I stole bowling shoes and slept on a bridge.

Sorry, maybe the title spoiled the ending, but still don’t you want to know how it happened? Somebody organized a three day ski trip to a place just across the Czech border about 3 hrs away. It was for students from several universities in Wroclaw, but mostly exchange students. I heard about it through the grapevine and managed to sign up. The communication network for everything is pitiful. Nobody bothers to tell anybody anything. There are very crude and sparse notifications through Facebook, a Yahoo! Groups email thing (which I don’t understand, but apparently you must have a Yahoo email account to subscribe), and word of mouth.

Anyway, I managed to get on the list and pay my money. For about $60 we had transportation and two nights stay in a decent hostel with breakfast included (but only before 9:30 as I found out). I knew it was a big group going, but after asking all my friends if they were going I discovered I only had one friend and another person I barely knew that were coming with me. Whoohoo! New friends!

I should take a pause here to discuss the level of Polish public drunkenness because I don’t know where else to bring it up. While waiting for the bus to leave at 6am I saw a guy stumbling around with a can of beer in his hand. Also, it is very common to see rough looking middle-aged guys on the tram drinking a beer in the morning or afternoon. I think Sunday afternoon is prime drunk time. While taking a walk one day I saw people stumbling around on three separate occasions within one hour. My favorite was three old men down by the river. One of them trips on the sidewalk, nearly falls down, shouts some obscenities, and then begins to piss on the edge of the sidewalk. Another good one was told to me by a friend who understands Polish. She said that early one morning on her way to class she walked by a couple old guys on the sidewalk passing a bottle of vodka back and forth as one of them mumbled (translated) “we drink sloooww.”

Back to the ski trip. I tried to sleep a little on the bus ride, but it didn’t work so well. Instead I mostly had chat and chocolate with my Polish friend Anna. Then we stopped at a money changer at the Czech border. I changed about 300 Polish Zlotys, which equals a bit less than $100, in return for around 1,800 Kc. I think they were called cronura or something. I didn’t worry about trying to do the math I just spent the money. Eighteen hundred, I felt filthy rich! I think our group was around 50-70 people, with many Spanish. I was the only American, which is always awesome. With so many people it took foooreeeeevvvveeeeerr to get all our bags from the bus and get checked in to the hostel. We had the entire place filled. In my room was a Spanish guy, Manuel, and two Belgians, Gil and Julian.

A German girl and I ditched the group in order to move faster. We were starving, for food and for snow. She was a good ski buddy because we had the same skill level, but the lift chat was a bit forced and awkward. It was great to be back on skis, but the conditions were no good. There was sooo much fog I couldn’t see 20 yards in some places. Also, it had warmed up a bit the previous week and the snow was all ice or slush. I skied till the lift closed regardless. We went out for dinner with a pretty large group so it took forever and we were all starving. It was worth it though because a friend told me to try a dish that was special to the Czech Republic. It’s called something like Smaczezny Sery, and it’s a big slab of fried cheese. It’s a little like a mozzarella stick, but it’s huge and more liquefied while remaining crusty and breaded on the outside. It approaches the maximum threshold of cheese that can be safely consumed in one sitting, and it’s absolutely genius. I even got into a friendly debate with Anna the Germ about the merit of this human achievement. My point was that the inventor was probably one of the few humans smarter than Einstein. Her argument was that it was probably some drunk guy that accidentally dropped a piece of cheese into hot oil. Also noteworthy is that this fried cheese is the only dish listed in the vegetarian section on the menu. I find this funny because all of my vegetarian friends are vegan and therefore don’t even eat dairy. That evening I was exhausted and took it easy, just chilling out and meeting some people in the hostel bar.

The next day I spent the whole day skiing. This time I found a new partner, Anna the Germ. She told me that Germans often make the mistake of calling themselves Germs instead of Germans and naturally the nickname stuck. She was a snowboarder and liked the same slopes as me, and she was much more fun to converse with on the lift. Again I skied till the lift stopped and my legs were exhausted. Tonight was party night though. First we split up into smaller groups for dinner. I went with my Polish friend Anna and it was a group of seven Polish people and me. Perfect! I’m trying pretty hard to learn Polish and Polish people love that I’m trying. Somewhere along the course of the meal I started speaking with a Borat accent. Borat, the character of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, says a few Polish words such as dzienkuje (thank you), bardzo mi milo (nice to meet you), and a couple others. Apparently Cohen has some Polish people in his family and drew from the language in creating his beloved character from Kazakhstan. Anyway, the people thought it was so funny when I spoke like that, so I couldn’t stop. Now I have this horrible habit that comes out sometimes, especially when I’m drinking. It is addictive and infectious. All of my friends trying to learn Polish immediately cover their ears and tell me to stop for fear of becoming infected with my fun accent, but the Polish people laugh.

We made pre-party number one with the Polish people at the hostel and they told all the jokes they knew. Even though it was in Polish and I only understood the bad words, they were quite funny, especially when they translated some of it for my sake. Then we went bowling with a huge group of people. It was great. I spent the rest of my Czech money on beer and bowled the worst game of my life. I’d rather not mention any numbers. Then the party moved to a club across the street. I went with the crowd and forgot to change my shoes. I was wearing tacky orange and black bowling shoes in Silver Rock Bar. It wasn’t long before my friends started pointing this out to me. They always laughed really hard, except the girl who organized the trip. She didn’t seem to be so entertained by my stupidity. She told me I have to go back right now to return the shoes because we (she) will get in trouble. I was busy shakin’ my groove thang so told her I would do it later, or tomorrow.

At one point I saw a guy I (not from our group) leave and shut the door hard, then another guy seated in a booth jumped over a chair and ran out the door to punch him in the face. The bouncer stopped it quickly and the guy who punched him came back inside and sat down like nothing had happened. A few minutes later the guy who was punched came in and shook the guy’s hand. Strange. They would be 86’ed (thrown out) at any place I’ve ever been at in the USA. Apparently it is pretty common for people in a club to scrap in this part of the world. There is a club called Alibi across the street from my dorm. On a weekend night, my friends say that you can just hang out on the balcony and watch fights. I’m yet to watch fight night.

We were out late. The music was bad. The place was full of muscled up meat-head looking Euro-douches so I was doing my best to encourage the others to go back to the hostel for afterparty festivities. Eventually we headed back, but first had to stop outside the front door to watch the entertainment. The front door was up a short steep slope from the street. The slope was a perfect sheet of unclimbable ice. We watched at least 3 people fall on their ass. Great fun. We took the side path, which was more level. After hanging out in the hall and finishing up our drink supplies we made it to bed. My alarm clock on my mobile phone works roughly 50 percent of the time, so I don’t always set it. I asked Polish Anna to wake me for breakfast at 9am. Instead she woke me at ten minutes till eleven, after breakfast was closed, to ask why I didn’t come to breakfast. Dammit. So I told her to let me sleep. She replied that we have to check out of the room by 11 or pay for another day. Double dammit. Our room was a smelly chaotic mess and I was tired. I put on my clothes and bowling shoes and threw all my shit into my pack. I’m ready. I took my satchel down to the dining room where everybody was piling all their things. Then I set out to find a bottle of water, because my mouth was dryer than the Gobi desert. You would be a fool think that it would be simple to find a bottle of water, as I was. In fact, there are no simple tasks in this part of the world.

The first place to check for anything you might want is a Kiosk. These are little shacks, usually green in color, where an old woman lives out her day selling a ridiculously wide range of goods from a space no bigger than a small closet. In the kiosk you can buy phone cards, tampons, random children’s toys, cleaning supplies, train tickets, magazines, snacks, postcards, stamps, and God only knows what else, but of course you have to know how to ask for whatever you want by name in the local language. These kiosks have windows but they are entirely covered with all the things that are stocked. There is only a tiny hole with a sliding window, at about the height of your belly button, where you can exchange words and money. I found a kiosk. It was not open. Every other building in town was a restaurant, ski shop, or hotel. Really, these are the only businesses here. I don’t want to go sit down at a restaurant to order a glass bottle of water that I cannot take away. I’m a man on the move dammit. I check a couple ski shops and hotel lobbies, but no bottled water or vending machines. I go to a tourist information office that sells a few knick-knacks. It even has a freezer full of ice cream. It’s the middle of fucking winter and I’ve not seen anybody walking around with an ice cream cone! Why do you sell ice cream but no water? Czech Republic seems to be a senseless as Poland.
I ask the tourist info receptionist where I can buy a bottle of water. She says “at the kiosk, but it’s Sunday and they aren’t open today (which I already found out).”
“Where is the nearest gas station?” I ask.
“Two kilometers, that way.”
“Thanks.” I leave. GRRRRR!.
I will not survive that walk without a drink of water. And these bowling shoes aren’t very comfortable for walking in anyway. I keep checking everywhere. The Internet café isn’t open. A little shop that sells lift tickets and a few souvenirs had Absinthe for Christ sake, but no water. I was tempted, but decided against it. Then I find a little shopping center and give it a try. It has a couple shops selling the same snow gear, both are closed. Then I lay my eyes upon the most beautiful sight of my journey. Asia Store convenience store. I think the name is strange, but then see that is run by an Asian family. Ahahaha. I saw another store a day or two before called Asia store and I thought it sold goods imported from Asia. Apparently in this town though, the Asians are the only people with enough business sense and work ethic to be open and sell necessary items on a Sunday. I buy a bottle of water and a bottle of Absinthe (a gift for friends of course, as Absinthe can be bought within Czech but few other places). It’s a pretty nice day and I decide it’s really not worth 50 bucks to me to spend another day skiing on the same slopes with such shitty snow. I chug my water and find a comfortable seat resting against the truss of a pedestrian bridge, overlooking a beautiful stream and mountains. I fell asleep. 20 minutes later the group of my Polish friends, who had been making fun of my shoes pretty steadily, happened to pass by. They laughed a lot and took a few pictures. One of them scolded me and told me to take them back now. I told them, “go away. I’ll do it later. I’m tired.”

In all honesty I was considering keeping the shoes. After all, if you read my previous post about my shoe problem then you have an idea what’s going through my head. In fact I was wearing the broken shit-shoes on this trip and I had one wet foot the entire time. Not fun.

I went back to my rest, then I got cold so I went to a restaurant for some more gooey melty fried cheesy goodness. Then I decided I had to return these damn shoes because this one girl who organized the trip was really bothered by my laziness in returning the shoes. I walked into the bar and snuck past the three people at the bar and into the back room where the four bowling lanes were. I looked around for my shoes, but they had cleaned up and taken them elsewhere. I knew had to ask the bartender who was talking to his two friends at the bar. I walked out slowly. They were all waiting for me to come around the corner staring at my feet…When they saw my bowling shoes they started laughing so hard they nearly fell to the floor. The bartender pointed to where my shoes were and I quickly changed them without saying a word and left.

Then I walked to the slopes to hang out at the outdoor bar. I tried spend the rest of my koruna on Jagermeister while waiting on the lifts to close for the day. Everybody was exhausted. I went for dinner with some of them, but had spent all my money. Then back to the hostel dining room where everybody’s stuff was strewn about with reckless abandon. It looked like a refugee camp. Then the buses came for us. It was a horrible 3 hour trip home. The bus was so hot and smelly. The road was so horrible it was like riding on a wooden rollercoaster and all I wanted to do was sleep. Impossible.

It was a great weekend.