Reporting from Budapest, Vol. 2 (Foreign Correspondent Series: Czech Republic, Day 1)

Written on Saturday, Jan 30.

As I write this, the world cyclocross championships are tomorrow in Tabor, Czech Republic.  Being only 5 hours away, I had to go and rallied a group for company.

The Crew: Ranjan, Pam, me, Kylee, and Neal

We looked at various transport options, starting with train.  Twelve hours and $100+ seemed a high cost for taking the train, so we looked into renting a car -- much faster, much cheaper.  Despite Anna's discouraging words, we went for it.

The Octavia

The drive was an adventure itself.  Google maps directions in hand, we piled into the car.  Piloting the car out of Budapest was... exciting.  After successfully exiting the city limits, I made discovery number one.  Stay out of the left lane.  Don't even think about passing someone slowly in the left lane.  Stomp on it or get out of the way.  After maybe 40 km of high-stress driving, we cleared city traffic and the sailing was pretty smooth.  Throw the Skoda in fifth gear, pass the occasional truck, and listen to American pop of various eras on the radio.  First up as we hit the open road:  One More Night.  European radio is absolutely littered with American pop.

Some of us had concerns about the border crossings, as our visas have yet to be converted from single-entry to residence permits.  Most of us didn't get stamped at the airport, but two of us did, so an additional stamp would have burdened them with the inconvenience and cost of reapplying for a visa (which you always get, according to Anna).  Whatever minor worries we had were alleviated as we blew through the empty Hungarian/Austrian border station.  Austria went by smoothly until Vienna, where we got onto A4/E49, which was supposed to transfer us north to B5, which crossed into Czech Republic and essentially ended our trip.  Somewhere along A4 however (a traffic circle?), we missed B5 and ended driving a good bit extra before we were sure we had missed a turn.  We turned around and headed back to the most recent Austrian hamlet, Geras, to gather ourselves and plan.

Luckily for us, the Polizei station was just off the main road.  Things looked dead, but a few rooms were lit, so we buzzed up to the station.  Neal fortunately speaks a little German, so he met the "Hallo?" with "Sprechen sie English?"  "Nein."  *buzzzz*  Locks open, and we took that as a sign to walk up and speak face-to-face.  The night-shift cop (who happened to look just like Liam Neeson, who of course looks just like Harrison Ford...) spoke only a little English and explained this to Neal.  Neal explained that he spoke only a little German, but the guard proclaimed Neal's German "great" and set out in rapid fire German.  He was extremely helpful though, and photocopied and highlighted a map for us to reroute our trip through two other towns back to B5.  We headed for the door and I mustered my best "danke."

Fortunately for us, it seems that every hamlet in Austria keeps their roads immaculate in winter.  Despite at least a foot of snow on the ground, we drove over snow for two miles of the trip, tops.  We were scheduled to arrive at our pension at 6:30 PM, but after a late and long car rental, we certainly weren't making that, so we called ahead to inform them to expect us around 9.  Once we got to B5, sailing again was smooth.  As the English say, "A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner," but we had our fill of attaining skill at this point.  Some of the drive through Northern Austria was amazing, especially as we closed in on the Czech border.  Perfectly straight asphalt with powder and endlessly tall pines rising on either side.

The Czech border station was abandoned, too, so we proceeded without delay to Jindřichův Hradec, where our rooms were booked. Our stay for the night was Penzion Na 15. Poledniku. This place was an absolute gem: beautiful, two blocks from the city square, clean, comfortable, and costing us only 20 euro per person per night.

The town square (check this out if you're interested in pronunciation)
 

Penzion Na 15 Poledniku

Apparently, the deal with the pension's name is that the town of Jindřichův Hradec sits on the 15th meridian. I'm not sure why this is a big deal (the most significant fact I've found: The 15th Meridian marks the center of the Central European timezone.) but apparently it is cool enough for the town to evidence it with a fairly neat marker embedded in their cobblestones.

Arabic and Czech

Chinese (I think?)
 

Spanish
 

The city itself is beautiful, but our late arrival left no sunlight for sightseeing. After checking-in (which consisted of mentioning our reservation and the restaurant's staffer handing us the keys... no money, no credit cards, no passports asked for... all in the morgen), we were quick to hit the town looking for a drink. Nearly everything was dead and the bar across the way from our pension was packed to capacity, but we landed at the real gem of Jindřichův Hradec: Paradise Club.

A real diamond in the rough

Where to begin describing Paradise Club? We showed up at 10:30 and bought a round of beers (both cheaper and of much higher quality than those in Hungary). The place exuded kitsch Americana mixed with every klub eurotrash stereotype you can imagine. Paradise Club was loosely divided into three rooms: bar, bowling/fusbol, and disco. The two bowling lanes were a bit rough looking, and the pin racking system was handled by strings tied to the head of each pin. Maybe this is hard to envision, but seeing the pins jump up like limp marionettes after the ball cleared was amusing and strange. The bar crew: a terrifying, young woman with purple hair, gothic makeup, and piercings and a slightly doughy guy in a t-shirt who looked like he just rolled off the frat couch. Doughboy spoke a little English, so we ordered from him for the night. By the time an hour passed, the club was packed... we had no idea the village even contained this many people, but apparently Paradise Club was the place to be on a Friday night. After a few hours of dancing, we made our way back to the Pension (a three minute walk) and crashed for the night.  Breakfast awaited downstairs in the morning.