In Olomouc

Wednesday 1.9.2010

The next morning, we got up and went to explore Olomouc. After walking around town for a bit, we decided to find breakfast. We finally decided on this bar. We went in and sat down. Bars have this thing where you have a choice of a couple meals every day. Not much option, you’ve kind of got to cross your fingers. The menu was brought to us. It was all in Czech. This is the place to mention Olomouc was the only place I visited on my entire trip in which no one (except the hostel owners and guests) spoke English. Everywhere else, almost everyone was conversational in English. So, this menu was all in Czech. Martha is fluent in Polish. Polish and Czech are both Slavic languages and Martha could kind of guess what things meant. However, the only thing she could get from the menu was that the meal was probably chicken. The waitress seemed to be in a foul mood that day, and took an immediate disliking to us, probably because we were in a good mood and foreign. We tried ‘Mloovite Anglitsky?’ which the ‘Learn Czech!’ thing at the hostel said meant ‘Do you speak English?’ The waitress replied negatively, and was trying to ask us something about our order, but we were completely befuddled. She left in a huff, returned a minute later, slammed her finger down on the menu and shouted, ‘Soup!’ I guess she must have gone to look up the English word for soup in some Czech-English dictionary, or ask a friend or something. Anyway, the question was still unclear but we saw no alternative but to mime something positive, like giving her a thumbs-up and nodding. We did not succeed in befriending the waitress, but we did succeed in getting food, which was pretty delicious. I think it was some sort of soup, a chicken dish with French fries, and a juice-like drink.

Next we explored the town. We were trying to find the archdiocese museum that Francie had recommended to us. I think it was free on Wednesdays. On the way we passed an orthodox church, which was pretty cool because it was in a pink building. Martha liked it because she’s a religious studies major, and pointed out to me the differences between orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. We reached what we thought was the archdiocese museum on account of the religious statues on the roof. Then we saw an ambulance drive into it. After some deliberation, we decided that we had in fact reached a hospital and started heading in the direction of the actual archdiocese museum.

We found and entered the museum, which was pretty good. It was, however, quite a different museum-going experience than any I had experience before. It was manned by a bunch of elderly Czechs. They were very kindly, but didn’t speak a word of English. At every sort of intersection or divergence in paths in the building, there was a white-haired old Czech lady standing guard and making sure all the visitors went in the correct direction so they might see every room in the museum. A couple times, we thought we were done with the museum and tried to leave, but the aged guardians kept blocking our retreat and pointing us in the direction of a new wing. For the final segment, we were made to put on these kind of slippers. They were very difficult to walk in without having your foot slip out, so I did this kind of sting-ray-shuffle thing to get around (I was wearing my customary flip-flops), at the sight of which Martha couldn’t help from laughing.

Anyway, we finally managed to escape the museum and went in the adjacent cathedral, which had pictures of John Paul II’s visit there, and was in general pretty awesome and Gothic. We also saw a church called Our Lady of the Snow and another called St. Michael’s which I believe is the one with the giant organ. In St. Michael’s is this little puddle of water, in this sort of cave beneath church which you can enter, which is called Caesar’s Pool and is supposedly the reason for the founding of Olomouc. I guess Caesar found the pool on one of his campaigns and decided to found a city there since they had fresh water. We also went up into the bell tower of St. Michael’s. They had three or four bells and each one showed how much had been paid for it. They were pretty durn expensive.

Eventually we wound our way back to the hostel, and while Martha took a nap, I went upstairs to the common room. There I entered into conversation with Tom and Yana. I said that Yana spoke English with an Australian accent from spending so much time around Aussies at the hostel. Tom didn’t agree. Yana said that when she used to hang out with Americans more, she said ‘like’ all the time when she spoke English. I laughed and said that a favourite pastime of mine was sitting on buses and listening to two American girls talk, and counting the number of times they said ‘like.’ But a funny thing happened. I couldn’t tell that store without saying ‘like’ every three seconds myself! I noticed this and made an honest attempt to continue without the superfluous word, but it was impossible. Tom and Yana were both amused to the point of laughter. I couldn’t believe it! I am truly unable to speak for any length of time without inserting like into my sentences far more times than necessary. It’s kind of weird, especially as that doesn’t happen when I write. So it seems I don’t think the word ‘like’ very often, but it’s kind of a habit when I speak. Since that day, I have tried to be as conscientious about my use of the detestable l-word as possible. I have also noticed that all my American friends say it very often. Particularly my female friends, like, say it, like, every other word.

We started discussing language barriers and Tom told us of some of this travels. He had been to China alone, to a more rural part, and been completely unable to even guess anything he read or heard. He said it was exhilarating to really step out of your comfort zone like that. He was trying to get somewhere and a kindly Chinese family took pity on him and helped him get onto a truck with them to ride to wherever it was he was headed. They took him to dinner and ordered him food, and he bought the meal for himself and the entire family, and it only amounted to the equivalent of $5 (Australian dollars, I assume). The family was very grateful.

Martha and I went to a nearby grocery store (a European chain called Billa, which was also in Vienna) to get beer and food. When checking out, I couldn’t find the little screen that displayed the price of my purchase, and the cashier and I didn’t have a language in common, so I ended up holding out all my Czech currency and they picked the appropriate amount out of my hands. Martha laughed at me and told me there was a screen with the amount. I cooked and ate Käsekrainer, cheese-filled sausage that I had grown to love in Austria, in the hostel kitchen. I forgot to mention that the coffee machine there was this awesome metal contraption where you had to assemble a thing that held water and a thing that held coffee and this filter piece, and put it on the stove so the water boiled up into where the coffee was and made coffee. I think it took me a couple tries to figure out correctly, but I succeeded in making coffee with it and I was pretty dang proud of myself.

Later Tom, Martha, and I went to a riverbank we had seen in our explorations earlier in the day and sat and drank beer. On the way we tried to find cigars (Martha and I both kind of resumed smoking while in Europe). We stopped by this tobacco stand (they are everywhere in Europe – lots of smokers there). We tried to mime to the Asian storekeeper there that we wanted cigars, but it didn’t really work. Tom picked up a couple beers there though. We reached the river bank and settled down to talk; it was a nice night. I forgot to bring a bottle-opener but Tom managed to open the bottles somehow. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Later Yana joined us and brought a bottle opener. Tom called her on his cell phone; neither Martha nor I had cell phones that worked in Europe (curse American consumers!). The only thing I remember us talking about was the Australian voting system. If you don’t know, Australians are required to vote by law. They have 99% voter turnout. Australian citizens can just show up and Christmas tree the ballot if they want, but they have to vote. Tom said if they don’t vote they get fined. He was in Poland or somewhere when the latest Australian elections came around, and couldn’t make it to the nearest Australian embassy, so he had been fined. He said though that once he got back to Australia he could appeal the fine and get it lifted without any trouble.