Grosseto Restaurant

Another wonderful example of Czenglish

Back in July, we had to laugh when three different restaurants, all located in Jugoslávských partyzánu, the street that leads from Podbaba where we live to our nearest Metro station at Dejvicka, all closed down for refurbishment at the same time. Two of them were ones that Sybille & I have often frequented.

One was our favourite Italian restaurant, Pizzeria Grosseto, which shut down for exactly two weeks between 19^th July and 1^st August. During that time, the place was completely gutted. New windows and doors were installed, along with a completely new heating system ready for the winter. Tables and chairs were refurbished, the lighting updated and the whole place redecorated, inside and out. About the only thing to be left unchanged was the pizza oven!

In contrast, Bar – Restaurace U Internationalu is sadly still closed. This little establishment was run by two women, Margarita a Bulgarian and Suzanna a Czech. We used to be two of their very rare foreign customers. We hardly ever heard anything but Czech spoken when we ate there. Sadly it appears that the business/premises has been sold to new Vietnamese or Chinese owners who are slowly carrying out building work and promising a nová restaurace/new restaurant. What it will be like & when it will open is unclear. And sadly, we have no idea as to what has happened to Margarita and Suzanna.

Desert of the day — Should I ask the staff member to recommend Gobi, Sahara or Kalahari? © Ricky Yates

The third business to be refurbished was Bar – Restaurace U Topolu, situated nearly opposite Bar – Restaurace U Internationalu. We had once had a beer there but never found it very appealing. It was only closed for about ten days and the refurbishment was far less extensive than that undertaken or still being undertaken in the other two establishments. But when it re-opened, we noticed that there were new staff and therefore presumably, new owners or new management. And what is more, there is an almost separate room at one end which is smoke-free, a sadly still rare facility in the Czech Republic.

We tried it out one evening and have since been back several times. The food is plentiful and extremely reasonably priced. They have Kozel beer on tap at 26 Kc (£0.87) for 0.5litre. And they have a menu that is almost free from Czenglish – with the exception of the bottom line. Should I ask the staff member to recommend Gobi, Sahara or Kalahari?

Update on my previous post ‘More problems with Czech Bureaucracy’

Schengen Visa - Image in public domain via Wikimedia

As I feared, Anna has suffered the same fate as Karen. Despite going in person to the Foreign Police three times this past week, accompanied by a Czech speaking friend, she has had to leave the country today. She was eventually told that her application for a work permit & residency visa, submitted in Berlin on 21^st January 2009, would not be granted because she had exceeded the 90 days she was allowed to be in the Czech Republic as a tourist.

Anna sent me a text/SMS message with this information early on Wednesday afternoon. I rang her straight back and invited her to join Sybille & I for a meal at Grosetto that evening so I could learn more about her experience with the Foreign Police and also say a proper ‘Goodbye’. We had an enjoyable time together and discussed her future plans. She is twenty three and single and has decided to do some travelling rather than return to the USA. Her initial plan is to fly to Croatia (outside the EU & the Schengen agreement) and spend some time on the beach. Whilst being fully in agreement with her plans, we did warn her that she might observe a few things on a Croatian beach which would surprise someone whose upbringing had taken place in conservative middle-America!

Anna also spoke of going to spend sometime in the UK which is something we also encouraged her to do. Not only would she almost certainly find work there as a TEFL teacher, it would also be the best place to re-apply for a work permit & visa to return to the Czech Republic. Whilst part of the EU, the UK is NOT part of the Schengen agreement. Staff at the London embassy of the Czech Republic would inevitably speak English, thus making the application process much easier for her. She has promised to keep in touch and I do really hope that last Wednesday is not the last time we see her.

Having listened to Karen’s story on Wednesday 29^th April, two days before she was forced to leave the country, I wrote an email to the TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School, particularly challenging the clearly inaccurate information regarding work permits and visas for non-EU citizens that was still displayed on their website in view of what had happened to Karen & what was likely to happen to Anna. Much to my surprise, I got a reply the following day.

The TEFL Course Coordinator at the Caledonian School inevitably blamed the Czech authorities. “The Schengen/EU rules have literally been changing before our eyes this spring, and we have done everything we can to make the necessary adjustments. The problems that we encountered recently were obviously unexpected, and we are extremely sorry for them”, she declared. However interestingly, today when I checked their website, the wording regarding visas, as quoted in my previous post, had been altered and reduced to, “The Caledonian School has a full-time visa assistant to help you through the process of applying for a work permit and visa (residency permit)”. They do finally seem to have realized that they should not be making promises they clearly cannot keep nor encouraging people to arrive as tourists and weeks later apply for a work permit and permanent visa.

A big ‘Thank you’ to those who commented on my original post. I agree with both Mike and Sher, that many language schools such as Caledonian here in Prague, have a lot to answer for. To their credit, Caledonian did agree to pay for both Anna & Karen’s flights out of the Czech Republic. I suspect that the ‘tax and social security payments’, deducted from their pay packets whilst not yet legal employees, went towards paying for those flight tickets.

La langue d’amour

Last Friday, Sybille and I went to eat at our favourite local Italian restaurant. Grosseto is on Jugoslávských partyzánû, (Yugoslav Partisan Street!), about 15 minutes walk from our flat. On the table next to us were a young couple, clearly in love. His left hand was holding and squeezing her right hand, across the table!

Image Source by Lumaxart

Then I noticed that they were speaking to each other in English. But in both cases, it was English spoken with a distinct foreign accent. Clearly, neither spoke the other’s native tongue. They were each using their second language – English, to communicate with each other.

It soon became apparent that she was Czech. She placed their order with the waiter, without using English. But where was he from? It was a bit of a mystery. The answer only came after she had said to the waiter, “úcet prosím”, (‘the bill please’ – literally ‘bill please’ as there is no definite article in Czech). Looking into his eyes she asked, “And how do you say, ‘the bill please’ in your language?” “L’addition, s’il vous plait” came the reply. He was French!

French males believe that they are the world’s best lovers, though Italians might disagree! And certainly they believe that French is ‘la langue d’amour’ – ‘the language of love’. But for this young Frenchman, in order to woo his Czech young lady, English had to be his ‘langue d’amour’.