Ricky – Page 87

Travelling to Asia and back

The Dardanelles - Europe on the right, Asia on the left © Ricky Yates

It is a month and a day since I’ve published a blog post and I’m sure some of my regular visitors will be beginning to think that I’ve disappeared off the planet. Rest assured – I haven’t! However, I have been absent from Prague for 23 of those 31 days only returning to the Chaplaincy Flat on the afternoon of Tuesday 27^th October having left on the afternoon of Monday 5^th October. Over the next few weeks I’m going to write about what I’ve been up to, hopefully making up for the lack of news during most of October.

As the title of this post says, Sybille and I have travelled to Asia and back and we’ve done the whole journey by car! I’ve driven 4,500 miles/7,200 kilometres and we’ve visited twelve countries in total. The trip has been part work and part pleasure – let me explain.

St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague is part of the Church of England’s forty fourth diocese, the Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. As with the other 43 dioceses that make up the Church of England, the Diocese in Europe is divided into Archdeaconries. My previous group of parishes were part of the Archdeaconry of Oxford, one of the three Archdeaconries that together form the Diocese of Oxford.

The Diocese in Europe is divided into seven Archdeaconries. Even the smallest of these, the Archdeaconry of Switzerland, covers the whole of one country. And Prague belongs to the largest of the seven, the Eastern Archdeaconry, which consists of everything eastwards from Poland, Czech Republic and Austria, including all of the former Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey and all the former Soviet Union except for the Baltic States.

Once a year, each Archdeaconry has an Archdeaconry Synod where the clergy, together with elected lay representatives, meet to discuss and report on issues facing our scattered congregations, to pray and to study, as well as to make decisions regarding the common life of our chaplaincies. Because of the distances involved, the synod meetings have to be residentiary. This year, the synod meeting for the Eastern Archdeaconry took place between the afternoon of Thursday 8^th and lunchtime on Sunday 11^th October and was hosted by the Izmir Chaplaincy in Turkey. In their wisdom, this year’s Annual Meeting of the Prague Chaplaincy elected Sybille as one of their two lay synod representatives. So we decided that it would make good sense to combine our attendance at the Synod with my remaining annual leave.

Once we had decided to do this, I was very pleased to be able to arrange for Rev’d John Dinnen from Northern Ireland, accompanied by his wife Jane, to come and take up residence in our flat and for John to be locum chaplain for the three Sundays I would be away from Prague. John had been the first locum chaplain in April-May 2008 after the retirement of my predecessor John Philpott. What is more, Jane likes cats so they needed no persuasion to agree to also look after Oscar.

Because we would be on holiday once the synod meeting finished, rather than flying to Izmir, I thought, why not drive there? Instead of two airfares, there would only be the cost of petrol and overnight accommodation and we would have the car to explore Turkey and various chosen places on the way back. So it was that, at 2pm on Monday 5^th October, we set out to drive from Prague in Central Europe to Izmir on the Asiatic west coast of Turkey.

Monday 5^th October 2009

That afternoon, we headed south east out of Prague on the motorway towards Brno. Just before reaching Brno, we turned south and entered Slovakia, passing around the capital, Bratislava. Then it was into Hungary by which time it was beginning to get dark. So we ended our first day’s travel at Györ, an interesting historic city about an hour’s drive short of Budapest.

Tuesday 6^th October 2009

The following day, we drove towards Budapest before heading south across the Hungarian plain to the border with Serbia, near the Hungarian town of Szeged. Here we left both the EU and the Schengen area. Entering Serbia, we had our passports stamped to show our date and place of entry and were also asked to produce our insurance green card for the car.

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office website offers the following advice about driving in Serbia.

“You should also be aware that some parts of the motorway between Novi Sad and Belgrade have two-lanes with a hard shoulder on only one side. Some drivers use the ‘middle’ lane to overtake, thus forcing the ongoing traffic onto the hard shoulder. We advise you to take additional care when driving on these stretches”

In fact, it is mainly the section from the Hungarian border to Novi Sad that has these characteristics. Frequent memorials at the side of road were a constant reminder of those who had previously failed to heed the wise advice of the FCO! Serbian police lurking under bridges were also an effective visual aid!

We crossed the Danube for the third time on our journey near Novi Sad, (having previously crossed it in Bratislava and just south of Budapest), and drove on to Belgrade. From Belgrade, there is a good dual carriageway/four-lane highway motorway passing through ever increasingly attractive scenery, all the way to the southern Serbian city of Niš where we spent the second night of our journey.

Wednesday 7^th October 2009

That morning, we headed east from Niš, now on an ordinary single carriageway road, eventually reaching the border with Bulgaria just over an hour later. Here the Serbian border police stamped our passports, this time to show when we had left the country. They also took the cards, dated and stamped by the hotel where we slept in Niš, which proved where we had stayed during our time in Serbia. Apparently, the Serbian authorities can be difficult if you don’t have the proper evidence to show where you’ve been in their country! Entering Bulgaria, we re-entered the EU (but not Schengen!) and headed further east on a good road until we reached the outskirts of Sofia.

It was here that we experienced the worst section of road during the whole of our journey – the Sofia ring-road. Clearly dating from the Communist era, it is single carriageway nearly all the way around the city. Each crossing with a road heading out of Sofia is controlled by traffic lights with no roundabouts or flyovers. Because of the impact of heavy trucks, the road surface is severely rutted in many places. Unfortunately, we followed a large slow moving truck for the whole of our journey around it. Eventually, the last little section suddenly became three lanes each way and then joined the motorway enabling us to head east towards Turkey.

Waitresses at a Happy Bar & Grill © Andreas Welch http://www.flickr.com/people/awelch/ — Waitresses at a Happy Bar and Grill © Andreas Welch http://www.flickr.com/people/awelch/

We had lunch at a motorway service/rest area in an establishment called ‘Happy Bar & Grill’. The food and service were good and reasonably priced and with our complete inability to speak Bulgarian, it was most helpful to have a waitress who could speak English. But the abiding memory we both have of our visit, is of the outfits worn by our waitress and all her colleagues which featured the shortest miniskirts you are ever likely to see!!! Some internet research since reveals that ‘Happy Bar & Grill’ are the largest and most successful restaurant chain in Bulgaria. I wonder why??!!!

After an enforced detour around a section of motorway still under construction, we eventually reached the border with Turkey. Leaving Bulgaria was easy but successfully entering Turkey was another matter. At the first of numerous check points, we had our usual problem of explaining why a Czech registered vehicle had right-hand drive whilst the two occupants produced German and British passports! The Turkish passport officers were all smiles once we’d explained everything but they then forgot to stamp our passports or tell me where to go to pay €15 for an entry visa.

When we got to the next check point, this time for the car, I duly produced my Czech registration document and green insurance card, together with my passport, in order that a record could be made of the car being brought into Turkey. It was then that the failure to obtain my visa and have both passports stamped came to light. We had to park the car, go to the cash office, buy the visa, go back to passport control, get both passports stamped and then return to vehicle control!

There I got a lecture about why I must not try and sell my car whilst in Turkey but instead, export it again when I left the country. Why anyone in Turkey would actually want to buy a nine year old right-hand drive Czech registered car is beyond my comprehension!!! However, a record of my car was duly entered in my passport and woe betide if I dared try to leave the country without it.

We returned to the car in order to reverse back to baggage control when the car, for reasons known only to itself, refused to start! Eventually we had to ask someone from baggage control to come to us and then get a nearby coach passenger to help push the car in order to bump start it. Next it was customs and another check of documentation before finally, over an hour after we had arrived at the border, we were actually allowed to drive into Turkey.

The absence of part of the Bulgarian motorway, together with the Turkish border delays, meant we were somewhat behind my anticipated schedule. However, Turkey then produced the first of several surprises. I had expected the first section of motorway from the border to, & then around the city of Edirne, to be good. But when we left the motorway to head south towards the Gallipoli peninsular, I discovered that what I had expected to be a single carriageway road, was in fact a dual carriageway/four lane highway or well on the way to becoming one. Throughout our time in Turkey, time and again we were to be impressed by the standard and quality of the roads we drove on.

Eventually, after experiencing a wonderful sunset across the nearby Aegean Sea and driving for another hour and a half in the dark, we reached the town of Eceabat on the Dardanelles. As we drove slowly into the town, we saw a hotel sign and at the same time, two men sitting outside the building almost jumped out in front of us to flag us down. Seeing our foreign number plate, they suspected we were looking for somewhere to stay and were very keen to find more paying customers for their hotel. So it was that we booked into the somewhat eccentric but very pleasant Aqua Hotel in Eceabat.

After putting our overnight bags in our room, we went back downstairs to the restaurant. We were told that the menu was on the far side of the restaurant. When we got there, it was not a printed menu nor written on a blackboard on the wall as one might have expected. Rather, it was a glass fronted refrigerated unit! Within it was a selection of fresh fish, no doubt caught in the waters immediately outside the hotel, a variety of meat including kebabs, together with a selection of side dishes from which to choose. Basically we pointed to what we wanted and it was taken out, cooked and delivered to our table.

We chose a large fish to be cut in two & shared between us, together with some side dishes and a salad. All this we washed down with our first Turkish Efes beer. The meal and the liquid refreshment were most welcome after two and a half long days of driving.

Thursday 8^th October 2009

After breakfast on the terrace by the sea, we drove about 3 km further along the road to the little port of Kilitbahir. Here we boarded the ferry that would take us on a short journey across the Dardanelles but also one that would take us from Europe to Asia. As you can see from the photograph, we were the first car on the ferry & therefore needed to be the first one to drive off on the other side in Canakkale. Fortunately on this occasion, the car started first time!

Our red Renault Scenic on the Dardanelles Ferry © Ricky Yates

The journey from Canakkale to Izmir along the Turkish Aegean coast is one that I had made in reverse as part of a coach party, nearly 35 years previously in April 1975. For Sybille, it was her first time in Turkey or anywhere in Asia for that matter. Whilst the views and scenery were as beautiful as I remembered them, what I couldn’t help but notice was the scale of development of hotels and apartments all along the coast to support a tourist industry which was only in its infancy when I last passed along this self-same road. Also, as noted previously, there was a considerable improvement to the road itself.

So finally, after three days and nights, 1300 miles/2080 km of driving, just after 2pm, we arrived in the city of Izmir. There then followed a rather interesting 45 minutes or so whilst we tried desperately to find our way to the Kaya Prestige Hotel, the venue for our synod meeting. No, we don’t have a GPS/Satellite navigation system and guess who forgot to print out a Google map? However, assisted by the proprietor of another hotel who answered our crie de coeur by hopping in the front seat of the car to direct us around the one-way system, we finally arrived, two hours before the synod meeting was scheduled to begin.

Hosts or Guests?

Kardinal Schulte Haus - note the scaffolding! © Ricky Yates

I must apologise once more that, despite returning safely to Prague last Friday evening, other than approving a couple of nice comments (and deleting a host of spammers!!), I’ve taken far longer than originally intended to write a new post about last week’s conference.

As I explained in my previous post, the theme of the conference was ‘Entertaining Angels – Hospitality as Mission’. The title is based on a verse from the New Testament where the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews tells his readers, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for so by doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” Hebrews 13 v2. But who are the hosts who give the hospitality and who are the guests that receive it?

One speaker, Professor Musa Dube from Botswana, pointed out that we are all guests on this earth. Basing her Bible Study on the creation narrative in Genesis 1, she rightly pointed out that that it is God’s earth, for he created it, and we are his guests, invited to live in it and care for it. However, in the context of being clergy serving in the Church of England’s Diocese in Europe, we are nearly all guests, living and working within host countries. I say ‘nearly all’ because, as a result of the Porvoo Agreement between the Anglican Churches of Great Britain and Ireland and the Lutheran Churches of the Nordic and Baltic countries, a number of Lutheran priests from the Nordic and Baltic countries work in Anglican chaplaincies in their own native countries and were present at the conference.

Not only are we guests in our host countries, many Anglican Chaplaincies in Europe, including mine here in Prague, are guests of another Christian Church or denomination using buildings that do not belong to us. Only in some of the long established chaplaincies in major capital cities or in resort areas where ‘Brits’ first settled in the nineteenth century, do Anglicans worship in their own Church buildings. But whilst we are guests in host countries and of host Churches, we in turn seek to be hosts and provide hospitality to expat English-speakers who find themselves well away from their normal support mechanisms. How we do that – how we fulfil that important mission, was a constant theme of both our speakers and of our resulting discussions.

As is so often the case at conferences such as this one, some of the most valuable and profitable learning and discussion took place over meals or in convivial late night sessions in the bar. Not too late I might add as we all had to be washed, dressed and in the Chapel for worship at 07.30 each morning! It was a privilege to meet up with five other clergy who all trained with me at Wycliffe Hall Theological College. 1987/8 was clearly a very good year!

It was also good to get to know many people who, up until now, were purely names in a directory or on a prayer list. It was valuable to listen to their experiences, some in similar major city locations like mine, as well as to others who work in more rural or coastal areas of France and Spain where so many English-speakers have moved for a ‘better life’ or to retire.

The Suffragen Bishop in Europe, The Rt. Rev’d David Hamid is also a blogger and you can read his take on the conference in his post appropriately entitled, ‘Entertaining Angels – Hospitality as Mission’. It also includes a link to a number of photos of the conference though I don’t appear in any of them.

One thing about the conference for me was a certain case of déjà vu. Our flat in Prague was built as part of the first stage of a major development of flats on the site of a former brewery. Ever since we moved in just over a year ago, we have had to live with the builders working on the fourth and final stage of the development directly in front and to the side of our balconies. The noise and dust can at times be quite irritating. What do I find when I arrive at Kardinal Schulte Haus? The building is under repair and there are workmen repairing the roof, directly outside my third floor bedroom window! At least the noise ensured I wasn’t late for Morning Prayer!

Clergy Pastoral Conference in Köln

St. Clement's Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague © Ricky Yates

At 08.00 CEST tomorrow, I’m setting off to drive to Köln/Cologne, Germany to attend a Clergy Pastoral Conference and won’t be back in Prague until late on the evening of Friday 25^th September. The conference will bring together all the Anglican clergy who serve in the vast Diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. This is only the second time this has ever happened, the first occasion being four years ago.

We are meeting at Kardinal Schulte Haus, a Roman Catholic conference centre just outside Köln/Cologne, and our theme is ‘Entertaining Angels – Hospitality as Mission’. There will be about 150 clergy present with our Diocesan Bishop Geoffrey Rowell & his Suffragen Bishop David Hamid, together with various visitors and speakers. It should be an enjoyable and stimulating few days. But it does mean that I won’t be able to add to this blog or moderate any comments until I’m back at the office computer next weekend. I hope that regular visitors to the blog will understand. However, I will write about the experience once I’m back.

First Anniversary in Prague

Bridges over the Vltava River, Prague, as seen from Letna © Ricky Yates

Today, Saturday 19th September 2009, is a significant date. It marks the first anniversary of my arrival in the Czech Republic, together with my wife Sybille and Oscar the cat. In the late afternoon of Friday 19th September 2008, we arrived outside our Chaplaincy flat in Prague 6, at the end of a two day, 885 miles/1416 km drive across six countries + an English Channel ferry crossing. One year on, I’ve spent the last few days doing a little bit of reflection about how I feel about the move and all that has happened these past twelve months.

Firstly, I have no regrets about making the move. Fifteen and a half years was long enough to spend looking after ten Churches in North Oxfordshire. If I’m honest, probably two or three years longer than I would have wanted to be there. But God has his timings and I am convinced now, difficult though it was at the time, that it was worth waiting for the right move even though I had to wait more than two years and several interviews before being appointed to a new post. I’m also pleased that, nearly twelve months after I left, my former parishes finally have a new Rector. May she, (Yes – I’ve been suceeded by a lady!) take those parishes forward, building on what, under God, I and my Ministry Team colleagues, began.

Secondly, it is wonderful to no longer have responsibility for ten mediaeval Church buildings and their associated churchyards. Despite what so many people think, the Church is not a building or even an organisation. Rather, it is the people of God. Of course, mediaeval Church buildings do speak of God – they are holy stones and places where people do find space to be quiet and to pray and to worship. And I’m not a Philistine – such buildings need to be maintained and preserved. However, sometimes the conservation lobby needs to be reminded that Churches were built for Christian worship which should remain their prime purpose, rather than insisting that they become museums to the whims of the way Victorians thought they should look.

Here in Prague, the building we worship in isn’t ours – it belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren Ceskobratrské Církve Evangelické. The CCE are a joint Lutheran – Reformed denomination formed in 1918 and are by far the largest protestant grouping in the Czech Republic. Their congregation meet for worship at 9.30am each Sunday hence our service is at 11am. We pay them a modest rent for the use of their Church building and the facilities at Klimentská 18. In 2008, this amounted to around 48,000 Kc (about £1,600.00). As a result, we have no heating or electricity bills, no building insurance to pay, and no building repairs and maintenance to have to be concerned about. Instead, we can get on with being ‘Church’ without any concerns for the Church building.

However, just occasionally I do get frustrated at not owning our own Church building. Back in May when a member of the congregation died, it took two whole days before I could get confirmation from our hosts, that I could have the use of the Church building for a particular time and date in order to conduct a funeral service. The next of kin were left in complete limbo whereas, back in Oxfordshire, I could have immediately confirmed a date and time without reference to anyone else.

More recently, when our Sunday School was due to resume meeting on Sunday 6^th September after the summer break, we discovered on the day, that our Sunday School room in Klimentská 18 was unavailable. Our hosts hadn’t thought to tell us earlier! But these minor irritations aside, to be able to spend time and energy on people rather than buildings, is a great joy.

What lies ahead? That is a big question. There is a saying amongst clergy that when you move to a new parish or situation, “The first year you can’t do anything wrong – the second year, you can’t do anything right!” So far, people have, almost without exception, been very supportive. But I’m about to enter my second year……! Watch this space!!!!

The Weak Will

Although Saint Clement’s Church is located in the centre of Prague, it does lie slightly away from the streets most frequented by visiting tourists. It is situated in Klimentská, the street taking its name from the Czech form of Saint Clement, Svatý Kliment. Klimentská is accessed from Revolucní, which runs from Námestí Republiky to the River Vltava. Whilst Námestí Republiky is bright and busy, particularly since the opening in October 2007 of the Palladium Shopping Centre, Revolucní has always struck me as being a little run down, with a number of empty premises at street level.

It was therefore a most pleasant surprise a couple of months ago, when alighting from the Number 8 tram at the Dlouhá Trída tram stop on Revolucní, to see that one of these vacant premises directly alongside the tram stop, had been transformed into a new Bar-Restaurant entitled U Slabé vule. A quick examination of their menu and price list displayed in the window convinced us to try it out for Sunday lunch after our service.

For their city centre location, prices at U Slabé vule are remarkably reasonable. 0.5l of Staropramen is 25 Kc (£0.90). Meal prices range from 120 – 150 Kc (£4.00 – £5.00) with generous portions very nicely presented. Their printed menu, in Czech, German and English, is most notable for the almost complete absence of ‘Czenglish‘.

The premises themselves are large, reaching through as far as the street parallel to Revolucní to the west. It is almost divided in two by the kitchen and bar with the whole of the section on the Revolucní side being ‘non-smoking’, a rare provision in the Czech Republic. What is more, they enforce it!!! In several other bar-restaurants we have frequented, whilst there is nominally a non-smoking area, as soon as a smoker lights up, rather than telling him/her to move, the waiter brings an ashtray. At U Slabé vule, the customer is told to move to the smoking area – Halelujah!

The last two Monday evenings, U Slabé vule has become the venue for a new activity in the life of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church – Czech conversation classes led by my native English, Czech-speaking Churchwarden, Gerry Turner. Over a glass or two of various varieties of liquid refreshment and a simple nicely presented meal, a small group of us are trying to lose our inhibitions and converse in Czech. Will I be successful or will I have what the name U Slabé vule actually means which is – ‘The Weak Will‘!!

PS – As you will see from the photo above, vule should really have a kroužek (ring) above the ‘u’ which is meant to lengthen the vowel sound by 30%. As with many other diacritics, most web browsers can’t cope and would render it as ‘?’, hence I’ve had to leave it out.