write-ups were written in the years indicated and may, from time to time, include some musical interludes or vocal commentaries just to make things more interesting. The write-ups will appear sporadically but hopefully at intervals of two to four weeks. Hopefully! These write-ups focus on incidents, often humorous, that actually occurred during our various trips abroad. Enjoy. We’ll begin in 2003.
Czech Republic, September 2003 - ON THE AIR, OVER THE WAVES
Helena was a singer from a young age and has performance in her blood. If you knew her passion to perform in front of others as I do, you would perhaps wonder where this sense came from. Some people guess and say it's just a strong ego, or a certain self-centered nature. But if you really knew, you would know that at an early age, she started to sing, encouraged by her mother, and this drive to perform and be in the spotlight has remained and carried, I'm sure, into other realms.
The story of Helena's musical career became clearer to me yesterday, when she said that she had heard on the radio that there would be an "open house" in Prague/Karlin on Sept 6, one of the ten districts of Prague, in one of the two buildings where she sang with a children's choir on the radio between ages 7-11. We took the Metro to Invalidovna (The name has remained as a memorial to the location where there was once a hospital serving those wounded in WW1). We were not sure exactly where the building was since Helena said she had not been back since the days when she sang there. She remembered there was a large park nearby, so we headed in that direction. Soon we heard rock music being played in the distance. Helena knew we were going in the right direction, and soon we were there. The building looked like a huge villa with a large, open back yard, where there was a musical group playing to an audience of perhaps a hundred.
We went in the front entrance and noticed on one of the back walls a plaque on which was written that in May 1921 the Communist party of Czechoslovakia was founded in this building. We then went to a small viewing area in the main foyer and saw a twenty-minute video of the destruction in Prague from last year's flood, specifically to the radio station. This was the building's worst crisis since its construction. We wandered around the first floor, which was featuring on display the various studios and offices. After a short while left the tour route in the building. Helena remembered singing in one of the studios many times, but, of course, the entire building had been rebuilt following the flood, and she could not exactly identify where the studio was. As we left the premises via the garden to the rear of the building, where the live music was going on, Helena read to me a bit about the history of this building from some information we were handed. I'll include some of it below. This was one of several "National Houses" in Prague, (more exactly in English, "community centers"), where people would assemble to hear concerts, attend dances, see exhibitions, hear lectures, etc. It also housed two restaurants (one a garden restaurant with a capacity of 2000), a wine cellar, a snack bar, a pool hall, a bowling alley, two theaters, and meeting rooms. It was completed in June 1911 to serve the city of Karlin (Karlin became incorporated into Prague after WWI). Local political leaders made sure local contractors from Karlin built the center. It had modern facilities including electricity and central heating. Just before WWII the Czech National Radio purchased the building as a secondary location, and during the German occupation (1939-1945) it was used by the Germans for their broadcasting purposes. After the war it was once again available for use by Czechoslovak National Radio. Since 1990 Czech National Radio appropriated the National House in Karlin specifically to do regional programming for Prague and the immediate surrounding area. This station is called "Regina" (adapted from the anglicized word "region", meaning local or regional), which as we could observe is alive and healthy. Since the flood of August 2002, the station had to be relocated for 293 days only to be resumed in the National House in June 2003. - one
This former "National House" is probably typical of the others in Prague. A little about their locations in the various districts: Prague originally consisted only of four districts from early times (The city was allegedly settled in the 6th century by two Slav tribes, each on opposite sides of a particularly appealing stretch of the Vltava River where the Prague Castle stands today and the other not far away at a location on a hill called Vysehrad.) The old parts of Prague are Stare Mesto (Old Town), Nove Mesto (New Town), Mala Strana (Lesser Quarters), and Hradcany (vicinity of Prague Castle). Later small villages such as Karlin merged with the growing city of Prague and still retain their names. Other districts, with their National Houses, became incorporated into Prague over the years.
So, what did Helena sing on the radio? She was a member of the Czechoslovak Radio Children's Choir, and they sang mostly children's songs, folklore as well as classical music. (Besides the tapings the choir gave live concerts in many of Prague's most famous concert halls, for example in the famous Smetana Hall of the Municipal House -- Prague's biggest concert hall).
The radio tapings were made either in the main radio building near Wenceslas Square in Prague or in the National House in Karlin. The main radio building has always been located directly behind the National Museum on Wenceslas Square. This radio station has had a very interesting recent history both during WWII as well as during the Soviet invasion in 1968.
On May 5, 1945, at the end of WWII in Prague there was an uprising of the Czech people against the Germans. The Czech rebels secured the radio building in Prague and were calling for help to abroad, as well as directing the fights on barricades throughout the city. This uprising lasted until 9th of May, when the Soviet Red Army arrived from Berlin and liberated Prague.
In 1968 the Soviet role reversed itself from being the liberator to being the occupier. If you look at the National Museum today, you will see repair work, which has been done all over the front of the National Museum. These are patched-up bullet holes from the shooting by Soviet tanks following the August 21, 1968 invasion. Helena thought: "That is such a shame. This looks like in some Latin American country after some military coup or something and yet, this is in the middle of Europe!"
The reason why the Soviet army was shooting at the Museum was, that they had mistaken it for the radio building, which was only about two blocks away. The radio was organizing the people. As soon as it was clear that the Soviet Armies were coming, the radio station said, "Take all the street signs down!" So even before the Soviet army reached Prague, the street signs had disappeared, and the Soviet soldiers did not know which streets they were on. Therefore, in confusion they were shooting at the museum, rather than at the radio station. Then the radio said, "Everybody dress in black and walk, do not use any transportation!" You can imagine the picture: the whole nation dressed in black and walking. Nobody used any cars, streetcars, busses -- just walking. The whole nation was walking, dressed in black, and discussing with the Soviet soldiers on the tanks (the Russian language had been taught in Czechoslovak schools since the 4th grade at that time), trying to explain to them, that they were making a big mistake. (As a reaction to the "educational campaign" through discussions with the Soviet soldiers, some Russian- speaking soldiers were soon replaced by non-Russian- speaking soldiers from Asian Soviet republics to create a language barrier.)
Just as a footnote, Helena and I met one of the Soviet soldiers in Portland, Oregon, about 25 years later. He was the husband of one of the Russian coaches who coached gymnastics in Portland. He told us that in 1968 he was an 18 years old soldier in Prague on a tank and totally scared. He said the soldiers did not even know at first where they were. They did not know who was going to shoot at them or from which direction. He said the Czech population was telling them they were making a mistake, and the soldiers were actually listening to the population. Hearing them apparently changed this guy, and he started to pretend he was mentally ill. He played the role so well, that, surprisingly, the Soviet Army doctors believed him and sent him home: he was out of it. It turned out that he was one of the soldiers, who had not been replaced by Asian soldiers. In front of the main Czech radio building today you will see commemorative plaques in honor of Czech citizens who lost their lives in both conflicts in defense of the building.
You would think that Helena's relation with Czech radio is finished by now. However, on our recent visit during the summer of 2003, Helena just happened to be listening to the Prague 2 radio station which functions much like National Public Radio in the States. That is, there are interviews, news, music interludes, political commentaries, etc. During July and August, the station featured one-hour long interviews with Czech people who traveled to other parts of the world. During two such interviews there were two Czech women who are living abroad, one in British Columbia and one in Germany. Helena thought: "If they have information to share, I do, too!" So she called the
station, and they were interested. She met in the main radio station (behind the Museum) for the first interview on Sept 2, 2002. Helena's subject during the first interview centered primarily on Oregon and its natural beauty. Since other subjects came up during the interview, the editor decided to invite her for a second interview, scheduled for September 30, to discuss how life is for a Czech immigrant retiree in Oregon. The radio station will edit the interviews and create a program to be broadcast throughout the Czech Republic. It will be broadcast sometime most likely in the fall. The station gave Helena an unedited tape of both interviews and invited her to contact them for another interview when we return again to the Czech Republic. So...life goes on.
Czech Republic - 2003 - Pictures in the Gallery, Part 1
Life for me in the Czech Republic never ceases to present strange combinations, variations, and interpretations. Here are some examples:
A Brush with the Law. The other day I was on my way to my music lesson taking the metro Line B from the station here in Cerny Most where we live. When I arrived at the transfer station, Florenc, I innocently got off the train and made my way with the crowd from Line B to Line C to continue on to Pancrac, where my teacher Michal was awaiting me. As I got ready to step on to the escalator along with other people to take me to the next line, a man standing along the side (in ordinary street clothes and not shabbily dressed) bent forward towards me with an outstretched hand. He had obviously spotted me as a non-native candidate for panhandling with my tea shirt emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Czech Republic in bright colors. Suspecting a beggar, I addressed him with my normal “Ne mluvim czesky” (I don’t speak Czech), hoping thereby to discourage him. My trusty sentence had not failed me yet. It seemed, however, that the expression wasn’t working, since he turned somewhat aggressive and tried to block me from getting on the escalator. No longer able to ignore him, I continuously tried to brush him off, and fortunately succeeded in reaching the first step of the escalator. But to my dismay, he was right there with me! He repeated something in Czech and finally uttered the phrase “Ticket please”. It turned out that he was the control guard randomly checking people’s tickets and I had caused him to leave his location checking people for tickets and to travel with me up the escalator where he hoped to have cornered a victim. As soon as I understood him, however, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the valid ticket. Ha! He did not seem at all amused as we traveled in close proximity to each other up the escalator towards Line C. At the next level, he promptly made a U-turn and went down the other side, defeated, to resume his post. Gee, why didn’t he look more official?
Dog Gone. After ridding myself of the Ticketmaster, I headed off on my ten-minute walk to my lesson. As usual Michal was late, but his mother buzzed the door open for me to enter the apartment building, and I made my way to the third floor to the apartment of Michal’s parents, where I take my lesson. His mother speaks not one word of English but does speak some Russian, so as we waited for Michal, we were able to communicate in Russian. Their beautiful dog, Darinka, appeared upon my entry into the apartment, and after I removed my shoes (a Czech custom) Michal’s mother invited me into the kitchen for coffee. All the time the dog appeared to be in agony, however, and kept moving around and licking some terrible gash on her left flank. I was able to learn from Michal’s mother that they had gone to their summerhouse last weekend taking Darinka with them. Apparently, the house is near some woods, and Darinka took off to explore. While the dog was gone, it had encountered a wild boar and was gored, sort of like what can happen in politics. The tusk had entered at one point and exited at another – from the wounds it was very clear to me what had happened. The family had visited a vet and there were a number of visible stitches in Darinka’s hind end. In order for her not to keep nipping at the stitches, Michal’s mother decided to crown Darinka with what appeared to be a lampshade, so that she could only focus on what was in front. That worked, so as I continued to sip my coffee, Darinka ran around the apartment in discomfort with the lampshade over her head. It was quite a sight.
Taxi Anyone? Recently Helena’s aunt Milena (her mother Jarka’s younger sister) visited our apartment to see her ailing sister. Milena lives in the western German town of Ochtrup (right on the border with Holland), and along with her cocker spaniel had spent a couple of weeks at the health spa Fransikenbad in the Czech Republic. After the couple had completed their visit to the sanitarium, Milena came to see her sister here in Prague. Prior to the visit Jarka had nervously admonished us to make sure everything was in perfect order for Aunt Milena. (Recently widowed, she was the wife of a prominent doctor in Ochtrup, and the family owned a pharmacy in town.) Helena and I scrambled around the apartment making sure things complied with Jarka’s wishes – have to keep up appearances, you know. Finally, the doorbell rang and upon opening the door, the dog, unrestrained, bolted into the apartment to begin his investigation. I quickly rushed to close the door to my room, but the dog went everywhere else. He first went into Jarka’s room, paying her a quick greeting, then departing into another room, sniffing all the way. The visit went smoothly, and Helena and I even performed a couple of musical numbers for Milena before she left. Later we learned that she had to take a taxi all the way back home. The reason: To travel by train would have been impossible. Milena would not have managed to carry both her luggage and her dog with her. She had no car of her own. Relatives had brought her as far as the health spa and from there to Prague, but now she and the dog were on their own. She had no choice but to return home by taxi, which, we later learned, cost her the equivalent of about $700. Well, I guess if you have money to burn….hope the dog appreciated it.
A Three-Week Leak. Helena’s other aunt Vera (her mother’s other sister) did not have quite such good fortune as to vacation around Europe with a dog. The situation with Vera is that she and her husband Zdenek currently spend most of the time living in Rovacin, a small town in Moravia, where they have a small house and relatively large back yard filled with various fruit trees. They also have an apartment in Prague, where they used to spend much of their time. (For health reasons, they are now mostly in Rovacin.) Anyway, Vera telephoned Jarka not too long ago that a terrible thing had happened in their apartment. Vera and her husband had last been in their apartment about three weeks prior to the phone call and had learned that for some reason the apartment above them had been overflowing with water. Apparently, however, the water had been flowing for three whole weeks into their apartment below. Their son Zdenda had stumbled across the problem as he paid a visit to check things out in his parents’ apartment. It seems that practically everything had been damaged from the water. The tenants above had been on vacation for three weeks, and only after they returned had they discovered the problem. They claimed that they had no way to reach Vera and Zdenek. Unfortunately, the insurance pays only a small fraction of the damage. Is there any moral to be learned from this sad story? Make sure your neighbors know how to reach you, I guess.
A Brush with the Law. The other day I was on my way to my music lesson taking the metro Line B from the station here in Cerny Most where we live. When I arrived at the transfer station, Florenc, I innocently got off the train and made my way with the crowd from Line B to Line C to continue on to Pancrac, where my teacher Michal was awaiting me. As I got ready to step on to the escalator along with other people to take me to the next line, a man standing along the side (in ordinary street clothes and not shabbily dressed) bent forward towards me with an outstretched hand. He had obviously spotted me as a non-native candidate for panhandling with my tea shirt emblazoned with the coat of arms of the Czech Republic in bright colors. Suspecting a beggar, I addressed him with my normal “Ne mluvim czesky” (I don’t speak Czech), hoping thereby to discourage him. My trusty sentence had not failed me yet. It seemed, however, that the expression wasn’t working, since he turned somewhat aggressive and tried to block me from getting on the escalator. No longer able to ignore him, I continuously tried to brush him off, and fortunately succeeded in reaching the first step of the escalator. But to my dismay, he was right there with me! He repeated something in Czech and finally uttered the phrase “Ticket please”. It turned out that he was the control guard randomly checking people’s tickets and I had caused him to leave his location checking people for tickets and to travel with me up the escalator where he hoped to have cornered a victim. As soon as I understood him, however, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the valid ticket. Ha! He did not seem at all amused as we traveled in close proximity to each other up the escalator towards Line C. At the next level, he promptly made a U-turn and went down the other side, defeated, to resume his post. Gee, why didn’t he look more official?
Dog Gone. After ridding myself of the Ticketmaster, I headed off on my ten-minute walk to my lesson. As usual Michal was late, but his mother buzzed the door open for me to enter the apartment building, and I made my way to the third floor to the apartment of Michal’s parents, where I take my lesson. His mother speaks not one word of English but does speak some Russian, so as we waited for Michal, we were able to communicate in Russian. Their beautiful dog, Darinka, appeared upon my entry into the apartment, and after I removed my shoes (a Czech custom) Michal’s mother invited me into the kitchen for coffee. All the time the dog appeared to be in agony, however, and kept moving around and licking some terrible gash on her left flank. I was able to learn from Michal’s mother that they had gone to their summerhouse last weekend taking Darinka with them. Apparently, the house is near some woods, and Darinka took off to explore. While the dog was gone, it had encountered a wild boar and was gored, sort of like what can happen in politics. The tusk had entered at one point and exited at another – from the wounds it was very clear to me what had happened. The family had visited a vet and there were a number of visible stitches in Darinka’s hind end. In order for her not to keep nipping at the stitches, Michal’s mother decided to crown Darinka with what appeared to be a lampshade, so that she could only focus on what was in front. That worked, so as I continued to sip my coffee, Darinka ran around the apartment in discomfort with the lampshade over her head. It was quite a sight.
Taxi Anyone? Recently Helena’s aunt Milena (her mother Jarka’s younger sister) visited our apartment to see her ailing sister. Milena lives in the western German town of Ochtrup (right on the border with Holland), and along with her cocker spaniel had spent a couple of weeks at the health spa Fransikenbad in the Czech Republic. After the couple had completed their visit to the sanitarium, Milena came to see her sister here in Prague. Prior to the visit Jarka had nervously admonished us to make sure everything was in perfect order for Aunt Milena. (Recently widowed, she was the wife of a prominent doctor in Ochtrup, and the family owned a pharmacy in town.) Helena and I scrambled around the apartment making sure things complied with Jarka’s wishes – have to keep up appearances, you know. Finally, the doorbell rang and upon opening the door, the dog, unrestrained, bolted into the apartment to begin his investigation. I quickly rushed to close the door to my room, but the dog went everywhere else. He first went into Jarka’s room, paying her a quick greeting, then departing into another room, sniffing all the way. The visit went smoothly, and Helena and I even performed a couple of musical numbers for Milena before she left. Later we learned that she had to take a taxi all the way back home. The reason: To travel by train would have been impossible. Milena would not have managed to carry both her luggage and her dog with her. She had no car of her own. Relatives had brought her as far as the health spa and from there to Prague, but now she and the dog were on their own. She had no choice but to return home by taxi, which, we later learned, cost her the equivalent of about $700. Well, I guess if you have money to burn….hope the dog appreciated it.
A Three-Week Leak. Helena’s other aunt Vera (her mother’s other sister) did not have quite such good fortune as to vacation around Europe with a dog. The situation with Vera is that she and her husband Zdenek currently spend most of the time living in Rovacin, a small town in Moravia, where they have a small house and relatively large back yard filled with various fruit trees. They also have an apartment in Prague, where they used to spend much of their time. (For health reasons, they are now mostly in Rovacin.) Anyway, Vera telephoned Jarka not too long ago that a terrible thing had happened in their apartment. Vera and her husband had last been in their apartment about three weeks prior to the phone call and had learned that for some reason the apartment above them had been overflowing with water. Apparently, however, the water had been flowing for three whole weeks into their apartment below. Their son Zdenda had stumbled across the problem as he paid a visit to check things out in his parents’ apartment. It seems that practically everything had been damaged from the water. The tenants above had been on vacation for three weeks, and only after they returned had they discovered the problem. They claimed that they had no way to reach Vera and Zdenek. Unfortunately, the insurance pays only a small fraction of the damage. Is there any moral to be learned from this sad story? Make sure your neighbors know how to reach you, I guess.
Czech Republic - 2003 - Pictures in the Gallery, Part 2
Video Crime. Not too many weeks ago I noticed in the local paper a movie title in English that intrigued me: “Prague, 1000 Years, a Documentary”. In a local movie theater, no less. I told Helena that I should see this film so as to review my Czech history. Not only that, I said, but also, I should videotape it, so that I could review it from time to time and share it with my friends in the US. So…I charged my video camera batteries, and we made our way to the theater. As we went into the theater with the camera, I became very distraught, because the movie had already started! I wanted to tape it from the very beginning. I was also surprised because we were the only two people in the theater. (Guess nobody wants to know about the history of Prague in English.) Therefore, Helena and I made a deal that we would watch the movie once through, and we would see if I alone could “watch” (read: videotape) the movie a second time without paying for a second ticket. (Helena had no interest in watching it again, but of course I did with my ulterior motives.) After the movie finished, we inquired of the attendant if I had to pay to watch a second showing. We were told that it was necessary, because if no one else paid to see the movie, they would not show it. This inquiry may have been a mistake because the attendant seemed curious why I wanted to go back to see the same movie again. No matter. We rushed down to the box office, paid for the second ticket, and I quickly made my way back into the theater with camera stowed away in a bag. I sat way up in the top back row, so that I could get a good view of the entire screen. Then I propped my arm with camera on the armrest for the hour-long movie. But, alas, all good things must come to an end. Five minutes into my taping, the attendant came rushing up the stairs toward me and said in recognizable English: “You may not do that” (meaning videotaping). As I was the only one in the theater for this showing, she said it in a rather loud, authoritarian voice. I had no choice and replied: “You mean this?” (pointing to the camera). “Yes”. End of conversation. I watched the movie to its conclusion. I did notice, after I was admonished to stop taping, that the attendant stood down in the darkness near the exit sign with, strangely, another person, and both were watching me (I’m sure expecting further criminal behavior) for at least five minutes before they left, finally assuming I would probably continue to behave. Not many days after this incident, I told my niece about this hoping she would take my side. However, she assured me that all Czechs know that taping a movie is not allowed. Guess I was part of the uninformed.
Squeezing the Box, Pressing My Luck. Well, I finally did it. I now have an authentic Czech accordion. Helena and I have wanted to get one to play music for her mother. Upon inquiring of my music teacher Michal where I might find a store to buy an accordion in Prague, he called a friend and came up with one. Helena and I went there to see what we could find. The store was very small, perhaps with room for four people to stand next to each other. There were, however, lots of guitars and accordions in showcases on the walls and one rather large gentleman behind a counter. For some reason he did not come across to me as being musical in the least. Nevertheless, Helena (my translator) asked him if I could try on a couple of accordions I saw as viable candidates. I tried them out, taking up most of the space of the store, since he had to go fetch a chair for me to sit on. One new German accordion had a terrible sound, and the other new one, a Czech brand, had to be fitted with straps, which the gentleman with some reluctance did. Unfortunately, the store was going to close in about ten minutes, so we had to return another day. On our second visit, I asked to play the new Czech accordion again. As I was testing this and that, the salesman made a huge sales faut pax by saying that there was also a good used accordion, which I might like better. The used accordion was about a third of the price of the new one, and surprisingly a much better deal, both in the quality and size of the accordion as well as in price. The new accordion also had a shorter keyboard – also a negative. Again, I said we would have to return a different day, because again there was not enough time to do a proper comparison. We left, but I was convinced that I needed to have all three candidate accordions together – the old and new Czech ones plus the German one -- and make the final selection with enough time at hand. So, we returned a third time. The salesman was visibly irritated when I asked to have all three accordions taken out for me to play once again. He told Helena that I had already played on them, and jokingly that they probably got even better since I last played on them. I personally think he didn’t relish the idea of having to lift the heavy instruments out of their showcases again. Nevertheless, I made my proper comparison and told the man that I wanted to buy the used one he had so graciously suggested I try. In addition, I told him that I would surely also need a case. What a brilliant thought! However, this seemed to present a problem to him. He disappeared into the room behind the counter and brought out a case that looked as if it had fallen off a train. The accordion fit ok into the case, but when we both finally were able to snap it shut, we were unable to open it again. One of the snaps froze in place. After some banging and pounding, it released, whereupon I assured him that I needed a better case than that. He brought out a second case, which was too small for the accordion, then a third, then a fourth. He was obviously unprepared to go further, when luckily in walked a younger gentleman, who turned out to be his boss. The boss disappeared into the room behind the counter and came out quite quickly with a brand-new case. Deal closed. Helena gave him a down payment and said we would return in five days to pay the remainder and pick it up as well as purchase a new metronome. Five days later, Helena’s sister Lenka came to the store as well so that she could drive it to her apartment for storage until she could take it to our apartment in Cerny Most, where we live. Helena paid the balance, as I picked out the metronome. The salesman (not the boss) brought out a metronome in a new box. I opened the box but could not remove the front cover of the metronome. Unfortunately, neither could the salesman – he strained and I thought he was going to break it. (This guy reminded me of a jackhammer operator.) Finally, his boss popped out from the back room and showed him how to get the cover off. He packaged it up again, and we were off with Lenka with our new purchases. Not an easy task.
Squeezing the Box, Pressing My Luck. Well, I finally did it. I now have an authentic Czech accordion. Helena and I have wanted to get one to play music for her mother. Upon inquiring of my music teacher Michal where I might find a store to buy an accordion in Prague, he called a friend and came up with one. Helena and I went there to see what we could find. The store was very small, perhaps with room for four people to stand next to each other. There were, however, lots of guitars and accordions in showcases on the walls and one rather large gentleman behind a counter. For some reason he did not come across to me as being musical in the least. Nevertheless, Helena (my translator) asked him if I could try on a couple of accordions I saw as viable candidates. I tried them out, taking up most of the space of the store, since he had to go fetch a chair for me to sit on. One new German accordion had a terrible sound, and the other new one, a Czech brand, had to be fitted with straps, which the gentleman with some reluctance did. Unfortunately, the store was going to close in about ten minutes, so we had to return another day. On our second visit, I asked to play the new Czech accordion again. As I was testing this and that, the salesman made a huge sales faut pax by saying that there was also a good used accordion, which I might like better. The used accordion was about a third of the price of the new one, and surprisingly a much better deal, both in the quality and size of the accordion as well as in price. The new accordion also had a shorter keyboard – also a negative. Again, I said we would have to return a different day, because again there was not enough time to do a proper comparison. We left, but I was convinced that I needed to have all three candidate accordions together – the old and new Czech ones plus the German one -- and make the final selection with enough time at hand. So, we returned a third time. The salesman was visibly irritated when I asked to have all three accordions taken out for me to play once again. He told Helena that I had already played on them, and jokingly that they probably got even better since I last played on them. I personally think he didn’t relish the idea of having to lift the heavy instruments out of their showcases again. Nevertheless, I made my proper comparison and told the man that I wanted to buy the used one he had so graciously suggested I try. In addition, I told him that I would surely also need a case. What a brilliant thought! However, this seemed to present a problem to him. He disappeared into the room behind the counter and brought out a case that looked as if it had fallen off a train. The accordion fit ok into the case, but when we both finally were able to snap it shut, we were unable to open it again. One of the snaps froze in place. After some banging and pounding, it released, whereupon I assured him that I needed a better case than that. He brought out a second case, which was too small for the accordion, then a third, then a fourth. He was obviously unprepared to go further, when luckily in walked a younger gentleman, who turned out to be his boss. The boss disappeared into the room behind the counter and came out quite quickly with a brand-new case. Deal closed. Helena gave him a down payment and said we would return in five days to pay the remainder and pick it up as well as purchase a new metronome. Five days later, Helena’s sister Lenka came to the store as well so that she could drive it to her apartment for storage until she could take it to our apartment in Cerny Most, where we live. Helena paid the balance, as I picked out the metronome. The salesman (not the boss) brought out a metronome in a new box. I opened the box but could not remove the front cover of the metronome. Unfortunately, neither could the salesman – he strained and I thought he was going to break it. (This guy reminded me of a jackhammer operator.) Finally, his boss popped out from the back room and showed him how to get the cover off. He packaged it up again, and we were off with Lenka with our new purchases. Not an easy task.
Czech Republic, August 2003: A Critical Competition
There was the familiar excitement of sport in the air. Helena had made arrangements with Stana, the main person in the Czech Republic who correlates, translates, and disseminates the technical rules in rhythmic gymnastics to the judges in her country. (She serves the function of the "technical committee" in the US, which performs similar duties.) She lives in Prague and made arrangements for Helena to judge with the Czech judges at the "control competition", of the senior Czech National Team before they depart for the World Cup and, following that, the World Championship (in Budapest in September). It was intended that there would be only six gymnasts, each doing four routines in front of the panel.
Stana walked us to her bright red car, which happened to be a six-year-old Ford, but nice and clean. We piled our bags (which, of course, included our lunch and other necessities) into the trunk and wound our way through the streets of Prague on our way ultimately to the freeway. Fortunately, it was a Sunday morning, and there was almost no traffic.
Stana, who is in her mid-seventies, has been involved in rhythmic gymnastics for many years. She retired from working as a civil engineer for the same company for 48 years and now has her own company (yes, really). She is a lady full of drive, shall we say. As we sped down the freeway towards our destination nearly two hours away, she hit 140 kilometers per hour (about 85 mph) on occasion and even asked Helena to dial her cell phone once so that she could carry on a conversation while driving. Was I ready to nod off in the back seat? Not in your life!
On the way, we stopped to pick up Ladya, a gentleman perhaps in his 50s, balding, and with a full beard. (When acquaintances at the gymnastics event saw him, they rubbed their faces in his beard and jokingly said he looked like Karl Marx). He is the Program Director for rhythmic gymnastics in the Czech Republic. He speaks no German, Russian, or English (languages I could communicate in), so we just sat side by side. He and Stana, however, spoke a lot, including his giving her directions on how to get to our destination.
Our day turned out a bit differently than planned, however. We actually wound up going to a sports training camp instead of a competition. Stana informed Helena there would actually be no meeting as such. Only four of the gymnasts would be there since the other two were injured. As it turned out, two of the remaining four were also partly injured. So, we headed instead to the small town of Netolice, where there is a sports facility suitable for long-term stays and where a modified "competition" was expected to take place. Each gymnast would instead perform each half of her routine separately before a critiquing panel of judges.
The facility is really ideal for a sports camp. We never saw much else except where the competition was to take place. There are many rooms on each side of a long hallway for the gymnasts to live in, and right around the corner when they go into the hallway is the gym floor. They practically have rooms right at the gym where they train or have a competition. They also have a cafeteria there. Above and looking down on the entire arena is a room where judges and trainers can observe what is going on below, eat their meals, have meetings, watch videos, etc. I noticed on the other side of the building housing the gym was a soccer field with training going on there as well.
I guess the thing that most impressed me about the sports camp is its location outside a small town (Netolice) and with nature all around. I mean apple trees, fields, gardens, roosters crowing, etc. Nothing really high-tech or shiny. This camp belongs to the organization called Sokol*, and its motto stands out in large, bold letters above the gym floor: "In a healthy body lives a healthy spirit." (of course, written in Czech. Noteworthy is the word "spirit" and not "mind". I'll let you draw your own conclusions.) The entire camp was built in 1977 with the voluntary labor of the inhabitants of the small town of 2,500.
Helena and I had some extra time for ourselves after we arrived at the camp. We walked down the road towards the town and discovered that the town is very historic. There are signs around the old town square in both Czech and English, which was helpful for me. Apparently, there are written records from this town dating back to the middle of the 10th century. It was located on important trade routes. There was also a very old Christian church (Christianity was brought to the Czech lands as well as to Russia in the 10th century by the missionaries from Constantinople, Cyril, and Methodius). There was also an old town hall, an old school, and other noteworthy points of interest. This would be a town worth spending more time in, but unfortunately, we had to go back to the camp and had little time to investigate thoroughly.
We waited until the critiquing session was to begin and made our way to the floor. The panel of five judges, which was assembled, then critiqued each girl with her coach present. The idea was to polish each routine in front of the top judges in the country (with Helena the only "foreign" judge). By the way, one of the rhythmic coaches is a male "Balletmeister" as well, who danced until very recently in one of the theaters in Prague. My function - I always have a role at such meets - was to videotape the girls. The girls were really under pressure, I could observe. The youngest, age 15, appeared to be nearly in tears a couple of times. They all did well, however, and I took some good videos, which will hopefully be of some use to Helena back home.
After the critiquing, we were invited to partake in the judge's/coaches' meal in their room overlooking the gym floor. It was really tasty and consisted of baked chicken and potatoes and, for dessert, canned cherries. The cherries in the juice were somewhat of a challenge, however. For some reason, there were no spoons, so everyone used a knife and fork to eat the cherries (non-pitted) and afterward drank the cherry juice out of their bowls. A little different than I expected. (Helena, as always, was well prepared and had a spoon with her.)
That was about it for the day. Stana drove us back to Prague, again at breakneck speed, so I was not able to catch a few z's in the back seat. Of course, we wove in and out of traffic on the rather congested freeway - people were returning to Prague late Sunday afternoon from the country. One observation: Onramps to the freeway don't have a lot of distance, so when a vehicle wants to enter the freeway, there is a relatively short distance before it must already be in a lane on the freeway since the onramp lane abruptly ends. Must rely on the courtesy of the Czech drivers to let you in, you know. (There have recently been on TV many scenes of car accidents with an appeal to drivers to "slow down") What would they think about the 65 mph speed limit in Oregon?
CONCERT PERFORMANCE
Can you imagine! Helena and I were off to Moravia to the town of Mysliborzice to play a concert! This will take a little explanation, I realize, but it was destined to be our first public appearance in the Czech Republic.
The situation developed as follows: On our last visit to visit Helena's great aunt, Vlasta (age 91), who lives in an old folks' "castle" (I think I explained this in an earlier writing), we chanced upon a great idea. We thought if we paid to have their grand piano tuned there, we could also perform for the residents. That was the plan, and it turned out to be a good one.
The day before we were to perform, August 28, Helena called the director of the retirement castle on his cell phone to confirm that we would be there to play music and to make sure that the piano would be tuned. We were assured that all was "go" for the adventure.
As with our previous trip there, we left the apartment early (6:30 a.m.) to catch our bus in Prague to arrive at about 11:00 to our destination at the castle. One observation of note this early morning: The weather had turned markedly cooler, and the people were scurrying around going to work, catching streetcars, etc. dressed in sweaters and visibly shivering and trying to keep warm. But one could easily see why they were cold! They were all running around in sandals with no socks on. They all had cold feet! Somehow, I can't see pragmatic Americans making this mistake.
As for our bus ride, one interesting event took place on the trip there, which I will relate to. During the one stopover on our trip, as we were waiting to transfer to our second bus, Helena suddenly recalled that the smaller valued Czech coins (called hellers) would soon be phased out. They still had value, so we had better use up the ones we had! Therefore, we gathered all the hellers we could find in our pockets, and upon boarding our second bus, Helena, having counted them in advance, dumped them all in the driver's hand as we boarded. It was a handful. There was a brief instant of critical eye contact between Helena and the driver, whereupon the driver appeared to momentarily withdraw from reality, then perfunctorily cranked out the two receipts from his cash machine, handed them to us and, without even counting the hellers, dumped them all in a small dish on his dashboard. His facial expression did not invite any further conversation.
Soon after our arrival at the residence and having greeted Vlasta, we immediately went to speak with the director to make sure everything was in order. He is a rather young gentleman who took us into his meeting room, which was quite spacious and full of old furniture pieces of the castle from a bygone era. Nevertheless, there was a computer screen in one corner, so I knew they were operating in modern times.
The director could speak very little English and equally little Russian, but I did manage to communicate some things. Of course, he and Helena spoke most of the time in Czech. One thing I wanted him to know was that my main instrument is the accordion and not the piano a disclaimer so that he would not think I was planning to play something difficult between Helena's vocal numbers. Right away, he mentioned that one of the residents just happened to have an accordion and that he would have it brought to Vlasta's room for me to play later. I would then be able to play some folk songs, etc., that would be familiar to the patients. We were both excited about this possibility.
The director went on to explain that there had been a bit of a problem with getting the piano tuned. Apparently (Helena's theory), he had forgotten to arrange for the tuner in a timely fashion, so the tuner had to come out the previous evening to do his job. However, it had not been possible for him to tune the piano then because the room was occupied by the residents who were watching a TV program, the piano being located right next to the TV in the entertainment room. Therefore, the director said he was tuning the piano as we were speaking and allegedly would be finished by 1:15. Our program would begin at 2:00. I explained to the director that I had hoped to try out our pieces a little on the piano before the program, as a form of warm-up. He assured me that there was another piano on the second floor, where we could go to warm up. After conversing a little further on other matters, we went to check out the "other piano".
We went into the room with the practice piano, which turned out to be upright. No problem, but as soon as I struck a few notes, it was not clear to me if the piano had ever, I repeat, ever been tuned. Whenever I hit one of the higher notes, it sounded like two adjacent notes were sounding. We were in trouble. Helena had hoped to also warm up there, despite the piano, but to no avail: a worker soon came in and began to repair an electric line in the room. So, we left in a state of confusion. I knew, however, that since it was now already 1:15, I would have a tuned piano ready for me, but Helena had not yet warmed up.
Helena and I both met in Vlasta's room to eat a little lunch before the program. Shortly after we arrived in her room, one of the workers arrived with the accordion. Accordion? First of all, it had buttons on both sides, eliminating the possibility that I could play it. (I play the piano accordion with a keyboard on the right side.) Moreover, I had never seen an accordion with only eight buttons on the left side. Mine has the standard 120 basses. Finally, the grill had dents all over the place, as if the instrument had been used as a shield in a sword fight. Anyway, I decided to deliver it down in the entertainment room later and explain why I could never play on it.
After lunch, I went to the room where we were to perform, and to my dismay, the piano was still in pieces. I guess the tuner's plan was to have it all put back together by 2:00, the time our concert was to begin. I paced around a bit, and I think the guy took the hint and began to reassemble the piano. Finally, all the pieces were put back together at about 1:45, and I could test it out. It seemed to be fine, and I told him so in my rudimentary Czech. I then returned to the area around the director's office to see what had become of Helena. I met her in the hallway, and she was already warmed up, so ...let the show begin!!
When we returned to the concert room just before 2:00, chairs were being arranged, a microphone with a large speaker (for Helena) had been set up, and some people had already gathered. One patient even told me an interesting tidbit of news (translated by Helena) that he had already seen us three times on three separate visits there. That is probably true, as I have been there quite a few times over the course of the past years.
The director introduced us, and we did our performance. It consisted of the following:
- Kouzlo (Czech folk song) - Helena sings with piano accompaniment
- Swanee River (me on piano)
- Ava Maria- Helena sings with piano accompaniment
- Stardust (me on piano)
- Memories- Helena sings with piano accompaniment
- Amazing Grace
- French Chanson- Helena sings with piano accompaniment
Our program lasted about 45 minutes, and some employees took some pictures and even a bit of video, I noticed.
As we finished our program, we noticed Vlasta was standing almost hidden behind the doors at the entrance to the entertainment room where we had performed. It seems that she had been coaxed to go to our performance by one of the employees, who heard Helena sing "Ave Maria" and wanted to make sure Vlasta did not miss any more of the performance. She had not even dared to go in the room and sit down. You see, Vlasta is very shy by nature, and it must have been traumatic for her to realize that her own grand-niece with her husband was putting the family reputation on the line by performing for all the people with whom she lives. It seems she had not felt too well all day, having been suffering from a headache and had not slept the previous night out of nervousness as to what the day might bring.
But back to the performance: I think the people especially enjoyed it when Helena related a bit about our personal lives and how we met. There were probably about thirty in the audience, and they were very surprised that Helena, who has lived in the US for over thirty years, speaks perfect Czech. Then it was my turn! Helena somehow indicated to me that they would appreciate hearing me say something in Czech. I quickly gathered my wits and managed to say in Czech, "I'm glad that I'm here", whereupon the audience broke into applause! I was very surprised. (Later, when I told this story to my brother-in-law, Petr, he said they were surprised since they had probably never heard an American say anything in Czech.)
At the end of the performance, one of the "official people" presented Helena in front of the audience with a nice bouquet of flowers, and we had someone take a picture of her with the flowers and us with our cameras. We learned at the end that the people there under this new director had not had any kind of cultural program at all - and this has been for over a year. Hopefully, we started something. These patients really need some kind of stimulating program, we feel since so many of them are in serious condition with obvious physical and mental deficiencies.
After the program, Helena spent a couple of hours with Vlasta in her room labeling photographs, which we brought with us from Prague. In Helena's family, only Vlasta is alive to have knowledge of some of the stories and people in the photos, so we wanted to use every opportunity to involve her in enlightening us. While they were doing that, I went outside to read on one of the benches near the entryway to the castle. I was so much wanting to curl up on the bench and sleep, but I thought it would probably not make the best impression, so I just sat there reading and nodding off.
As we left the residence to catch our bus, one of the gentlemen who were at the program happened to be sitting on a bench along the path. He was likely in his 80s and managed to say "goodbye" and waved to us both with a genuine smile. This made me feel proud to be from the USA, as I think this man probably had good memories of the US liberation of western Czechoslovakia during World War II.
Overall, we had a great day and felt we brought some joy to these people. A good many of them are in really dire straits, but there are loving and caring people helping them. The location surrounded by nature is beautiful, so these people have the best they can get. I just feel they need some mental stimulation of some kind. We hope there will be other such programs in the future.
But of course, our challenges were not yet completely over. Helena seemed to have it in for bus drivers today. As we boarded the bus at 6:05 p.m., Helena discovered she only had a 1000 crown bill in her purse (equivalent to about $35). As she handed it to the driver, his eyes rolled up, and he said he was not a change office. We both began to think about what to do. Should we ask the people seated on the bus to pay for our tickets? Could we stoop so low? Then I remembered I had 200 crowns in my fanny pack. I produced them after some delay, and we were saved! We had left Jarka at home all day with Helena's sister Lenka, so we had to be home. And soon we were. We arrived back at our apartment after midnight. A day to remember.
2003 Czech Republic – A Visit to the Police Part 1
I guess I have to thank my lucky stars for my “Lonely Planet” guidebook on Prague. Without it, I might have already landed in jail. Our trip to Prague this time brought us here on July 1 due to the serious illness of Helena's mother, Jarka. However, despite our focus on her, I recalled a couple of weeks into our stay that there was something in our guidebook regarding visas. I promptly looked up the section to learn that visitors from the USA (as well as, strangely, from Singapore) are only allowed up to a 30-day visit to the country without a visa. I mentioned this to Helena, who was not extremely excited about inquiring into the matter. However, with some prodding, I convinced her that we should both visit entrance B of the “Foreigners' Police and Passport Office,” as it was described in the book.
We discussed a time with Jarka when we would leave her for a couple of hours to go to the Police office so as not to be in default of the law of the land. It was around July 20 when we entered the building and made our way down a hallway crowded with obviously non-native people seated in front of the various doors labeled with different identification signs. Since we did not know where to begin this adventure, we went to the short line in front of the door marked "Informace” and took a seat in line. This was truly a grim environment, I must say. There was a hallway lined with closed doors affixed with signs. No official person was to be seen anywhere. Once in a while, a door somewhere would open, a foreigner or two would come out, and the next person in line would enter. The whole thing reminded me of Kafka's “Vor dem Gesetz” or, even worse, Josef K in his work, The Trial.
Finally, it was our turn to enter the room, and a fairly friendly lady and Helena spoke briefly—I went along as well---whereupon Helena received two small forms to fill out. She told Helena we should take them to a different Police station in another part of town on August 1, one month after we had arrived. She gave Helena the address in "Pankrac,” curiously the district where the most well-known prison in Prague is located) but did not know the telephone number or the office hours. She said if we by any chance came later than August 1, we should simply say (read: lie) that we had been in Austria by car for a short trip. This action would "reset" the 30-day clock, and we would be in the clear. She knew our passports would not be stamped at the Czech-Austrian border, so the authorities could not prove we were not there. (If you go by car, strangely, the passport is not stamped, but if you go by train, it is stamped.) Because Jarka had been left alone too long already, so we decided to return home.
Helena had noticed that the police station where we were to report was located in the same district as where my piano teacher, Michal, lives, so she called him for directions. Right away, he knew where the police station was and agreed to arrange to meet us on August 1 and accompany us there.
On that fateful day, we hoped to finally get the police matter behind us; Prague was experiencing a heat wave. Actually, all of Europe was. Helena and I took the Metro to this "correct" police station, but it turned out that since it was a Friday, the police office was closed. We wrote down the posted office hours and planned to come the following week when the office would be open to accommodate us before 5 p.m.
On the second visit to the Police at Pankrac (the following Thursday), we arrived at 3:45. (Remember, the office hours had stated they would be open until 5:00.) We entered the room where a couple of lines of people extended behind the only two glass windows that were open. After a wait of perhaps twenty minutes, we finally reached the window, only to learn that we had been in the wrong line for our visa concern and needed to go to a different window. These two lines, the only ones open, were for people staying in East Prague. We lived in the main part of Prague and did not qualify. The only problem was that all the other windows were closed. We checked the sign at the correct window and learned that because of the heat, that particular window had closed early. Helena copied down the revised times that the line would be open, and we left, dismayed that the warm weather was responsible for our having to return still a third time. Since it was a Thursday and the police offices are normally closed Fridays, we knew it would be the following week before we were able to return and learn our ultimate fate. By now, we were already six days over the limit of 30 days. By the way, the trip there from our apartment by metro takes about an hour.
The next week, we were ready for the police. We arrived there with a passport in hand and were determined to get the visa matter resolved once and for all. We were even the first in line at the window, which unfortunately was closed for a lunch break. It would open, however, in twenty minutes at 12:15. We waited patiently for someone to take a seat at the chair behind the window. Nervously, Helena managed to pop off the cap of her water bottle, which sailed right under the window and landed in full view beneath the computer terminal on the desk of our awaited person. Finally, at about 12:20 in walked the protagonist representing the police. Right away, I could see that she was in no mood for fun and games. She was fairly young, bespectacled, a bit on the plump side, and did not make good eye contact. After Helena politely asked her to return her bottle cap, which she did, Helena explained to her why we were there. The lady was ready for Helena, however, and promptly handed her a form for each of us to complete, which by the way, required two photos each. Furious, Helena also learned for the first time that any foreigner staying over 30 days was required to have health insurance. She tried to explain that we already have health insurance from the U.S. To no avail. The lady asserted, however, that there is no contract between the US and the Czech Republic regarding health insurance, and until we bring proof of Czech coverage, we cannot get permission to stay in the Czech Republic. Humiliated, we took the forms, tails between our legs, and sauntered out of the building.
Now the problem had grown in dimension. We not only had to get our picture taken before we could return with the new forms, but we had to get health insurance. Worse yet, the police rep was not even able to give us the address of the insurance company we needed, only the name. This situation is impossible; we told each other. We weighed the options. Should we leave the country and come back “fresh" with the clock once again set on day one, or should we comply with what the police rep told us? We chose the latter option.
Upon returning home, Helena called directory assistance for the company the police rep gave her. However, the line was busy all the time. Helena finally gave up. The next day, one of Helena's girlfriends, also named Helena, came to help her. She helped locate a different branch of the company in the phone book, and ultimately Helena was able to get through to someone who gave her the address and office hours where and when we should go to take out the insurance policy. Helena had already remembered a place where we could get our photos taken, and it was only a twenty-minute walk from our apartment. So... we planned when we would take care of the photos and insurance. On our way home, we stopped by the guard station at the building in which the photo studio was located in order to determine the hours it would be open. Of course, the photo was not open when we inquired at the guard station. That would have been too good to be true.
After we had decided on the day for this next phase, we set off for the Photo studio to take care of our obligation. The studio was small, with a single female person taking one person after the next. We sat in the waiting room with the few other folks ahead of us until we were called in, first me and then Helena. The photographer sat me down behind a small camera in a fairly modern studio. Four separate shots of my head were made, with not a word spoken. The lady just moved my head to the appropriate angle for each shot. Helena was next, and it was over in a flash. Once Helena's and my pictures were ready for selection, we went in to view them on a TV monitor. We selected the best one of the choices presented. All my smiles were crooked (from years of working in a bureaucracy, I'm sure), and all Helena's were beautiful. Hey, some people are photogenic, right? Printing them up was done right on the spot, and after paying a small amount for four copies of the best one, we departed. So far, so good.
2003 Czech Republic – A Visit to the Police Part 2
Our next goal was to go to the insurance office, which, by the way, is open 24 hours a day, or as the Czechs say, “nonstop.” (We often see signs using this expression like “non-stop parking,” “nonstop bar,” “non-stop bank,” etc. Something, I think, got lost in the translation between cultures, but ...oh, well.
On the way to get our health insurance, we walked through Zizkov Park, the prominent park to the east of the Vltava River at the site where in 1420, the Hussite General Zizkov fought victoriously against the crusaders who were trying to stamp out any resistance to Catholicism. This general towers above the city as a national hero in front of a huge stone monolith, a National Memorial, completed around 1930 as a memorial to the Czechoslovak “unknown soldier” but later hijacked as a mausoleum for communist leader Klement Gottwald, who has since been buried elsewhere. The memorial is now closed, weedy and neglected, and a reminder of the past. It is even flanked on one side by a huge statue of some victorious person holding the Communist hammer and sickle. I was surprised that it is still standing, especially since Helena told me that there are military inductions that still take nearby near the statue of Zizkov.
We descended from the hill down a narrow, winding road past the Army Museum with a rusting Czechoslovak tank from bygone years sleeping outside. The museum was closed, as it was Monday. We later learned from our niece Helena (not every female name in the Czech Republic is “Helena”) that the museum is particularly interesting since there is an exhibition inside featuring the Czech resistance movement during WWII, including the assassination on May 27, 1942, of Reinhard Heydrich, the SS General and the Reichsprotektor of the protectorate Bohemia and Moravia.
On our way to the “non-stop” insurance office, we also stopped at a music store to see about an accordion for me. I would like to have both of my instruments available to me here, piano and accordion so that Helena and I can enjoy the full range of our musical repertoire. My piano teacher told me about the location of a store where I could buy an accordion.) Inside the store, which was about to close, I tried out a couple of accordions, one German and the other Czech. The Czech brand was far superior to the German even though both were new. After I played a bit on the Czech accordion and asked a couple of questions the store manager, to be translated by Helena, told me that a used Czech accordion was much lower in price. A real businessman, I must say! The new one cost about $600 and the used one was less than $300. Anyway, there was no time to deliberate on which was better, etc., as we had to get a move on, but we told the gentleman that we would be back and most likely buy one.
Again, we made our way to the insurance office, stopping briefly by Helena's high school to look at it up close. I told her I wanted to spend more time visiting it and perhaps go in as soon as the school year began. By the main entrance to the school, there hung a plaque of a man who taught in the high school and who was responsible for bringing scouting to the Czech Republic
The insurance office was interesting. Here it is possible to buy health insurance on a day-to-day basis by just filling out a form. We waited a short while in the small office and then spoke with a lady behind the glass window. No problem, it seemed, so we completed the form and paid our $50 each (to carry us to September 23, when we leave for Hungary. As I explained, leaving the country resets the 30-day clock, so we foresaw no problem.) and were on our way. We found it curious that since everyone must have health insurance, who plans to stay more than 30 days, where are all the people? Why is the office open 24 hours, if even during daylight hours, there was hardly anyone there? The answers we may never know.
The last leg of this adventure consisted of visiting the Pankrac police offices once more (visit #4), on still a different day - 19 days late, but now armed with the proper health insurance documents in hand. We returned to the line and inched forward. We stood next to the long line of people seeking asylum. There was a black man in that line right at the front, who was extremely vocal and insisted on being there, much to the disfavor of everyone else in that line. There were constant disputes with him by others in the line. He was even arguing with the lady behind the window. Finally, he apparently won his case, as he was allowed to take care of his business before the others. As to our own line, Helena told me that the man ahead of us (speaking Czech) was told that his American wife had to leave the country today and return tomorrow in order to keep her status. The lady behind the window in our line even told the man (who was sweating profusely and with good reason) that she should immediately take the train to Slovakia, stay overnight there and return the next day. Thus, the police, in essence, told the man how to "fool” the system. I could see that the stakes were high, tempers were flaring, and patience was thin or non-existent. Good thing the heat wave had abated!
We were next. We presented our passports, completed forms with affixed photos, and proof of insurance, hoping all was in order. The lady began to check over all the boxes we had completed. Finally, the “all clear” message came to me loud and clear. Our public servant began to broadcast positive body language. She started to vigorously and firmly stamp our papers and fill in the blanks she was required to complete. Hurrah! The Police ordeal was over. We now have until September 23rd to legally remain in the country. We were so relieved and, frankly, surprised that everything checked out. But lingering questions remain: How could it be that we had never received a simple set of "To Do's" when we arrived in the country? How could it be that we came close to winding up with a nice fine?
Prior to this last visit to the police office, Helena had visited a national TV station in Prague in relation to a completely different matter. During her conversations with a certain representative at the TV station, she happened to bring up the matter of our difficulty with the police. He said that the police station we had been dealing with was particularly notorious for having difficulty with matters regarding dealing with foreign visitors. Moreover, he told Helena that he would be very willing to do a segment on TV regarding our complaints and difficulties with the Prague police, should we have any trouble or be told that we would have to pay a fine, etc. Fortunately, the matter did not come to that, but Helena was prepared to bring up Czech TV with the police had they demanded we pay a fine. So, our final thought: Don't mess with the Greathouse's unless you want publicity.
2003 – Czech Republic - A Visit to Prague Museum
It’s funny how inspiration weaves itself into and out of daily life. You know, a few weeks before we left for Europe, I happened to receive an invitation to a summer picnic sponsored by the American Meteorological Society of Portland through an acquaintance at the Bonneville Power Administration, my then employer. I was invited to become a member of this organization due to my strong interest in meteorology. Upon attending some of their meetings, I soon learned that all the well-known “weathermen” on TV also are members (why wouldn’t they be?) and that I could ask them questions, etc., as I pleased. There sat Jim Little (who recently left the TV spotlight), Bruce Sussman (a truly “gentle” man in real life), George Stefan (his wife Nancy worked at BPA and knew Helena and me, though not very closely), Matt Zeffino, Mark Nelsen, and others. These are my heroes in one of my many “other worlds,” meteorology. These are people who inspire me. Yet I don’t want to be one of them in real life.
So…. Getting back to the reason I even brought up this subject: In the list of addressees on the invitation email to the summer picnic appeared a certain “Fred Decker.” This name jumped off the computer screen to me because I remembered he was a professor of meteorology at Oregon State University from whom I had taken a course called “Rudiments of Meteorology” back in 1961. I remember distinctly how the course consisted of material that I had long since come to know and become familiar with on my own through my own personal weather observations as a child. You see, I had begun to keep temperature and rainfall records at our house on Cornell Road outside of Portland back in 1954 and later. I would run home at noon from school to check the temperature and plot it on my graph.
I couldn’t help but send Prof. Decker an email, telling him that I had been one of his students in 1961 at Oregon State University and had enjoyed his course. This began a lively correspondence in which he told me that he had also been a professor of astronomy at OSU. Somehow during our correspondence, I mentioned that I would soon travel to Prague to care for my mother-in-law Jarka. This focused our correspondence in another direction when he then told me about a book he was in the process of revising, a “Travel Science Guide,” which gave descriptions of technological expositions, museums, landmarks, and science originals from various cities across America as well as in western Europe. Professor Decker asked me if I might be able to do some research for him on similar sites in Prague since that city had played such an important role in the development of astronomy in earlier times. After all, Tycho de Brahe and Johannes Kepler had both lived and worked together in Prague during the 16th and 17th centuries.
What a connection to the past, wouldn’t you say? I wrote Professor Decker and told him I would do the best I could to grant him his wish. Having arrived in Prague, I checked my tour books, Helena made some phone calls, and we asked friends in Prague for advice. Then just yesterday, we made our visit to one of the prime locations for this adventure: The National Technical Museum in Prague. As luck would have it, there was even a special exhibition on Johann Kepler, which we spent all of an hour viewing. (Hardly enough time!) What a fascinating museum! It has a huge hall full of locomotives, airplanes, motorcycles, and 1920s and 30s Czech Skoda and Tatra cars. (Czech brands). You can even take a tour down a mineshaft. There is an original metallurgical hearth from the 12th century discovered during archaeological research in Prague. There are time-measuring instruments and devices, with more than 400 original works, including the earliest chronometers, a huge collection of photography and cinematography displays (one of largest in the world) showing the history of photography and cinematography (over 2500 objects), and many, much more including a Noise Ecology Center, large astronomy collections. Two sextants used by Tycho de Brahe are here, too. We must go back, as we barely got started. As a senior citizen (60 qualifies), my cost was $1.30. Helena paid the full price of about $2.25.
So we have a start for the professor. I wrote to him about our visit to the museum, and his enthusiasm is reflected in the part of his email:
"To see their display on Kepler should be a great treat, for he was really the first great discoverer who uncovered the truth of an aspect of nature based entirely on speculation, testing of hypotheses, and objective recognition of the test results - truly the first well-recorded discoverer of modern science. The second was Galileo, and then came Isaac Newton, who recognized that he had "stood on the shoulders of giants." I like to think he had in mind Kepler and Galileo."
There is also the National Museum, a hugely prominent building at one end of Wenceslas Square, which will also qualify for his book, I’m sure. I counted 28 museums in my guidebook, not counting any of the multitudes of galleries. There’s even a postage stamp museum, a police museum, and, of course, both a Smetana and Dvorak Museum. I communicated to Dr. Decker that Helena and I do have interests in countries not appearing in his book – which contains nothing even from Hungary or any other Eastern European countries– and that we would be in Budapest for a few days at the end of September. Wow, I could supply him with all kinds of information and benefit myself from this adventure. So, see how a college connection popped up in my life years later!
The day was not over with the conclusion of visiting the museum, however. In fact, the real adventure was about to begin. Helena and I then walked a short distance to a large park atop the hills to the west of Old Prague overlooking the Vltava River. Here we walked down the paved route following the contour of the hills, all the time dodging rollerbladers traveling at quite high speed towards us. (We were obviously walking against the traffic but wanted to see Prague on our left, even if we had to catch only glimpses of it through the deciduous trees.) After some walking, we stopped at a clearing to see such landmarks as the Rudolfinum, the Law School of Charles University, and Charles Bridge, the famous pedestrian bridge from the 14th century completely packed with tourists. (Interesting that Kepler used to walk over the bridge to his “job” as an imperial mathematician at the court of Emperor Rudolf II on the hill at Prague Castle, near where he did his observations with Brahe). The National Museum, National Theater, TV tower, Vysehrad, and Petrin, would have to wait until another day.
We soon reached a huge and prominent layout, where in the 1950s, a nearly 100-foot-high statue of Stalin and entourage, the biggest monument to him in the Eastern Block, was erected to him overlooking Prague, only to be destroyed in 1962 following his disgrace and fall from power. We climbed up the stairs of the huge marble platform adorned on each side by what were once eternal flames, long since extinguished. Now the area is overgrown with scraggly trees and weeds, and the straight stretches of pavement and stone are packed with skateboarders. In place of where the statue once stood is a huge metronome, which pulsates back and forth slowly over this musical city.
We soon reached a huge and prominent layout, where in the 1950s, a nearly 100-foot-high statue of Stalin and entourage, the biggest monument to him in the Eastern Block, was erected to him overlooking Prague, only to be destroyed in 1962 following his disgrace and fall from power. We climbed up the stairs of the huge marble platform adorned on each side by what were once eternal flames, long since extinguished. Now the area is overgrown with scraggly trees and weeds, and the straight stretches of pavement and stone are packed with skateboarders. In place of where the statue once stood is a huge metronome, which pulsates back and forth slowly over this musical city.
We left the park, really not having seen much of the larger, green area behind (we’ll save that for another day). By the way, this is where the Rolling Stones just gave a huge concert and where the Pope in 1990 held a gathering of one million people.
Descending into Prague down the stone walkway, we made our way to the Rudolfinum, which is the home of the Czech Philharmonic – a beautiful building in neo-Renaissance style built in 1884. We could read the upcoming concert schedule and other cultural events posted outside. There is a full schedule of music performances, which will be performed here in the Rudolfinum, besides schedules posted for many other places throughout Prague featuring musical entertainment.
We then descended still further into a Metro station to catch our train back home to our apartment since we had already left Jarka for over 3 ½ hours, and it was time to return. When our train finally arrived, the ultimate event of my day occurred. As I entered the car behind Helena, I was suddenly surrounded by three or four men, which gave me the impression of being packed in the middle of a crowd. One guy was quite big, and the others were of normal stature. Fortunately, from a previous such encounter, I recognized what was happening. I pulled the zipped-shut bag closer to me as I tried to maneuver around the big guy, who deliberately blocked my moving in any direction. A different guy standing next to him spoke in rather poor German to me: “Nur noch eine Station” (“only one more stop”), meaning for me not to worry about trying to get around the artificially formed crowd since they would be getting off at the next stop anyway. As they spent their time blocking any movement I tried to make, Helena looked back at me, motioning me to join her. I spoke loudly to her, and suddenly the opposition was gone. The men didn’t know to whom I was speaking and apparently did not want to have trouble on their hands. As I joined Helena, I noticed that the zipper on my bag had been unzipped partway by probably still another guy behind me I never saw due to the distraction of the other two. Fuming, I observed the criminals from a distance. I stared at them and even pretended to count them (aloud in German), which caused one of them to look nervously at me. They all got off at the next station – as promised, what I would give to be able to do something about this tourist menace. Such people should be immediately put behind bars and somehow punished.
A similar encounter, which I shall not recount in any detail here, involved my previous visit to Prague in April of this year. That time, however, the risk of a real loss was very great since I had my fanny pack as well as my camcorder with me. I was holding on to my fanny pack, but during the crowding, blocking, and distracting tactic, I luckily pulled my camcorder case back over my shoulder at the right moment: The bag had been nearly completely unzipped, and the camcorder was partially out of the case. Again, I was with someone at that time, too, but the guy who distracted me then continued to stare at me after I recovered the camera as if I had violated him in some way. That close call was my “training” for yesterday’s memorable event. Too bad that Prague, and I’m sure all large cities, has such detestable people running loose.
But you know, I forgive these people. Why does a bumper sticker a friend mentioned to me come to mind: “Never have so few taken so much from so many for so long”? Though I have friends who disagree, these people are not the ones to be angry with. I tend to look at the bigger picture. Why did these people become this way? We must look at the world with a universal vision. This is not a new idea.
Helena and I returned home and related some of the events of the four hours to Jarka, who looked on with concern and bewilderment. What could she do or say? Her concerns are greater than petty theft. She was happy we saw at least part of the museum. Being a citizen of Prague, she knows the museum and, of course, about Kepler.
2003 – Czech Republic - A Visit to Vlasta
Yesterday was Helena and my first day on our own for over a month. Up to now, we were confined to our apartment, caring for Helena’s mother, Jarka. Yesterday we planned to visit Helena’s great aunt Vlasta (age 91), who lives about 100 miles from Prague in a “convalescent home” in Mysliborice. It’s actually a castle with spacious grounds extending in all directions, surrounded by an old stone wall. The grounds include large gardens, orchards, a wooded park, a “lagoon” with ducks and fish, and housing for some of the workers at home. The castle was owned down through the centuries by aristocratic families during the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy in the 17th through the 19th centuries. Then after the First World War, it was owned by the Evangelical Church (Protestant) until the Second World War. At that time, under German occupation, it housed the Hitler Youth. After WWII, it again was finally taken over by the church and has since been converted into a residence for many older, infirm people. There are three floors, with the third occupied by those who are best able to fend for themselves, then those on the second and first floors are in various stages of need – even some are totally bedridden. Vlasta lives on the third floor and is still able to get around quite well. The floors are now connected by an elevator (added in modern times), but also by stairs which are wide and not steep. The reason is that the stairs were designed for horses. The nobility in earlier times didn’t want to walk the stairs to their living quarters after riding outside but instead continued on their horses directly to their living quarters in the castle. Servants would then bring the horses back downstairs to their stables.
Our bus ride to Vlasta’s town took about 4 ½ hours, including one transfer. The first bus left from the main bus station in Prague (Florenc). We had reserved seats right at the front of the bus, so we didn’t have to worry about finding our seats. The driver had a tough job, however. After stowing the baggage in the appropriate compartments on the side of the bus, the driver then had to compare the reserved seat tickets that some passengers had with his official printout – circling the appropriate number to make sure all was ok. For those many people without reserved seat space or tickets, the driver had to take the money as the passengers entered the bus. Bus drivers have their own “cash register,” which, with the appropriate punches of buttons, returns a small receipt to the passenger. With a long line of people with different destinations and careful not to oversell tickets, the driver had his hands full with taking the money, correlating the seat with a master printout, and giving back the receipt to the passenger. There were even two passengers with dogs (complete with muzzles) who had to sit at the back of the bus. The driver complained that the dogs might not get along, and a couple of times during the trip, he was right. Some people were also sold standing-room tickets, so it was quite a sight. As the journey was about to begin, the driver took a swig of coffee or juice from his thermos, wiped the dripping sweat off his face, and we were off. He was already behind schedule before we left.
Europe was experiencing a heat wave, and unfortunately, there was no air conditioner on the bus. Temperatures outside for the past many days have been in the 90s, so you can imagine how the driver and the passengers felt. Several times it was clear that the driver became angry at how other people were driving on the road or making it impossible to pass. Once on a country road, we had to come to a complete stop behind a tractor that was blocking traffic. The tractor had an empty trailer trying to leave the road and drive into a field. I felt sorry for the driver.
We finally arrived at the town where Vlasta lives (Mysliborice). Surprisingly she was at the bus stop waiting to meet us. It was very hot outside, and her face was flushed. It was about a 15-minute walk back to the castle in the heat, but on the way, we stopped at a small grocery store to pick up something to eat for later. We got a 2-liter jug of orange juice for me, cheese, elongated bread rolls (rohliki – very popular in the Czech Republic), and other things. Helena picked out what to me looked like a package of Czech potato chips. At least that’s what they looked like to us from the picture printed on the package. However, it actually was a bag of something like Wheaties – cornflakes, the “breakfast of champions.” Nothing I wanted to eat without milk.
We then arrived at the castle and went to Vlasta’s room. After tea and some sweet roll that Vlasta had prepared for us, I went out to the hall to read while Helena and her great-aunt labeled family photographs. I wanted to leave the two of them in peace and quiet and have some myself. We had brought a big box of old photographs of earlier times in Prague, of the family farm, relatives, etc. They spent a couple of hours in Vlasta’s room while I sat in the hall reading a magazine. I must say that nearly everyone greeted me (“dobry den”), including the infirm, young kids visiting relatives, workers, etc. I didn’t intend to look up at anyone, buried as I was in my magazine. I have always been very pleasantly surprised at how friendly everyone is here in the Czech Republic – in stores, people riding by on bikes, walking past someone – everyone greets you.
As I sat in the hall reading, I noticed that nearly everyone on the third floor had a single room and lived alone. One lady walked past me, and I swear her steps were no greater than about three inches. It took her forever to go down the hall. Others were in various states of mental or physical disability, as I could clearly see, but that is what this place is all about. It’s run by the Protestant church called “Czech Brothers” (the church Helena was baptized in), though the state has to jointly run it since the church doesn’t have enough funds. By the way, there is a small chapel in the castle, and they hold church service there daily at 3:30
About midafternoon one of the workers brought some food to Vlasta’s room since her absence at lunch was noticed. (Vlasta later said that she did not want lunch since they were serving a sort of potato pancake she did not much care for). I was the lucky one to eat much of what they brought. Then later all three of us were invited to go to the canteen (lunch room), where some soup was warmed up and given to us to take back to the room. There were a couple of workers who prepared it for us, and Helena was proud to show off how I had managed to speak some Czech, which I tried out on them. I was really embarrassed since I was completely caught off guard. The workers, by the way, do not work for the church but rather for the state. The church really needs sponsors since it lacks funds to pay for workers.
Vlasta showed us around the castle, including the library/entertainment room. I tried out the piano, a grand piano, which was severely out of tune. I told Helena to tell someone that we would be happy to pay a tuner to come in and tune it up. (Helena made contact with someone for that to happen.) As I played “Amazing Grace” on the out-of-tune piano, someone stuck her head in the room and quickly popped back when we looked. I think they could really benefit from some entertainment. If they can get the piano tuned before we return to see Vlasta later in the summer (she and Helena never came close to finishing labeling the photos), we would entertain them. Wouldn’t that be something – an American – and a Czech immigrant – playing music for the elderly and infirm in the middle of the Czech Republic!! We’ll see where that goes.
The Czech Republic consists of Bohemia and Moravia. The largest city in Bohemia is Prague, and the largest city in Moravia is Brno. Helena and I left Vlasta around 5:30 and took the bus to Brno. Not more than ten miles from Vlasta’s town, we traveled to Duchovny past a huge nuclear power plant with its eight cooling towers. The bus stopped there at the plant to pick up passengers. I could not help noticing a young plant worker kissing his girlfriend goodbye. I also could not help but observe her yearning and looking back at her boyfriend on the bus as it took off. Same here as everywhere, I thought.
The train ride was pretty exciting. It took about three hours to return from Brno to Prague, and we got the ticket at a discounted price of about $3. We had reserved seats in one of the compartments, which turned out to be empty, so we could stretch out and sleep for a couple of hours. When I got up about an hour from Prague at one of the stops to stand up in the train aisle for a while (Helena had set an alarm clock so we wouldn’t oversleep!), a couple of sloppily dressed guys rushed past me in the narrow train corridor, and one said “Sorry.” They then quickly slipped into a compartment a little further down the aisle. Very soon thereafter, three train officials, two with billy clubs, came running down the aisle past me and finally found the guys who had rushed past me and who were hiding in the empty compartment. The officials found them and threw them off the train, saying something about their not having tickets. So, you see, the transportation personnel have it rather rough at times here in the Czech Republic. We like the excitement of traveling by train.
The train is actually quite a romantic way of traveling – sometimes, the train speeds along in complete darkness at 70 –80 mph. Sometimes it slows down when passing through a small village station with the stationmaster standing with a lantern on the platform as it passes. Then it’s always a great sight to come into Prague at night with the illuminated Prague Castle on the hill above the city with the moon in the background. Quite an atmosphere. However, coming home, later on, the noisy metro (subway) sort of broke up the atmosphere.
So that was one day. We left the apartment at about 6:30 a.m. and returned at about midnight. It was a good visit, but it shows how eventful it is to get around without a car.
The next day just for comparison’s sake, I got a haircut from a barber across the street from where we live – a nice place, actually a hair salon with full service. The haircut cost me less than $3. It was well done by a lady barber.
A BRIEF VISIT TO URUGUAY
Part 1 of 2
Last Sunday, I chose to take an early morning walk along the promenade, which runs parallel to the normally busy four-lane boulevard between our hotel and the bay. The water is not the Atlantic Ocean but rather what the Uruguayans proudly term the widest river in the world. It’s the Plate River, which flows into the Atlantic, and feeds so little fresh water compared with the salt water from the ocean that the river is actually salty. You can’t even see land on the other side, which is Argentina. If you look at a map, the river looks like an estuary or bay since this wide portion is below the river delta. No matter, it is termed a river. Anyway, as I was walking at a brisk pace along this promenade against a very stiff breeze, smiling and greeting the few walkers and joggers I met en route, the peaceful bliss of the morning was suddenly broken by a prolonged squealing of tires behind me. I did not turn around for a long time, as the car seemed to be traveling away from me. Besides, I figured it was just another show-off speedster. Finally, as the sound did not stop, I turned around just in time to see a car careening into a wall next to the promenade and completely flipped over on its roof. The crash site was only about three minutes from where I had just been walking. After a while, someone got out of the car and waved his arms above his head, whereupon a couple of people ran towards the car to help. Quite soon, several people had gathered, and a police car also passed me by on the way to the scene. Bad start to someone’s day, I thought.
As I continued to walk back to the hotel, I fell into a philosophic state of mind and began to ask myself: “What would I have done if I had been at the exact location of the crash when it occurred?” Aren’t such questions the real questions we always need to be asking ourselves? We never know from minute to minute how our fragile life will continue to unfold or if, in fact, we are near the end.
Soon after my arrival back to the hotel, our tour bus was ready to take us to see the sights on the way to the city of Punto del Este and then drop us off at our timeshare resort Solanes. The tour guide was, to me, the most interesting part of the tour. She was rather young, and though the tour was to be in both Spanish and English, the explanations were predominantly in Spanish. The predominant topics she centered upon throughout the tour were geographical facts, including an emphasis on distances from one town to another and how certain rivers in the country flowed. The other thing that seemed to catch her fancy was the array of hotels along the way. She knew how much per night it cost to stay in all the five-star hotels and even some of the four-star hotels. In the small city of Punto del Este, the bus drove us through the ritzy part of town where movie stars such as Marlin Brando either had lived or had visited. The house owned by former President Menes of Argentina was pointed out as well as a home owned by two Brazilian presidents (Sarney and one other one). Even Bush Senior was said to have visited one of the homes in the neighborhood.
Midpoint of the tour, we stopped for lunch at a relatively nice restaurant. A man by the name of Paul had befriended us earlier on tour. He was traveling alone and spoke English. I detected a rather pronounced accent in his speech and learned he was a former gymnast and coach from Hungary living in New York. When I mentioned to him that Helena was from former Czechoslovakia, he began talking with her and mentioned that he was associated with “real gymnastics.” It wasn’t long before he began to broach the subject of politics and denounce everything relating to socialism. He castigated people who were of a lower class who deserved to be there and, in the same breath, denounced President Lula of Brazil and his leftist tendencies. Lower-class people, he claimed, were basically lazy and, if they were given money, would simply squander it. He said people need to speak out for democracy in the US since it is being taken away by “someone” (he could not say by whom – I kept quiet on the subject, not wanting to get into a needless argument). Though he does not watch TV and has no computer, we were able to agree that people like Jerry Springer and all others of that ilk were bringing the US society down. His language began to include sprinklings of four-letter words in his denunciations (which I consider typical of people of little tolerance whose minds are already made up). I could go on, but this encounter just typifies how one meets people from all walks of life on this planet in various circumstances. One often meets such reactionary people in the immigrant crowd, who safely fled earlier regimes or circumstances and still see threats all around them from people who represent what they previously hated.
At lunch, Paul asked if he could join us at a table. We agreed, whereupon the same topics resurfaced again and again. When the waiter made a mistake in bringing us iced tea instead of hot tea, Paul pointed out the mistake that “lower class” people make by saying, “See how they perform.” Later after lunch, we were all dropped off in the town of Punto del Este to do some shopping, and our guide said for us to be back no later than 4:55 in front of the shop called “Magdalena.” There I was able to buy a tee shirt. Helena and I then diligently went on to inquire how to buy Christmas cards, as Mark had discovered we had not brought enough with us on our trip to be able to send to all of our friends back home. When we finally found the proper store and selected our cards for purchase, I discovered that I had lost my Visa card. How shocked we both were! I knew I had used the card earlier at Magdalena’s, so after paying cash for the cards, Helena and I rushed back to the previous store. There was our saleslady, who seemed to be expecting us. She explained in halting English that my lost card had been given to our guide. How relieved we both were! When the tour continued (quite a bit later than 4:55, I’m afraid), I asked our guide if she had my card, and she soon gave it to me. Helena and I gave her a nice tip (as well as the bus driver) when they dropped us off at our timeshare reception office. It was a memorable day.
A BRIEF VISIT TO URUGUAY
Part 2 of 2
The main thing I can say about our stay in Solanes is that punctuality is not as important here as in the US. Some examples will perhaps suffice. We were not able to light the oven on our stove, so I called the reception office and asked to speak to someone who speaks English. I was told someone would come to fix it in ten minutes. No one came for the rest of the day, so we called the next day. Someone came within half an hour of the second call and told us how to light the oven.
One day I went to catch a bus to the nearest town to visit the post office. The bus was to arrive at 9:55. However, when it did pass by (yes, it did not stop), the driver held up two fingers in a “V,” which I interpreted to mean there would be a second bus following. However, none came until about 10:20, when the next bus was scheduled to arrive (the schedule said 10:15, but not matter). That bus stopped.
On another occasion, the guests staying here were given a written notice of a reception party to start at 8:00 p.m. on Monday. We arrived at 8:00 and were the first people there. There must have been two hundred chairs in the room. Gradually by 8:30, the room filled up with guests, and drinks were passed out. It was not until 8:40 that things began to happen – a master of ceremonies with a microphone came and began to talk to the crowd. We left after five minutes because everything was spoken in Spanish.
It’s time to say a few things in summary about our stay in Uruguay. First of all, in no way do we have any deeper insights into the culture other than superficial observations. This is markedly different than how things are when we visit European countries where we can communicate well or where we have friends or relatives. But there are definite things we can say with some degree of confidence. One is the overwhelming feeling we have that people in Uruguay are sincere and compassionate people. I base this upon observations from riding buses, buying groceries, making purchases in various stores and in bus stations and post offices, and watching how people interact with each other in the post office, on the sidewalks, while driving cars, bus drivers, etc. I know we are guests in a foreign country, and often people are especially helpful to such people. Nevertheless, this sensitivity seems to pervade society as a whole.
Uruguayans seem to like to really enjoy life at the moment. The reception we left, which I described above, continued until late into the evening, and, as we could observe from our room, it turned into a dance. The floor was cleared of chairs, and the lights dimmed.
Uruguayans also seem to respect people at all levels of society. In the airport at Montevideo, while waiting for Helena to do an errand, I saw cleaning ladies treated with cordiality by other people in the waiting area. They weren’t looked down upon like lower-class citizens. I cannot say with certainty that the same is true in reverse. Our guide on tour talked quite openly about corruption in her government.
Uruguayans celebrate the sun and the body. I think I could easily extend this generalization to include all Latin Americans. Whether on the beach or around the pool at Solanas, tiny bikinis are the norm. When the sun shines, people blossom. There is no extraordinary ogling of the females since the beautiful body is seen as a natural and healthy part of life.
As we left for the airport to take our leave of Uruguay, the taxi drove first through the city from our hotel. There were businesses called “Perfect Group” and “Better Life.” There was also a billboard with a Merrill Lynch maxim: “Bringing the opportunities of the world to the possibilities of the individual” or something similar. Oh, well.
The taxi sped down the boulevard at high speed, conjuring up the sensation of being on a racetrack. There were times when there were no lines dividing the two lanes in each direction, so one just had to be careful not to bump the car adjacent.
At the airport, I ordered coffee, and after placing the order, I noticed a woman at a nearby table smiling at me as if to say: “You obviously are not from here.” I couldn’t help but ask her if she was from here, and she said that she was native Brazilian but had lived for over twenty years in Washington, D.C. I asked her how if I wanted to order a large cup of coffee in the future in Brazil, how I would do that. She continued to think that I wanted to return here the next day and order a cup of coffee. It soon became obvious that the years of living in the US of A had not taught her the subjunctive case. “If I came here tomorrow and wanted to order a large cup of coffee, how would I indicate that?” “Oh, you are coming here tomorrow to order coffee?” Finally, I gave up and, after some brief conversation, left to get Helena to go to the gate.