Bi-polar Crack Den

With the desire to get away to the mountains again, we head to the town of Liberec (LEE-ber-ets) in the low mountains in the north for the weekend. We have been there once before, in the winter to ski. We decide to catch a bus from Praha to Liberec which will cost us 70 Kč ($3.50) and have us there in a little over an hour. I can’t say enough how cool it is to be able to get around the country like this and not have a car. If there is a town in this country, a bus will go there or at least somewhere near. And, for the most part, you ride with normal people (unlike the companions one might have on a similar trip using Greyhound in the states).

We arrive at the bus station to purchase our tickets. Usually, you can purchase tickets from the bus drivers themselves, but because there was a ticket window in our faces, we decided to use it. The price turned out to be 10 Kč more expensive than what we thought it would, which we soon realized to be just fine considering the bus on which we were booked.

Normally, the state supported travel busses are nothing more than a city bus set up for longer travel (overhead rack to put your bags). Sometimes these things can be real pieces of shit, sometimes they are nice. They are always clean and safe. The bus we rode on this time was a brand new deluxe tour bus set up for long term travel. It was sweet. We actually purchased a ticket from a private transit company by accident. This is the reason the bus was so nice. This bus was great! We were pimpin’, Czech tour bus style. It was like traveling on an airplane, without ever leaving the ground. Complimentary coffee or tea (instant, of course), newspapers and periodicals and all delivered to your seat with a friendly smile. Only problem that I could find came to me as a realization while I was listening to the whirring of the instant coffee/tea machine producing the passengers libations. The whirring was acting as a dual sound effect. One was the sound of the coffee machine, the other, the sound of the instant coffee produced log that wanted its’ way out, badly. It is kind of a sick joke to offer coffee on a road trip in a tour bus with no toilet. I was ready to spackle the inside of the bus by the time we arrived in Liberec. It wasn’t until we got off of the bus that I noticed the toilet, which was accessed through a small door, hatch really, in the stairwell. If I’d have seen it sooner-BOOM!

Liberec is a nice little town with a population of 97400 people (2005 census), situated in a valley on the western side of the Jizerský Hory (YEE-zer-skee Mountains), which are just west and slightly north of the Krkonoše Hory (KRK-oh-no-sheh Mountains), the highest range in the country.

We disembark from the bus and start on our walk to the office of the rental company to get the keys to where we will be staying. The directions to the rental office have been given in the usual Czech style, vague as hell. If you don’t know what I mean by Czech style, see ‘Boomin’ ‘an shit”. The walk is not far, but we easily double the distance in trying to find the place. The directions are given to Hanka in the Czech style, and then they are passed from her to me in the Czech style-layer 2. Maddening. The ‘obvious’ location of the rental agency is actually hidden across a used car lot and behind a fence. Oh yeah, right in front of our faces. After getting the keys and paying, we are given directions to the place where we will actually be staying. More directions, SHIT! Well, these turn out to be reasonably understandable. Well, except the fact that we were told to catch either tram numbers 5 or 11. What we weren’t told, was that trams 5 and 11 weren’t running. After a short walk, we find the main mass transit station and locate the stand where the trams will pick us up. Up rolls a bus with the number X11 and a destination on the front of it. Knowing an 'X' in front of a transit line number means that it is a substitute, I grab Hanka and go to get on the bus, but encounter some resistance from her. I swing around to find out what I have done, and she informs me that this is not a tram. Really? What gave you that idea? Is it the fact that it’s not attached to a power line; the fact that it is on wheels with tires that are resting on the road instead of rails; or maybe it’s just that it looks like a bus and not a tram? Maybe all of the above. Whatever it is, I now have to get off of this bus that we need to catch and go look at a tram that I have previously inspected and determined is obviously not the right one. “But the lady said get on trams 5 or 11!” says Hanka. Czech directions. After all of the mass transit usage here that I have under my belt, I tell her about the 'X' and the number is the same as the trams, and the gods of mass transit here don’t cross the numbers like that. Imagine that, a stinking American telling a Czech what is up, the nerve!

Anyway, we ride the bus to our stop and walk to the zámek (chateau) where our room is booked. With a bit of searching behind us, we walk up on a handsome 110 year old large stone house (pretty much everything is made from stone or brick here) with a nice rolling, well manicured yard with flowers and bushes that wrap half-way around a couple of nice little ponds. There are stone statues, on a lush green lawn on which a couple of crack whores are sunbathing… [Sound of stylus being ripped across vinyl] …wait a minute, crack whores? What are they doing here? Don’t they usually avoid the sun like vampires? And what are they doing on this nice lawn? Oh well, we shrug off the sight of the whores and look for the entrance to the zámek which is on the back side of the building. We enter the stairwell and ascend to our room, number 300.

The fake wood veneer door to number 300 looks a bit out of place considering the age of the building and is broken and chipped away right by the latch. Damn, the furniture must be really valuable in the room, as someone has obviously tried to break-in, we think to ourselves! We open the door and enter what explains to me instantly the reason for the crack whores. I think that 300 stands for the number of days since the room has been cleaned. This place is a boarding house, for anyone. Ubytovna, in Czech. To label it simply, a shit-hole, or at least most of it.

As with many buildings that were constructed around that time, there is a tower built into one corner of the structure. Our little piece of this shit-hole is in half of this tower. The stairwell is in the other half. This place was found on the internet and suggested to us by a friend of Hanka’s. The price was really cheap, but the pictures that were on the internet, according to her, looked really nice. Good ol’ internet, 97% porn, 1% good information, 2% deception. Guess into which category this place falls.

The semi-circular shaped room is painted a light-powder blue with a paint splashed wood floor and two windows. The paint is of the ‘dusty, come off on to your clothes’ variety, like most of the painted surfaces in this country. The windows are dirty as hell and have finger streaks from the previous ‘crackies’ on them. The paint on them is peeling and moldy and the spaces between the panes of glass are full of spider webs. As a matter of fact, spider webs are the mode of decoration or ‘theme’ of the room as they are everywhere. The furniture consists of a shoddy dresser, two equally shoddy night tables, a table with three chairs and a cheap plastic tablecloth and 3 beds with a pillow and blanket each. There is also a large red plastic tablet (looks like a giant Sudafed) which has stickers on it to make it look like an alien, that when opened becomes a chair complete with soiled padding on which neither Hanka nor I would sit. Ok, the real test, see if the bed sheets are clean. They passed. Whew! We are on a budget and have already paid for the room halfway across the city, so here we will stay. Of course, if we would have been able to preview the place, we probably would have never stayed there.

One really odd thing about the room, aside from everything else, was the amount of electricity running into it. The little room had four 125 cm dual-bulb fluorescent lights that were each wired to their own switch, for setting the right mood when 'smokin’ ‘em rocks' or 'shootin' 'at junk', and a total of fourteen electrical outlets! What in the hell was the purpose of that many outlets in that little space? Since when does the smoking of rocks or shooting of junk demand such a need for electricity? Maybe, during communist times when property was sometimes seized by the state, this place was used for all kinds of covert operations. Yeah, sounds better like that.

So, on to the restroom and shower inspection. Showers, clean. Toilets, basically nasty. One was especially nasty as someone had not quite made it on their hasty last second dash to ‘speak with Ralph on the big white phone’. Puke and paper were everywhere. This one stayed this way until the day we left. Just in time. We found ourselves laughing at what a shit-hole this really was. I likened it to a crack den or perhaps a heroin shanty.

Well, after the inspection, we decided to go on a hike to the top of the local ski area, Ještěd (1012 m, or 3320 and pron. JESH-tyehd), which is named for the mountain on which it sits. On our way out, I see a large ring with a bunch of keys on it just lying on the floor. I look closer, and realize that these are the keys to all of the rooms in the zámek! The housekeeper (if there is such a thing here) has just left them on the floor, unattended. There is no one in sight. After a few minutes of thinking about how messed up this is, to compromise the security of the 'crackies', I decide to take the key to our room off of the ring and put it in my pocket. Nobody is breaking into our room without actually breaking into it! Scary to think that anyone could have had any key that they wanted.

So, anyway, we catch a bus to town and transfer to a tram (a real one) and ride to the ski area. Ještěd is a rather small area in number of runs, but has a large amount of skiable acreage. The area is actually in the middle of a much needed expansion. As we were hiking up the hill, we could see that all of the lifts had been taken down. We wondered if the area would actually be able to open come winter as it is a bit late to be undertaking such projects.

We make it to the top and hang out in the hotel/restaurant/bar/overlook. Cool place. The top of the mountain is marked by a large rocky point that juts out of the top of the otherwise gently sloping mountain. It is on this point that the tower sits. The tower project, once the most significant architectural design of its time, was started in 1965 and finished in 1970. Since about 1848 there has been some kind of lodge on the top of the mountain. Before that people started putting crosses there somewhere around the mid 1700’s. Crosses. People have put them everywhere here. This is strange to me as the society is basically non-religious, yet there are roadside and trailside effigies if christ on the cross everywhere! The tower project was started because the last of the two lodge structures that were there burned down in 1964. The views from here are great when the weather is clear and sunny, as it was that day. You can see Liberec in the valley and the Jizerský and Krkonoše mountains, with Sněžka (the highest point in the country at 1602 m, or 5286 ft) off to the west. To the north, south and east are rolling hills and plains. Also to the north you can see a power plant that is in southern Poland creating pollution for Liberec and the northwestern Czech Republic. The power plant, coupled by the wintertime inversion here creates quite a nasty brown cloud that hangs in the valley and smothers Liberec. Thanks guys! The top of the mountain is the perfect place to see this travesty. It sucks to see a pretty place like this with such bad air.

Another significant historical note about the tower is that it was the sight of the last free radio broadcast by eventual first president of the Czech Republic, Václav (Wenceslas) Havel, and Jiří (George) Třída before the Russian invasion and subsequent occupation of what was then Czechoslovakia. What many might not know is that the Czech’s actually voted the communists into power in the 40’s. They pretty much opened the door and invited them in. As people started to realize that they were being denied freedoms that were their right as humans, unrest started to grow in then Czechoslovakia. It was at that point that the Soviets decided to move in with the military as a show of force and lay the proverbial ‘smack down’ on the people of the country.

So, pictures taken, snacks eaten and rest had, we descend to a saddle in the mountain where sits a lodge with a restaurant. We decide to eat here as the prices at the top are jacked up only for the view, not the quality. We both order the same thing, Segedínský goulash with houskové knedlíky. The goulash is a tasty, non-traditional version that has little if any paprika. The main flavor components seem to be beef and tomato and, of course kmín (caraway), which is in just about every traditional Czech dish. The big difference is that this goulash has kyselý zelí (sauerkraut) in it. Houskové knedlíky are traditional Czech bread dumplings. Knedlíky are also made from potatoes, which is the more traditional version. The only strange thing about the food is the garnish. Aerosol whipped topping. Yeah, fake whipped cream. Sweet too. Hanka calls ‘bullshit’ immediately on this one. I laugh and continue to scarf my food. I don’t know what it is about this country, but I have an INSATIABLE appetite! One thing I must say about this restaurant, the service there was the friendliest we have had in the 8 months we’ve been here. In places where tipping is not a custom, servers have not yet learned the value of good service.

After lunch, we head down the hill to return to our ‘crack closet’. On the way down, I notice a different trail heading off into the woods and suggest we check it out. What this trail turns out to be is one BAD ASS downhill mountain bike trail! Man I was wanting The Mome soooo badly! This thing was SSSSSSTEEEEEP, with all kinds of technical rocky spots and a few BIG drops with huge run-out landings. I was amazed at the aggressiveness of the descent of this trail. If only I had my bike…

We head back to town and to the store for some snacks and then on to the ‘closet’. Walking up on one side of the zámek, Hanka points out that the rooms in the lower portion of the house look nice. After some snooping around, I find that she is right! All of the lower level rooms have been completely redone and look like they are a pleasure to stay in. I think that we were on the wrong side of the building.

Back in the room, we decide to go outside while there is still some light and hang out around the ponds. I step to the restroom and on my way pass a couple of guys hanging out in the common area that is just outside and around the corner from our room. The common area consists of a table complete with ashtray, two chairs and a well soiled sectional couch. Couches. Every place I have been in this country, save one, the couch has sucked. I keep thinking about Rick James kicking mud into Eddie Murphy's couch while screaming 'FUCK YO COUCH NIGGAH, FUCK YO COUCH!' Being a lazy American, I value the quality of a good couch. Aside from a good bed, this is the place you need to put your money. Anyway, one of the guys is lying on this dirty-ass couch in his underwear. Nasty. It looks like he has just come from a shower. The last place I want to be after I shower is on a soiled, shitty couch.

We sit outside and enjoy the last hour of light and reflect on the amusing events of the day. While we are sitting, a cop car races up and around to the back of the zámek. 15 minutes later, it races off again. Great. Must have needed some crack. At dusk, we head back in to take showers and settle in for the night. Standing outside of the zámek, we look up to the tower and notice bats flying around everywhere and realize that this place is like a haunted house. Not like the stupid Halloween sort of haunted house, but the Rod Serling, ‘Night Gallery’ creepy psycho thriller kind of haunted house. After this realization, being in the place seems really creepy. The lighting in the stairwell is really dim, making it hard to see the stairs. The ‘L’ shaped hallways are lit with only one light. The bathrooms are on a motion sensor switch, so they are dark when you enter them. From the bathrooms comes a smell with a slight hint of sewer, of things rotting, maybe people. You can hear people laughing and talking off in the distance, but can’t really tell where they are. The only thing in your face is the loud, hate filled music blaring from the room of the guy that was, after his shower, re-soiling himself on the couch, and the faint stench of old carpet. We enter our room, turn on some fluorescent ‘mood’ lighting, and lock the door. Horror stories begin in places like this, stories in which we do not want a part. Neither of us will go to the bathroom alone, a pact is agreed upon.

After a restless night of sleep because of worrying about the potential horror that could befall us, should we have a good nights sleep, and the fact that after we went to bed the freaks came out of the wood work and partied until the early morning and, oh yeah, the beds sucked, we wake to mixed weather. Plans made, we head to the botanical garden, and then walk around town. Liberec has some really cool old buildings. Not as old as many of the structures in this country, but 110 year old buildings are old nonetheless.

The next morning we wake after a slightly better nights sleep and pack our things to leave. On our way out, I see the ring of keys lying on the floor unwatched again. I did not return our key to the ring, but put it in the lock box with our other key. I wasn’t about to get busted returning the key I took and not be able to explain why I took it in the first place! I also see the housekeeper is preparing to finally clean the restrooms, just in time for our departure.

We bid farewell to the zámek and stop at Babylon, the local water park on our way out of town. People say this is the best water park in the Czech Republic. It’s actually not only a water park, but a multiplex of money absorbing establishments meant to rob the consumer blind. In addition to the overpriced water park, there is an overpriced bowling alley, an overpriced shopping mall, over priced restaurants, overpriced business offices and an overpriced hotel. Mixed reviews here. It is an indoor water park, as they all are here. Given that, you can figure that they are not very big. The fact that they aren’t big and that the weather outside was cold and damp, made Babylon the popular place to be that Monday. People everywhere. Kids running around like wild animals pulling their hair out at the excitement of the day. Adults trying to relax but they are not able, as there is no break from the din of the reverberating sounds of screaming children off of the water and concrete that is everywhere. The place was good for kids, but weak for adults. In the entire place, there was only one hot tub. It was super packed, with a line to get in. Once you got in, it was barely warm because of the constant stream of people getting in and out and the jets that were always running. Hardly relaxing. The only steam room was likewise, only warm. There was a place upstairs where you could pay and extra fee and enter quality steam rooms and saunas, but why? After paying my life savings for admission, why the hell would I pay and extra fee for something that sould be included? After about an hour, we had about as much fun as we could stand. That and my eyes were burning red, signaled our departure from Babylon, and Liberec.

As we are riding home on the bus, and I am sitting enjoying a complimentary cup of the Czech Republics finest powdered tea and thinking about how much my eyes are burning from the chemicals in the water at Babylon, I think of the episode of The Simpsons when they get a pool in the back yard and Homer adds too much chemical sanitizer to the pool. I picture myself as one of the bleached kids screaming and leaving the pool bleached white with burning red eyes.

Chillin' na Chatě

So we are at the chata (cottage) for the weekend. Nice to get away. It is cool that many of the city folk have these little places in the country side to which they can get away form the rat race of the city. Most of the Czechs use them every weekend. I actually think that Praha is better on the weekend for this reason. The city empties out. It is great. Even the tourist areas are less crowded. I don't blame them for wanting to go to the country. It is so much more peaceful. Well, sometimes.

The Chata

Hanka's family's cottage is in the 700 year old town of Tuchoměřice, about 20 kilometers from Praha. In terms of distance, it is not that far but seems like it is much farther as it is situated in this little valley with trees, grass, dogs, chickens and roosters, power lines, a bar with loud music and a major international airport nearby. Yeah, an interesting mix of peaceful country side sounds with some city-like noises. I am blown away by how much the sound of the airport (which is actually up on the plain and about 5 kilometers away) and the bar resonate down the valley.










Hanka workin' it in the kitchen

The bar creates the greater disturbance as it is just across the power line from where the chata is located. There is nothing like sitting outside and relaxing to the sounds of the countryside and having it pulled to a screeching halt by a jukebox playing bubble gum techno (a delightful style of Electronica music) that has its volume on high and is hooked to outside speakers. It is really a nerve-wrenching experience. Now I like the musical genre of Electronica. Well, some of it, and bubble gum ain't some of it. Although the genre is comprised of 98% shit, the 2% that is not, is really good. This 2% is made up of all of the sub genre that find themselves in the 'Electronica' heading. The worst of all in this genre are the 'bubble gum' (teenie-bop crap) and the 240bpm (beats per minute) 'drum and bass' garbage. It amazes me that no one cares about this noise, or at least says nothing about it. Maybe it's like the community oven, or water source and wash basin of days of old. One can see those kinds of things all over the place over here (Europe). At least they only play the music on friday, saturday and sunday nights (holidays too). When I first heard this, I was outside tending a nice little fire I had going, enjoying the peace. Seeing the dancing fire, and hearing the sound of crickets, the brook in the distance and the lightly crackling fire mesmerizing me into a trance-like state, and then BOOM!!!, here comes someones bad remake of an 80's tune**, that sucked in the first place, with a new and improved heavy bass back beat that has been jacked up to a relaxing 240 bpm, to rip me from my trance like being awakened from a pleasant dream by having thrown upon me a bucket of ice water, followed by hot grease (not bacon, 'cause that would be bittersweet, actually), and then having someone shake the shit out of me and scream in my face "BACON AND DOUGHNUTS HAVE BEEN OUTLAWED!!! THEY WILL BE AVAILABLE NO MORE!!!". For those who know me, this would be like the end of the world, my little version of hell. So, Hanka and I look at each other when this happens like, 'what the hell?!?!'. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Around the fire I dance with my stick like some retarded-ass neo-native American Indian. But this is no rain dance. This one is for the celestial fireball that I want to land in close proximity to us-say, on the other side of the power line. Yeah.










Picking Cherries

The airport? Well, that one is surprisingly less intrusive than one would think. I guess we are far enough away that, while it is still loud, it isn't unbearable. Tuchoměřice is actually in the airport zone, so the city has agreed to pay for the installation of brand new, insulated, double-pane windows in each house in the entire town, which has only a populace of about a few hundred people. Now isn't that nice. People here already have double paned windows. Everywhere, in the whole country, windows, double paned. They are just an older style. Instead of one window with two panes of glass, the older version (which is about 80 years old) has two sets of windows. The funny thing is, while the new windows are better at insulating against the weather, they do no better at reducing the decibels. The older version windows in the apartment where we are staying in Praha were replaced this past spring and the city noises are just as loud as they were before. I wonder if the noise of the planes doesn't bother me because I am used to the periodic loud interruption of large transport vehicles from close by. I have lived within a stones throw from trains for 34 years of my life, you see. Hmmm...













Strawberries from the 2nd harvest (Blogger uploaded the pic this way, I don't know how to fix)

So, as it sounds like I have a dislike for the town of Tuchoměřice by the tone of this missive thus far, I do not. I like to get away to this place from the city very much. It is cool to be able to come to a place such as this. The chata, despite being a bit of a shack, is quaint in an 'uncle dad' or 'aunt mom' kind of way, and is dry and has enough amenities to keep one comfortable, including running water, toilet (shit funnel variety, no ledge, and complete with paper!), wood burning water heater for the shower, electricity, small kitchen with cooking implements and a piece of shit TV that is good for nothing more than for me to huck it off of a 3 story building into an open parking lot causing me to giggle like a child because breaking stuff is cool, especially stuff with glass. The chata sits in a large yard filled with trees and bushes that yield various fruits and nuts and a garden that yields fruits, vegetables and herbs. Of the things yielded by said plants are apples, cherries (sweet and sour varieties), strawberries, peaches (coming soon, as the tree is just about to go through puberty), black and red currants, raspberries, blackberries, green beans, leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, horseradish, walnuts, hazelnuts, sage, mint, oregano or sorrel, and chives. It is nice to be there and be able to eat all this stuff fresh. The strawberries and raspberries are spectacular, and I did not like cherries until I got over here. Anything cherry in America sucks. Europe has the cherry thing worked out. The only thing that sucks about the way things grow here in the yard is that it is feast or famine. I have eaten so much of each individual thing as its' season has come and gone that I felt as if I would turn the color of that particular item. The only thing I have missed out on so far was the sweet cherry harvest. We picked and ate the shit out of them as best we could,b ut, as we could only hold so much of them and were going on vacation, so many of them were lost to the ground and insects. Sucked. Anyway, we pretty much just hang out and relax. Yeah, I know, I do a lot of that.










Red Currants

The last time were at the chata, we went to the bar with Hanka's sister, brother and law and their kid. Yeah kids at bars, more of a normal thing here. Thing is, there is a play ground and soccer field right next to the bar. A coincidence? I think not. While we were there, we run into the neighbors. Everybody is a neighbor in these small towns, and neighbors are friendly. What do friendly people want to do when you are at a bar? Yeah, buy you drinks.

A neighbor of Hanka's they call strejda (pron. STRAY-da, which means uncle), wanted to buy be a shot. A shot. I don't drink anymore. Not because I don't want to, because I can't. Me and drinking don't get along very much. It is somewhat of a crap-shoot for me. 80% of the time, after only one or two drings, I get anywhere from a mild to a massive headache the next day. I don't know why, and I hate it. Passionate hate. The kind of hate that if it had some kind physical presence other than being in me, I would kill it. A long, slow, why do you do this to me, and I'll get you for this!, kind of kill. The kind of kill that makes killers who kill passionately, proud to be killers who kill for the sake of killing, because that is what they do, kill. This really sucks because I have never wanted to drink more than now. So, Strejda isn't taking no for an answer, as they do not here, and goes to buy a couple of shots of rum. He returns with the shots and, as I have said before, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em -for one. "Tak, brambor!" is the toast, which means literally, "So, potato!"(instead of na zdraví-the traditional toast, which means 'to your health') The word for so, 'tak' is used everwhere in this language. As far as 'potato' is concerned, I don't know what these people would do without them here. They are everywhere. I even think they use them for stucco. Tak(so), as we are sitting there talking (they are, I can only understand a few words that they are saying), I feel like I am sitting in the middle of a fly's nest. People all around me talking Czech (buzzing), and fast. Strejda starts to talk to me. I can only give him my best deer-in-headlights look. Sucks. That and I can't stop staring at this guys forehead. Talk about a weathered face. Talk about weathered people. I have seen some rough ones over here. Men and women. Strejda has some canyons in the forehead of his leathery face that is on the front part of his big his big head. My friend Miso always talked about the large heads of the eastern europeans. Being here I see what he means. I think some of these people were cross-bred with the pumpkin! His hair is blown back like you have seen in pictures and movies of someone that has just had something blown up in their face, just cleaner. Despite the rough look of some of the people here, they are all some of the nicest, kindest people I have ever met. Sucks I have such a hard time understanding them. I would love to settle into 9-12 beers and talk about potatoes with these people. Anyway, we leave and I went to bed keeping my fingers crossed. No headache... No headache... Looks like it worked, no headache! Cool.


** A little note about bad 80's music: Over here they have taken a whole library of bad 80's music and have completely converted them to Czech. Music and lyricss. If you think 'Gloria' by Laura Branagan or 'Don't you want me baby' by The Human League were bad, you should hear them in Czech. Terrible.

Boomin' an' What Not

We went on vacation. Yeah, I know, I had a vacation from a vacation. You have to understand, this laziness shit really takes it out of you. I needed a damn break. You know, to go slack somewhere else.

So after much research and decision making, we hooked up with Hanka’s friends Martín and Lucka (LOOT-ska) and rented an apartment in the Šumava Mountains for a week. The Šumava are a mountain range in the southwestern part of the country that is shared by Austria and Germany. What a pretty place. Shit growing everywhere. My allergies were happy. We hook-up with them at Hanka’s family’s cottage outside Praha where we spent a week (Hanka winding down from working hard and me in a ‘transitional slack’ between the ‘full time’ slack of Praha and the ‘vacation’ slack to come.

We gather our bikes to put them on top of Martín’s car, a Škoda (SHKOE-da) Fabia combi (that is European for ‘wagon’). Škoda is the brand of car they make here, which is nothing more than a Czech Volkswagen as VW acquired them a few years ago. The top of the line Škoda is nothing more than a VW Passat with some minor design changes. Ironically, the term ‘škoda’ in Czech means ‘what a [it’s a] shame. Anyway, cool, I am so excited, The Mome, goin’ to the mountains. It’s been way too long since The Mome has been in its element. For those not in the know, ‘The Mome’ is my mountain bike, an Ellsworth Moment. So, with Martín’s bike already on the top of the car, we load Hanka’s bike and start to load up The Mome. Problem. The Mome is too big! Despite the fact that this worries me that we won’t be able to take it, I smile and say to myself: “That’s my boy, make those other bikes look like bitches!” After some minor alteration of the rack, The Mome is up and ready to go. Cool.

We head to the town of Svatá Maří, where we will be staying. It is a pretty little 650 year old village outside the larger town of Vimperk in the foothills of the Šumava. We only have to travel 150 kilometers (90 miles) but it seems to take us most of the day. That is how driving around this place is. Short distances take seemingly forever to cross. There is not much of a network of limited access highways here so almost all of the traveling is done on two lane roads that almost never head directly to your destination. It seems that every destination is reached by way of some place else, which can get a little confusing until you condition your mind to remember a shitload of different roads. Oh yeah, and get a damn map.

A side note on directions - One time when we were going to visit Hanka’s aunt, we were getting all kinds of fucked up directions to the town where they were. When we finally get to the town, they can’t even give us some reasonable directions to the house. The place is not big at all. If 200 people live there I would be shocked! So, from them we were getting some shit like: “Do you see the black roof? And; look for the big dog…” Ok. We don’t see either of these two things, but just for the sake of asking, what the hell do we do when we see a big dog or a black roof? No answer to this. I laughed myself to tears at this country-ass shit. We drove all over this little town until they finally get the family into the car and drive to a known landmark that we both recognize to meet us. We follow them to the house, a stones throw from where we were in the first place. No black roof. No big dog. Well, their dog is pretty big by Czech standards, but you can’t see him over the big fence. Once more to tears I laughed.

So anyway, back to the Šumava, we arrive. Nice town. Nice clean air. Nice. We unpack our stuff in the nice apartment and walk around the nice yard, hurt our backs petting the nice little dogs. We then walk across the street to check out the nice little dirty-ass bog they call a swimming pool. Wait. I brought my swimming shorts for this? Standards anyone? I am way too spoiled. To think that I can’t get myself to swim in the local public pool just because I can’t see any deeper than a few centimeters because of the deep DARK green color of the water is just ridiculous. I am such a snob. The owner of the apartment says that it is clean. They swim there. They change some of the water every night or so. Some. Or so. Why can’t I just get past some of these details? That and children swim here. I was a kid once. I know what happens in these things. I really want to swim too because it has been so DAMN hot here. The European heat wave was baking the shit out of us, and we didn’t even bear the worst of it, which was in Western Europe. Maybe I’ll take a cold bath.

The house where we stayed.

No need for the cold bath. It rained 6 out of the 7 days of the ‘vacation’ or ‘mountain’ slack that I had going on. It got cold too. I was not prepared for that. Damn. Rain really can hamper some shit. Biking in the super mud that can be in these kinds of climates can suck. No problem here. I didn’t take into account the level of the two other riders in our group (The fourth person in the group in on the inactive list as she is pregnant and should not do anything too active according to her doctor. Long story here.). Beginners. So, needless to say, roads, some gravel, mostly asphalt were the terrain on which we rode. I found a kind of cool trail that was pretty fun to descend (straight, steep descent with rocks, roots and stumps. I thought I heard The Mome giggling!), but I had Hanka with me and I waited for her to try to build her confidence and help her. In the process I was attacked. There are many things that want to eat you in the woods here. Being in the middle of the food chain sucks. That was pretty much it for the biking. I jibbed a bit. People looked at me funny. They do that stuff in Praha but I didn’t see it here. Funny thing about biking down in the Šumava, There are people on bikes everywhere, mostly mountain bikes. I did not see one of them on a trail, however. Not one. Shit blew me away. Good terrain, not a bike on it.

So limited by the rain, we went on some walks, one hike and visited an old castle/chateau complex called Velhartice. It was cool despite the weather. On the hike, we went to the top of one of the tallest mountains in the Šumava, Boubín. The weather was decent when we hiked so we got a decent view of our immediate surroundings. It was hazy. Normally you can see as far as the Alps in Austria and Germany. The farthest we could see was a little into Austria and Germany and the nuclear power plant, Temelín off in the distance to the other direction. We walked by, on the way down the mountain, Boubínsky prales which is the oldest nature preserve in the country. They don’t touch anything here. There is a big fence around the whole preserve which is actually to keep out animals, not humans (although humans are not allowed in there either). Nature preserve, some animals not allowed. Hmmm… Anyway, some of the oldest trees around are in this preserve. Some are as old as 300 to 400 years old! The so called ‘king of trees’, they said, was blown down in a storm in 1970. It was 440 years old! A tree, born in 1530 lasting that long. Cool! Still to think that some of the trees we saw were born in the 16-hundreds was pretty amazing. The funny thing is, some of them didn’t look that old.

Velhartice was ok. We have been to see a few of these things and they tend to get pretty repetitive. Some are really amazing old castles, rich with history. Others are not that exciting despite the history involved in them.

One day we went to view some slatí (peat bogs) that have been around since pre-historic times. They say these things can eat you. I was told this, literally. I was looking around for the mouth and the teeth. Cool nature things. I have never seen these before. I have seen peat, just not in bog form.

On our last day we went foraging for mushrooms. Mushrooms grow wild here everywhere. It is something of a pastime for the Czech people to forage for them. Almost every family has or does it regularly.

Earlier in the trip, we were grilling out some buřty (short, fat Czech hot dogs) when the owner of the house, who had just returned from foraging for mushrooms himself, presented us with one of his two baskets full of mushrooms. Tears of joy ran down my face. Chanterelle mushrooms are my favorite and this basket was FULL of them. Many different edible varieties grow here, many of which I can not name. The owner showed us his favorite type of mushroom and spoke of it lovingly with his eyes half-cocked and half-open -this probably because he had a few piva (beers) under his belt. It did look as though he was into the mushroom not for the edibility of it, but for its’ intoxicating qualities. Funny. We saved the basket for the next night when we would cook and eat the shit out of them. It was decided that I would cook the Chanterelles and the boletus would be cooked by Hanka.

Hanka cooked something they call 'Houby s Vejci' or 'Smaženice', which is scrambled eggs with sautéed mushrooms, onions and kmín (caraway). Pretty tasty stuff but in the preparation, she employs the traditional step of boiling diced mushroom with kmín before sautéing them. This is a way of cleaning the mushrooms as they can be quite dirty from the forest. I understand the cleaning, and boiling them, I guess. But to just pour the water from boiling with all that mushroom flavor down the drain is such a waste of valuable mushroom goodness! I shuddered. Strain and reduce that shit. Boom, mushroom broth. The stuff still tasted good, although more of kmín than of mushroom. Boiling being the culprit, I assume.

Me, I went to the store and bought some mletá slanina (raw, smoked bacon pieces. Surprised?), cream, corn, peas and carrots. No surprise there. I rendered out the bacon, removed it from the pan, leaving the grease, added butter to the grease and heated it to smoking hot (thanks Marvin!). Then in with the mushrooms. What a beautiful sight, sound and smell. The mushrooms cooked, I returned the bacon to the pan and added česnek (garlic), and the vegetables. When everything in the pan was cooked I let a nice fond (browning of food) grow on the bottom of the pan and deglazed it with some of the pasta water that I saved from the fusilli I cooked, and finished the whole thing with heavy cream. With the cream reduced to nape (thickened consistency) I tossed the pasta with the sauce and we ate the SHIT out of it. None left. Heaven. I swear, Chanterelles are made for pasta.

So, back to our day of foraging. We walked all through the forest and found two basket loads of chanterelles. Unbelievable. They were everywhere! So many of them were too small. In 3 or 4 days, the forest would have thousands and thousands of them. Can we stay longer?

Back at the apartment, I made pasta again, a little different this time. It being our last night, we were trying to use up the last of our food without buying any more. Kitchen sink pasta. The dish was basically the same but without bacon and no cream. I was going to use pasta water and butter but Martín pulls out some pre-made packaged crap nivová omačka (bleu cheese sauce). What the hell, let’s see how chanterelles can make this work. Truth be told, the dish was good. The chanterelles were in full flavor and dominating the flavor of the pasta. Just what I wanted. Again, pasta, gone.

The next day, we return to the cottage outside of Praha, where we settled into another ‘transitional’ slack prior to returning to Praha. After the quiet of the mountains, well, except for the roosters calling at sunrise and every 2 hours after (just about everyone has chickens and a rooster in the villages outside the city), it was hard to face the fact of being in the city again.

Conformism...

I gave in. In an effort to conform. I took Hanka's grandfathers pes for a walk. Little fuck. His name is Amor. He is a nice pes. He is also a stupid pes. He is devoted to his owner. The whole time we were on this walk, he wanted to go home to be with his owner. If I took him off his leash, he would run straight home. A crap shoot because he would run straight across a road and not look.

Speed bump. A good use for this kind of pes.

Pes means dog in Czech, if you didn't read 'The War Zone'.


The creation of this type of pes, in my eyes.

Can a niggah get a block of ice?

Holy shit is it hot in the summer here! Well, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Whatever the hell, holy shit is it hot in the summer here! Yeah, I know, Phoenix and shit. It is hotter in those kinds of places. Yeah, it is, but I am not there. That, and I am what some call 'a bitch'.

According to Hanka, this is the hottest she has ever seen it here. Everyone has been talking about how unusual the weather has been over the last year and a half. Last summer was unusually hot. Last winter was unusually cold and long. Hated it. Now, this summer is shaping up to be like last one. I used to live in this kind of heat and humidity. Actually worse.

Louisville, Kentucky (the butthole of the Ohio valley) is worse than this. Slightly hotter and more humid. That place really sucks. The only time to be there is in spring and fall. The place is great then. I really like it there those times of the year. Same here in Praha I am thinking.

Saving graces to the heat? Not many. As a matter of fact, the only one that comes to mind as I sit in this passage outside drinking an iced coffee drink is really bittersweet. Most of the people wear as little clothing as possible. For the over abundance of hot chicks that are swarming this place, it is great. I can see why Hanka is so pretty. There must be something in the gene pool here as this place has so many beautiful women*. This place, of course, has its' share of completely 'busted' women as well. Something I have noticed is that there is not much middle ground. You are hot, or your are jacked. Now, thank goodness, most of the 'jankie-ass bitches' are so kind as to cover up the injustice, some do like to 'air it out'. This along with the heat can bring on light headedness and nausea.

Honestly, I don't see how some of the people can dress like some do in hot weather. I see people wearing long sleeve shirts, pants, jackets etc... To hell with people like me who don't want to see that shit, it is hot. We can just turn out heads. I was riding a bus to a village outside the city (it is hot on these damn busses) and some lady got on wearing a thick long sleeve shirt and corduroy pants. She was sitting across from me. No sweat on her brow to be seen. By 10 AM I am soaked with sweat. I run hot. My cooling system works overtime. Bums wear every bit of clothing they own. Shit, it is hot, stash that coat. NO ONE WANTS IT! IT IS TOO DAMN HOT!!!

I feel lucky to have this outside seat at the coffee shop. If I had to sit inside I would dehydrate. In America, the place would be air-conditioned. Not here. Not many places have that luxury. If they do have air-conditioning, they only use it to achieve a climatic state of 'better than outside'. Thinking about this reminds me of how in the states most places are trying to refrigerate the shit out of you.

It is no wonder many parts of the states have the energy problems in the summertime that they do. The need to operate cooling systems to such a low temperature requires so much more power than is available. Why don't we as Americans take cues from the rest of the world and only try to maintain a reasonable inside temperature. This not only saves money, but more importantly, resources. Where is the leadership here? Oh yeah, Bush administration policy: "We, uh, will, uh, poke, uh, more, uh, uh, holes in Alaska, uh. Did I mention, uh, al Qeida, uh? Killers, uh, all of them, uh..." I could go on like that for hours. If you are a Bush fan, suck it up. The leadership of your posse sucks and their short sightedness refuses to lose face and bring forth the reality that is right in front of our faces. The last time I can remember a presidential administration that actually spoke of conservation was the Carter administration-in the 70's! the Clinton adminstration was the best since then but only because of some of their environmental policies. They did not speak too much of conservation.

Has anyone seen Al Gore's flick 'An inconvenient truth'? It is not out yet here in Praha so obviously, I have not. I am interested in what is has to say.

Another thing I don't see here is ice for sale. In every store that sells some kind of food in the states, one can buy ice, blocks or cubes, your choice. I do miss this. When it is hot, an ice cold drink every now and then is DAMN refreshing! Once again, the saving money and resource thing, I know. But a little give and take is a good thing.

I'll take a bag of ice, please. And could you move out of the way, a pack of honeys this way comes...


[*This fact one would think could be a distraction in a relationship. Not for me. I still think Hanka is a beautiful girl. One of the best. But to me, humans are interesting creatures, works of art really. Women are the best of that. All of them. Even the 'busted' ones.]

Carnival

Carnival

Bored and looking for something to do, my friend and I went to a carnival. Ignore the dude in the middle, he wasn't there. This is just the best picture of Petr that I have that describes his demeanor, goofy. Matejska poud (Matthews Carnival, translated), the carnival is called, and it is one of the things that happens in the spring over here. Normally, spring is starting to happen around here at that time (early March). However, this year winter seems to be hanging on to the bitter (cold) end. By early March things start to turn around here (normally). The sun starts to come out, the temperature average rises above zero and one can start to see smiles on the faces of the people around. Not this year. Ma Natures ‘bitch ass’ as of the end of March, had not let winter go. Bitch. Gimme some damn sun.

Matejska Poud is held on some kind of ‘has been’ complex that now serves as a fairgrounds-for lack of a better word. There are some old buildings and foundations (complete with the tile finished ground floors) where old buildings once were. It is kind of like a bomb went off in the area and it was never rebuilt. Who knows, maybe one did. I’d guess that the complex was about seventy or so years old. The existing structures have some mildly interesting architecture but really are nothing special. The rest of the complex is basically a shithole. Aside from the existing structures and the newly remodeled ‘T-Mobile’ arena, which is used for shows and sporting events, everything is crumbling. Shithole. Perfect setting for a carnival.

Aside from the existing structures and the newly remodeled ‘T-Mobile’ arena, which is used for shows and sporting events, everything is crumbling. Shithole. Perfect setting for a carnival. If this is anything like an American carnival, a shithole really is the only place for such an event.

The day is a perfect Prague late winter/early spring day. Grey and cold. The grey here is like nothing I have ever seen. The light here is so flat, it seems to take the life out of everything. So, with our mood in line with the day, grey, we pay the 10 crowns and give our ticket to the two guys standing around the gate smoking cigarettes and walk into the Czech equivalent of crackhead heaven thinking those guys had the job of a lifetime.

Cigarettes. Everyone smokes here. I think it is a national pastime. Big tobacco has no worries about losing smokers in the states as it has Europe in a choke hold! Smoking, everywhere. The city was kind enough to outlaw it in certain public places like mass transit stops, but much more is needed. Cafés, for example, are many times the smokiest places in the city-second to bars, of course. Restaurants follow with a close third. Wait a minute, café and restaurant, aren’t they the same thing, you might ask? Not really. Cafés being a cross between nice bar, bistro restaurant and coffee house, are really the best of all worlds and therefore attract a good deal of business. I like these places. The only thing that sucks is that they can be pretty smoky and well, that shit fucks up a meal.

I was at the gym and saw one of the health trainers outside taking a ‘break’ and smoking a cigarette. What the hell is that? “Wow! That sure was a tough session! I need a cigarette!” The words of a winner! Will you share with me your secrets of good health please? That one is right up there with another thing I see in the gym here.

The lobby and the showers of the gym are on the entry level of the building with the workout room and various other activity rooms on the basement level. To get to the lower level, there is one flight of stairs, and an elevator. Elevator. That’s nice. Now the ‘physically challenged’ (gimps) have access. The funny thing is, I have yet to see anyone who is ‘physically challenged’ working out in the gym. I am the biggest gimp in the joint. The elevator, however, gets plenty of action. It is strange to me to see people come to a gym to get a workout, to improve their health, and instead of taking a rather short flight of steps up or down, they take the elevator.

Anyway, back to the carnival. We walk into the complex to find the place is deserted. There are of course, the carnies, which, as a matter of fact, look like relatively normal people! What a shocker. The first part of the carnival is the young children’s section. Nothing here. We proceed on to the main part of the event, which is kept separate from the children’s section. As we walk by the various test your luck/skill booths, carnies are asking us in the usual Czech way if we would like to test our luck/skill. ‘Asking us in the usual Czech way’ entails acting particularly unexcited about anything, especially your job, yet trying to promote it despite the fact that you: 1) in no way support it; 2) know that you will, in no way benefit from it. (after all, that is the problem of your employer); and 3) could not care less whether you or anyone around you lived or died. Howevermuch this method is actually on the way out, as capitalism is slowly showing the benefit of good service, this method of service still holds on in places.

So walking around this nearly deserted 'poud' a few things catch my eye. The first is the decoration of the rides. Following in the redneck tradition of carnivals in America, everything is airbrushed. The airbrushing is funny. First of all, the names of all the rides English names. The scenes airbrushed on the rides depicts the theme of the ride, well, sometimes. Most of the time, the scene is just some sleazy chick, dressed in next to nothing, in some sexually suggestive position beckoning you to get on the ride. Some of the chicks are also topless. This would never fly in America. I personally don't care about the topless bit, I mean come on, we all fed from a breast for about the first year of our lives, now we can't see them any more? Bullshit. American sensorship is nothing short of riddiculous. That is another story, however.

One of the rides named 'Colorado' was particularly funny to us. 'Colorado' was airbrushed with all sorts of images of things you can do and see in Colorado. There were two images of things that amazingly enough, I had not done in the 14 years of living there. The things were: seeing Mount Rushmore, and the space shuttle. What was wrong with me?

Another thing we saw was something I have seen at other 'poud'. People that look like American Indians, dressed like American Indians, and playing music that is supposed sound like American Indian music. I can't begin to explain how stupid this is to me. The only thing I am going to write about this is this: Why is this kind of thing in existance here? Why not do some kind of old world Czech theme? If ever there was something that did not fit, to me this is it. Maybe it is the Czech way of saying to the American Indian: "We understand, and we feel your pain. Sorry about your luck, you didn't get anything better than useless land and raging alcoholism back from those who occupy your land. At least after having our land taken from us multiple times, we got it all back." Yeah. Maybe.

After seeing these things and becoming more depressed, we decided to break out of that place and go to a čajovná (Tea house) and hang out. Better atmosphere, for sure.

I finally get a job

I finally get a job.

So I finally get a job! A restaurant named 120 days has agreed to give me a 1 week trial. At the end of the week, we will sit down and negotiate my salary and responsibilities. I am to expect no pay for this first week, as a show of commitment. It has been so damn long since I have worked, I am ready to work for free at this point. I will try to give you an idea how things went at 120 days in a fairly abbreviated manner as I could get excessively wordy about this place.

The name 120 days stands for the amount of time that it will take them to get their gas permit from the city of Praha. After the many pitfalls of the restaurant business license process, the owners decided to open without a gas permit so as to not miss the summer season, the busiest season in Praha. The way the permit process is set up here, I gather you must apply for various licenses independently. After the permit is issued, the restaurant will close and remodel the kitchen and completely outfit it with new gas burning equipment.

So, needless to say, this is a commercial kitchen with absolutely NO gas. The equipment is all electric. I was curious as to how this was to work out being that electric can be a real pain in the butt with which to cook. Some of the equipment they have in the kitchen you want to be powered by electricity (ovens, induction burners, pasta boilers, steam tables, etc…). The main cooking equipment, should always be gas (cooktop, range, griddle, grill, salamander, fryer, wok cooker, etc…) The electric range, salamander, fryers and griddle, they just left on high all day to completely bake the shit out of the kitchen. The station by the range and salamander was really hot!!! The induction wok burners and 15 inch induction cooktop were really cool pieces of equipment! I can see the potential of having all the range and cooktop foods being cooked over induction as being great. The precise control over the heat source cooking the food is incredible! Anyway, the opportunity to work with some of the new equipment they had in the kitchen was exciting, not to mention the potential of the future kitchen and being able to work in a nice, new and fully outfitted kitchen.

I think that the owners of the restaurant have a bunch of money to burn. Some of the equipment in this kitchen is unbelievable. The place is not even busy yet and they have a vacuum sealing machine. These things are really expensive. And not to mention, the bags for the food are also expensive. Vacuum machines are in use in many of the larger, busier kitchens and especially in high rated ‘Michelin’ restaurants. Not only are they used for storage to preserve shelf-life, but they can also be used as a cooking method. Some of the methods are cool concepts, some I can’t get with.

‘Sous vide’ is a cooking method that employs this type of cooking. It is cool stuff. Cook food in a moist, temperature perfect environment to make it the best it possibly can be. Good. Steaks cooked this way and then finished on the grill as opposed to actually grilling the steak the from start to finish, just seems to go against the whole idea of a grilled piece of animal. Bad. Even if it produces the most juicy piece of meat, I still have a problem (based only on principle, of course). Who knows, maybe I have had a steak cooked like this, I just didn’t know.

Another piece of equipment that I don’t understand is a spice grinder. Not just a little home grade coffee mill this is, no no. This one is a converted commercial grade espresso bean grinder with a variable grind setting. Once again, a sweet piece of equipment, but a waste of money. The only thing I saw them grind in this thing was pepper. Black pepper. Peppergrinders all over the kitchen and they have to spend 600 to 1000 dollars on this thing. I am pretty sure that the guests have no idea that the pepper is ground in the kitchen or in a factory in say, Tunisia or Turkey. Maybe they bought the vacuum machine for the grinder because the pepper went into a vacuum bag right after being ground.

So, moving on, I will list a few notes I took while I was there at 120 days, or as I like to call it, 4 days. 4 days because I terminated my employment after that amount of time. I need a job. I don’t need one like that. This place was unbelievable. I have never experienced anything quite like that. I really wish some of my friends that I have worked with in the past could have been there with me. We would have had a field day with the place. I have never laughed so hard and simultaneously been infuriated so much in my life. Another name for the place could be Countless Red Flags. Countless because things are still happening, I am sure. One flag each little thing that drove a rusty nail deeper into my patience threatening to unravel it and make me go on a killing spree screaming ‘Hamas, bitches!!!’. Why Hamas? Because the place was run by 3 Israelis. I have nothing against Israelis, but these three are from Tel Aviv. Maybe we should have let Saddam’s scud get through back in ’90.

The flags are as follows:

1. Arrogant, bi-polar, lazy, condescending, disorganized, hebrew, bitch ass chef and sous chefs with no apparent skill in their job.
2. russian, czech, english, french languages with English being the primary language. The only people that could speak English in the kitchen were the Isrealis and me. The rest was broken English. One Czech kid was actually decent, but didn’t understand that much. I felt like an invader. Here we are in their country and one of the requirements of employment was that one must speak English.
3. One day I hear the chef yelling at one of the guys that started the same day as me because he always made mistakes that made more work for the chef. It takes a lot out of the chefs fat ass to walk around and actually look like he is doing something. Now he actually has do something. Not kosher. Dude was rudely fired. Could it be because he was not trained, at all, and never was given any direction, that he was fired? It is just a guess, but probably.
4. chef is fat and lazy. I have said this, but this is an underscore.
5. I saw his hairy buttcrack and was horrified. This thing was like the Israeli version of ‘FANGORN FOREST’, complete with ‘Shents’. A ‘Shent’ is an Ent made from shit, and just as old.
6. all of the sunspot arrogance but without any organization. When I worked at Sunspot at Winter Park, the chef’s were the most arrogant post-grad cooks ever. Assholes. But they were at least somewhat organized, thanks to, in part, their predecessors.
7. sous chefs barking orders. If I want to hear barking, I’ll get a dog. Clearly the method of management there is delegate, delegate and you guessed it, delegate. I mean, why do the work when someone else can?
8. chefs can’t do the work for which they ask. Ok, if you are going to bark orders, you had better be able to do the work for which you ask. Otherwise, shut up until you know what you are talking about.
9. cool czech dude. The Czech was not a red flag, what the chef’s are doing to him is. This kid is young and eager. Perfect for a good chef to mold as he is a sponge. These guys are instilling in him all kinds of really bad habits. These assholes actually would yell at this kid for not having something ready when they set him up for a failure in the first place. One sous chef actually physically pushed this kid one time. I was thinking the ‘Hamas, bitches!’ thing. I was infuriated. This one is good for a few Flags.
10. me training a czech speaking russian and trying to teach him in Czech. I suck at speaking Czech. Really suck. This was interesting. In a selfish way, it was cool for me as I was forced to speak in a somewhat stressful situation. I am sure the Russian was thinking: ‘What the hell!!!’. This was a job delegated to me caused the experienced line cook (who speaks Czech) was sent home on a Saturday night.
11. firecracker romanian chick. I have found the Romanian/Czech version of diahrea of the mouth. This girl was Romanian but spoke fluent Czech, and a lot of it. She was cool, and funny. She gave the sous chefs plenty of shit. I liked that. This is not a flag, but I figured she deserved mention as she was an integral part of the freak show.
12. sous always yelling for her. One of the sous chefs was always yelling for her. Always. I got really tired of hearing it. I think he wanted her.
13. poorly executed food, plating, composition of flavors, all shit. fusion food can be really good or really bad. This was worse than bad. I found myself wondering who signed off on this one.
14. cooking for ideals and not within the confines of reality. The menu was put together for what they wanted to cook and had nothing to do with the space, equipment, season, clientele, etc… it is obvious that they are still trying to figure out what the hell they want to do weeks after opening.
15. full of shit, sous asks me (on my 3^rd day) and other cook to do a food order, I said no and that’s not my job for the first time in my work career. I have always thought of myself as a team player. These people taught me how to get ‘me’ out of ‘team’ real quick. This one blew me away. I guessed that the executive chef handed this one down to him last minute. Shit flows downhill and I was standing under a waterfall of it.
16. sous chef pushing a cook because he was not prepared which was the chefs fault. I mentioned this earlier. Yelling is bad enough, but you DO NOT touch your employees like that. That sous almost ended up in the fryer. Once again ‘Hamas, Bitches!’.
17. no soap at any hand sink until I asked for some on the 3^rd day, the chef said it was not his responsibility and that he would have someone do it. Sanitation anyone. A nice case of runny poop that sprayed the bowl and was, well, quite messy to clean up prior to me making your ‘fresh’ salad with my bare hands. Didn’t happen. Or did it? You never know. And secondly, what kind of chef speaks of the hand sinks in the kitchen not being his responsibility?
18. the chef was all pissy and bitchy because he had to cook breakfast for 14 people. breakfast was ‘hamenex’ which is ham and eggs which is really 2 pieces of paper thin pancetta in a non stick pan with 2 sunny side up eggs put into the pan so the white can cook into the bacon and you cant pick it up, and a ‘fresh’ salad made with the chefs hands. I think he was just in the restroom before and had to cut it off to come make breakfast.
19. station versus line organization was fucked so you had to go from one end of the line to another just for a bowl of soup that came out of the steam table to go to the stove and then to a bowl and to a third station for garnish. Also, to get chicken rizek (Czech schnitzel), you had to leave the line, run to the back of the kitchen to the freezer and then back to the line, during the rush. Little help?
20. never available towels, aprons, chefs coats or anything sanitary.
21. no proper sanitation. We cleaned with water. The dishwashers cleaned most of the kitchen anyway. They had to be reminded to not spray stainless steel polish around the food. Sauce tasting spoons (always a good thing) kept in a .5l (pint) glass in room temp water. I saw people using the spoons and then returning them to the glass. Why did you get more that one spoon? Bacteria anyone?
22. pots and pans were always wet and greasy after being cleaned. There was a separate dish tank for this.
23. sous chefs taking breaks when the cooks have not had a break all day. Well, this applies to me. I don’t smoke. Everyone who smokes takes breaks. I think that I am the only one in this country, let alone Europe, that doesn’t smoke.
24. chef and sous come in after cooks and leave before cooks. Delegation has it’s benefits, doesn’t it?
25. euro-smell fuckin up the walk in.
26. eurosmell is Algierian and is the epitome of what many smell like in Europe (B.O.)
27. spastic czech cook. Nice guy, but if my hand is 1 centimeter away from grabbing the wok handle, and it is on my station, get the hell away. This guy was a blur most of the time. Meth potential here. DJ Cracky with some control.
28. sous chef not letting a hard working girl have a coffee break in an unused dining room and kicking her out, yet letting ‘eurosmell’ come out and eat in the very same place.
29. mushy overmarinated fried with no coating eggplant.
30. mushroom pasta with French style soup for sauce and soy/ginger shiitake mushrooms for garnish.
31. dim sum is prepackaged frozen shit that is then thawed and fried to soak all of the grease. There is ample freezer space here. Most of it is packed with this BULLSHIT! Why would you put this on your menu?
32. sous chef emphatically talking about things must be ‘fresh, fresh, fresh’. Hippocrisy of the century.
33. trout-like sea bass cooked on the flat top on both sides THEN covered with papasan paste (which is delicious, the paste, that is) and then baked, thereby overcooking the shit out of it,
34. hood fan does not work and has not since the opening. Has this place been inspected yet? Or does this not matter here?
35. ukrainians in the dish tank being treated subserviently. One sous chef tried to delegate to me to delegate the fryer cleaning job to the dishwashers. I DO NOT want these little women anywhere near the fryer at the end of the night. These ladies could not come close to lifting that stuff. Delegate to delegate, and so on. I need to remember that one.
36. chef and sous’ cool to me but yell at the other people because they suck and they treat the locals badly because they think they can. It appears that they can. Sad.
37. ‘come’ is the way one is beckoned by one sous chef. Should we also bow?
38. no place to plate food, yet they want it lightning fast. ‘High-end style’ of food, ‘short-order’ speed.
39. lame foccacia that I put too much oil on according to a sous. If your dough is bland, give it some extra oil. That usually helps a little bit. This was the worst foccacia I have ever seen of tasted. There are 4 fresh herbs in the walk-in yet old dry thyme is the only one to end up one the bread.
40. fucked fryers that no one wanted to clean. Electric fryers suck. At least these do. Also they were low volume so the oil was trashed after 1 or 2 days.
41. when faults are pointed out to chefs there is always an excuse. One sous chef asked me what I thought one day. I told him. I made sure to tell him, among other things, that the reason the young Czech that he pushed was not set up was the sous chefs fault because he had given him no direction. “Well, uh, …” was the reply. Common.
42. heavy thick clumpy sauces some of which alone have decent flavor but need to be strained, paired inappropriately, ugly color presentation.
43. frozen line flow fries in the refrigerator. French fries are good. Normally.
44. vacuum packing machine. Why? Money to burn? I’ll take some.
45. staff meal was mostly bullshit after chefs talking about how it had to be good. This is supposed to be the idea. If the staff likes what they eat at work, they generally have a more positive attitude and will sell your food more positively.
46. do these people actually listen to themselves or believe what they say? This is a rhetorical question.
47. are they prepared to make happen what they want without demanding it from others? Once again, rhetorical.
48. being told to do something 3 different ways from 3 different people always. Nothing sets the stage for failure like a good dose of confusion, delivered multiple times daily.
49. The sous chefs are always talking about communication. We must constantly be in communication with each other. You know, so everyone can be on the same page. One example: A hamburger was sent back one night because the guest said it did not taste like beef. The server was told it was all beef. I asked where we get our burgers. One sous chef said we order it. The other sous said we grind our own and the ratio is 70/30 meat to fat. A few days later, I was told not to put salt on the hamburgers when cooking them. Don’t season meat while cooking it. Hmm. That is the way all things are done there. Cook it with no seasoning to start. Against my background for sure. A few days later, I find out that the chef adds salt to the meat when grinding it. I also found out that the 30 percent fat, was PORK. Great. Jewish motherfuckers adding PORK fat to hamburgers and not telling anyone about it. I can go on forever in this category. Practice what you preach assholes.
50. clumpy cornstarch thickened sauces. My man Ian would be in heaven.
51. calamari being fried for more than 1 minute to make it ‘crispy’. The way they butchered the calamari was horrible. Little squares of squid, no tentacles. The tentacles were saved for risotto that did not sell.
52. potato starch on calamari fucking it all up.
53. banana leaves that were used as garnish, being reused repeatedly after being at tables and having food served in and on them. One of the plates was actually set up like this: wok fried rice with 5 spice suck (I mean duck), in a Chinese food to-go container, closed and placed on a banana leaf with some chopsticks. Probably one of the most wasteful, stupid looking plates I have seen to date.
54. dishwashers do nothing but rinse the banana leaves and give them back to the cooks. banana leaves on which food was presented were merely rinsed and then reused, some had knife and fork marks on them. I loved that. Bite tongue, turn head. Throw away leaf.
55. Dishwashers had the fruit juicer in their station. The restaurant served fresh juices. Cool. From washing plates to making your fresh juice.
56. power trip yeah that’s it.
57. I almost did not want to quit just for the sheer morbid curiosity of what would happen next. From a 3^rd person point of view, this shit was entertaining.
58. I almost walked out multiple times during my 4 days. I have never wanted to just turn around and walk out of a place where I worked, until this one.
59. does it really end here?

I don’t know. I called the chef and politely informed him I would not be back. When he asked why, I told him, and wished him luck.

Hamas, Bitches!