In a valley between wooded Moravian hills, lies the small town of Rožnov pod Radhoštem which is where we drove to after leaving Ceský Tešín. Rožnov had been recommended to us as a place to visit by several people as it is the home of the Wallachian Open-Air Museum where an amazing variety of historic wooden Moravian buildings have been preserved since the founding of the museum 85 years ago in 1925.
We arrived just before dusk and eventually found a place to stay within our price range in Penzion Becva, which didn’t appear in our guidebook, but which I fortunately spotted as we were about to leave the town to look elsewhere. Having been so well-fed at lunchtime, we then went out that evening looking only for a place to have a drink and a snack.
Not far from the hotel, we found the very pleasant Restaurace U Janíku. We ordered two beers and asked to also see the menu and the waitress gave us their ‘English version’. A few minutes later we were both killing ourselves with laughter upon seeing the description of the last item on the page photographed above. Each of us had visions of a female horse called ‘Fruity’, galloping through 420 grams of Pasta Salad!
It is yet another example of that wonderful language called Czenglish of which I have cited many examples in previous blog posts. Maybe I should actually call this example Czfrenglish. What the menu is trying to say is on offer is ‘Pasta Salad with seafood’. But the compiler of the ‘English Menu’ has instead sought to adapt the French for seafood, fruits de mer, literally ‘fruit of the sea’. He has tried to make the word ‘fruit’ plural but has done it in the Czech manner by the addition of the letter ‘y’. He has then put in the definite article, which doesn’t exist in Czech. Finally for reasons known only to himself, he has converted ‘mer’ to ‘mare’.
After breakfast the next morning, we drove the short distance to the edge of Rožnov, to the ticket office and car park for the Wallachian Open-Air Museum. There were no cars in the car park and the ticket office was shut. Then it dawned on us – like so many art galleries and museums in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, the Wallachian Open-Air Museum does not open on Mondays! So, despite all the positive recommendations, we didn’t get to make our planned visit and it must wait until we visit Moravia once again sometime in the future.
On Friday 16th July, I set out to make my first return visit to the UK since moving to Prague nearly two years ago. The five day trip was part holiday – spending sometime with my son Phillip in Derby; and part work – fulfilling a promise made earlier in the year to undertake a deputation visit for the Intercontinental Church Society (ICS) who prayerfully and financially support the work of the Prague Chaplaincy.
As usual, the wonderful Prague public transport system got me from the bus stop, five minutes walk from the Chaplaincy flat, to the front entrance of Terminal 1 at Prague Airport, in little more than thirty minutes. Much more surprisingly, my Easyjet flight was taxiing down the runway at 10.45, exactly the time it was meant to be departing from Prague. Less than two hours later, we landed in the UK though, because of the one hour time difference, it was only 11.40 BST.
I flew into the rather incongruously named ‘Robin Hood Airport’ which serves Doncaster and Sheffield in South Yorkshire. At the end of 2009, Easyjet ceased to operate out of East Midlands Airport, the airport that serves Derby, and passed the Prague – East Midlands route to bmibaby.com. In their wisdom, bmibaby.com have suspended their Prague – East Midlands flights during July and August, presumably because it is more profitable to use their planes to fly British tourists to the Costas in Spain or the Greek islands during this time.
At UK passport control, I had great difficulty stopping myself from saying “Dobrý den” to the immigration officer, instead of saying “Good morning”. This was a problem I continued to have during the following few days, adjusting to the fact that I could actually speak in English and be completely understood. That I needed to say “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, not “Dekuji” and “Na shledanou”.
It was equally strange once I met up with Phillip in the airport car park. I got into the front passenger seat of his right-hand drive (RHD) car, in that respect no different from being in my RHD car in Prague. But he then proceeded to drive on the left-hand side of the road! After nearly two years of travelling or driving on the right-hand side of the road, that took some getting used to once again.
A forty minute drive down the M18 and the M1 got us to Derby. After Phillip had purchased a few things from Morrisons supermarket, I tried to get some Sterling currency out of the nearby ATM, using my Barclays Bank debit card. I had deliberately transferred funds from my Czech bank account to my UK Barclays account to be able to do exactly this. My attempt to withdraw cash was declined – a security measure because I hadn’t used the debit card in the UK for nearly two years! So, before proceeding to Phillip’s home for a late lunch, we drove to a branch of Barclays Bank plc where I duly produced my passport and debit card with the request that I be allowed to withdraw my own money! I was extremely glad that I had arrived in the UK on a weekday rather than a weekend.
During my visit to the UK, I was asked several times whether there was anything I missed about the UK now I lived in the Czech Republic. My answer was always negative – as things currently stand, I don’t see myself living in the UK again in the foreseeable future. But on that Friday evening, I did do two thoroughly enjoyable things which it would not be possible to do in Prague.
Firstly, en-route to the city centre, Phillip and I purchased our evening meal from a Fish & Chips shop. We then walked slightly further on to the County Ground where we ate our fish and chips, (in Phillip’s case, pie and chips), whilst watching a day/night Twenty20 cricket match between Derbyshire CC and Northamptonshire CC. However, one less enjoyable, (though expected), thing was paying £3.00 a pint (0.568 litre) for a beer whilst watching the cricket when a 0.5 litre beer in most Prague bars would cost no more than £1.00.
The following day, Saturday 17th July, Phillip and his girlfriend Charlotte, had been invited to the birthday celebrations of Matt, a university friend of Phillip who, like Phillip, has stayed on in Derby after graduating. Matt kindly assured Phillip that his Dad was more than welcome to come along with him.
Matt lives with his heavily pregnant wife, in the village of Hilton, just to the west of Derby. For his birthday, he had invited various friends, his brother and sister, together with their respective boyfriends/girlfriends, to a picnic lunch and a sports afternoon on the nearby village playing field. So, after sandwiches, crisps and other goodies, accompanied by a variety of liquid refreshment, we spent the afternoon playing rounders and kwik cricket.
Afterwards, I returned with Phillip and Charlotte to their home. We quickly ate a stir-fry and got washed and changed before we rejoined the others in the centre of Derby where the birthday celebrations were resumed and the following two pictures were taken.
One of the joys of living in Prague is being able to ‘eat out’ in one of the very many bar-restaurants that abound here. Provided you avoid the expensive ‘tourist traps’ in the centre of the city, prices are extremely reasonable, so much so, that some single people have told me that it is often cheaper for them to ‘eat out’ rather than try & cook for themselves at home. However, there are noticeable cultural differences between Britain and the Czech Republic in the way that you order, are served and pay for your drinks &/or meal.
As in Britain, most bars also serve food. But even if you go to a bar-restaurant just for a drink, do NOT go to the bar itself and say “I’d like two beers please”. No – go in and sit down at one of the free tables and wait until the barman/lady comes to you. If you just want a beer, taking a beer mat from the container in the middle of the table and putting it down in front of you, will indicate fairly clearly what you want. And if you forget to do this before your beer arrives, then the barman/lady will do it for you, before placing your beer in front of you. In the Czech Republic, beer glasses have to be placed on beer mats!
Do not try to pay for your beer when it is served to you. No – wait until you have finished drinking and are ready to leave. This may of course, be several rounds of drinks later. However, the person who has served you will have kept track of what you have had, either behind the bar or on a strip of paper left on the table on which the number of beers served will be marked. Saying “Zaplatim prosim” (may I pay please), will produce a bill which you then settle.
If you want to eat, do exactly the same as you would if you just want to drink. Go in, choose a vacant table and sit down. Only in slightly more upmarket restaurants will you be met at the door, asked how many people there are, and then be directed to a suitable table.
Czech menus have a number of interesting characteristics. For any meat dish, the exact weight of the meat will be specified such as 200 grams of pork, or 150 grams of chicken. There is of course, no way to check whether you actually are served 200 grams of pork rather than 191 grams of pork as scales are not provided! Often a meat dish will be served with little else other than a small salad garnish. Therefore you need to go to the ‘side dishes’ section of the menu where various forms of potato, together with other vegetables, will be listed. The advantage of this system is that you can choose almost exactly what you want to eat.
Prague is a city that is geared to visiting tourists. Therefore nearly every bar-restaurant has their menu not only in Czech, but also in English, German & sometimes also in Russian. But this is where you encounter a wonderful language which I have christened ‘Czenglish’. Very rarely do Sybille & I visit a new restaurant without descending into fits of laughter at the interesting English used to describe certain dishes. The menu on a Prague restaurant window shown in the photo at the head of this post left us creased up with laughter when we saw it last Monday. Clearly the bread to accompany the potato soup had been taken to Church and blessed prior to being served!
Czech people tend to be very particular regarding their own language and quickly correct anyone who dares to conjugates a verb or noun incorrectly. Yet they seem oblivious to the multiple mistakes that are contained within the English version of so many menus. My English Czech-speaking friend & Churchwarden Gerry Turner told me that he offered once to correct the English on the menu of a restaurant he regularly frequents in return for a free meal. The offer was refused point blank as the restaurant owner could see no reason for doing so.
There are two other cultural peculiarities that I experience every time I eat in a bar-restaurant in Prague. The first is the absence of place settings. Instead, soon after you have placed your order, a plate or upright container will be brought to your table containing your cutlery and paper serviettes. You take what you need from the plate/container and create your own place setting. The second is that, as soon as one person has finished eating, immediately a waiter will appear and whip their empty plate away, regardless of the fact that other people sitting with them are still eating. The reasoning behind this practice I have yet to discover but it happens everywhere we eat.
Normally in the UK, once everyone has finished their main course, the dirty plates and cutlery will be removed from the table and the dessert and coffee menu will be offered. Yet here in the Czech Republic, despite desserts (often the Czenglish ‘deserts’!!) being available, the opportunity to order them is rarely offered. If you want to have a dessert, you often have to specifically ask for the return of the menu in order to be able to decide what you want and place your order.
This post is my contribution to World Blog Surf Day being organised by Sher. Please read the next expat blogger in the chain by going to empty nest expat who is my friend Karen, currently back in the US of A but hopefully returning to Prague very soon once her work permit and visa problems are resolved. I am also asked to link to Anastasia Ashman who is an American cultural producer based in Istanbul, and is a creator of Expat Harem, the anthology by foreign women about modern Turkey. Her Tweetstream focuses on women, travel and history and she shares resources for writers/travelers, expats, Turkophiles & culturati of all stripes.
‘The Prague Post’ is a well established English-language weekly newspaper here in Prague. Since 2007, it has sponsored an annual playwriting competition for English writers currently or previously resident in Prague. From all the entries, the three best thirty minute plays are selected by a panel of judges for actual production. After several weeks of rehearsal, all three are then performed, on four different nights, spread over a two week period.
Sybille & I, together with Karen, an American ex-pat from the congregation, went to see the third of the performances on the evening of Sunday 1st March. Part of the attraction of going was that one of the plays, entitled ‘Early Retirement’, was being directed by Gordon Truefitt, a member of my congregation, and one of the three actors in the play was Gerry Turner, my Church Council Secretary.
‘Early Retirement’ was the first play performed. The plot is based around a British stressed out businessman, relatively newly married to his younger Czech wife, and her desire that he should take early retirement for the sake of his health. Gerry played the role of Dr Matejovksý, a slightly eccentric Czech. In real life, Gerry makes his living as a translator from Czech to English so, having to speak some words of Czech was not a problem. What he did very well was to speak English with a Czech accent, a far more difficult task for someone who is a native born English speaker!
The performance rightly got a good round of applause and set the standard for the evening. Unfortunately, from then on, things went downhill. The second play entitled ‘The King Size’, was laboured and went well over the allocated thirty minutes. And the third play, entitled ‘Forced Entry’, whilst of the designated length, was only a slight improvement.
In both cases, it wasn’t that the acting was bad – in fact it was of a high standard. The problem with both plays was the lack of quality of the plot and text of the play. In particular, what really grated with me and many others I spoke with afterwards, was the constant f…..this, f…..that and f……ing everything else that littered so much of the dialogue. Most if not all of it was totally unnecessary. I have often said that when f….ing is the only adjective somebody knows, it is evidence of both of the person’s ignorance and their lack of vocabulary. Sadly, it is my view that a similar comment could be made about both of the playwrights.
The competition is meant to provide both entertainment for English-speaking expatriates but also help Czech people wanting to improve their spoken English. However, as far as I am concerned, all the second and third plays did was to offer a very debased version of the English language.
