Intermission

Ok... this is as far as I've come in writing about my 2002 trip... I just haven't had the time and inspiration to complete it, but I remain confident that I will, because I do have the necessary notes and material for it. In the mean time I'm inching closer to completing a shorter story on my 2004 trip. It will be posted here as soon as I'm done with it.

Day 4: Exit Hungary

For some reason I always wake up early when I'm abroad. Doesn't matter what time zone I'm in, the moment I leave Norway I am suddenly and inexplicably changed from my usual slothlike self, wherein I have problems remembering my name before noon, to an energy bundle bouncing out of bed at 6 am barely able to resist shouting "cock-a-doodle-doo" at the top of my lungs.

Despite the train-wrecked sleep I'd experienced (I'll always hate myself for that joke, though probably not as much as you, the reader, will) this morning in Hungary was no exception. I showered, got dressed, packed my bags and, having found the scraps of last nights meal even more unappetizing in daylight, trotted downstairs to see if there was any food to be found.

A new person was on duty this morning, but he spoke English almost as well as the first one had done and he was even able to serve up a half decent omelet. A little short on taste, but not really bad. Curiously, the Eastern Europeans don't seem to use their staple spice -salt- when it actually SHOULD be used, they only use it (and HOW), when more exotic spices would have been applied in a western kitchen. I am still uncertain if this is due to sheer gastronomical incompetence or if it's another one of these sick little plots poor nations pull on rich westerners. I suspect this is how sushi actually got started - some bitter Japanese guy said to himself "ok, you Yankees may have nuked us into the 20th century, and you may have turned us from a feudalistic fascist mess into a filthy rich democracy, but just TRY getting us to cook your fish, you foreign devils". I attribute the rise of the Latino Pop music and Kylie Minogue to the same phenomenon (ok, Australia is not technically poor but it WAS built by ex-convicts with a grudge).

Having devoured the omelet and drained every orange juice container in the room (revenge for the trains), I got in the car and started to drive in the general direction of downtown Györ. I was surprised at how many people there were on this Sunday afternoon, but the explanation soon struck me: This was Election Day in Hungary.

I drove around randomly for a little while, just looking at the architecture and the people, before leaving the city behind in a futile attempt to locate the motorway. I did however find a much smaller road that had signposts for Slovakia, so I decided to follow this instead of continuing my search for the motorway, rationalizing my abject failure as a driver with the unlikely thought that the Hungarian countryside might provide an interesting view.

After about ten minutes, I encountered a small village - really just a few hundred meters of tacky bars and souvenir shops. I stopped to see if I could get directions to the motorway and was immediately taken in by the incredible variety and tackiness of the objects at display. Here were garden gnomes in all colors and sizes, likewise a vast assembly of angels, pyramids, sphinxes, stars etc, etc ad nauseam. I wandered around for over ten minutes, dumbstruck by this incredible testimony to bad taste and lack of business ethics.

I stood for a while and pondered whether I hated anyone back home sufficiently to buy one of the garden gnomes as a present, but in the end, I could not stomach it. Having a ludicrous amount of Hungarian cash in my pockets I instead decided on a rather neutral looking model of a sphinx head - I also thought I should buy something in exchange for the owner's giving me directions to the motorway, although as we probably both knew at the time, the directions were utterly misleading and wrong. When I came out on the street again, some sleazy looking native fellow had cleaned my windshield and my side windows and stood waiting for me with a hopeful look on his face. Now, I am normally the kind of person that would rather smack up a homeless, legless 3rd world child for touching my car uninvited than pay them for a service I have not asked for, but my windows actually needed cleaning and my pockets were still full of Hungarian monopoly money. Feeling grand, I handed him a fistful of notes probably sufficient to allow him an early retirement and drove on toward Slovakia.

After a few more miles with no sign of a motorway I passed a huge open field (actually, this part of Hungary is more or less one long field, interspersed with the occasional mud hole, clump of trees or decrepit village or a combination hereof). Way out by some power lines stood about a dozen deer, peacefully grazing. Always the sucker for good photo-ops I stopped the car and got out to shoot a few pics. This set the whole flock galloping away panic stricken, with the curious exception of two animals that continued grazing as if nothing had happened. While their fellow herd members were turning into a rapidly disappearing cloud of dust on the horizon, these two defied the principle of natural selection and went about their business of stuffing their little snouts with grass or whatever else was in that field. They were clearly either very much smarter or very much dumber than the rest.

A few miles before the border I encountered what seemed to be a cozy little place (the name has escaped my mind). However, with impeccable Eastern European logic, the tourist office was closed on weekends, and so I drove on until I finally reached Slovakia. Having just crossed over, I went out to change the still considerable amount of Hungarian money I had left. I spent ten minutes trying to explain to the lady operating the tiny booth that I already had a road fee sticker (or "vignette") for Slovakia and that I therefore wanted the whole amount of money in cash, thank you very much. In the course of discussion, it dawned on me that I should have bought a new vignette upon entry to Hungary the day before and this gave me a strange, tingling feeling of being a criminal. I could almost feel the glare of Hungarian traffic authorities burning into my neck, and feeling like an outlaw of the old west who has just crossed the Rio Grande; I got in my car and hurried off towards Bratislava.

Day 3: Enter Hungary

The Hungarian checkpoint was by far the most serious I encountered on the whole trip. It was the only place where they actually made me pull over and open my trunk. Not that they checked the luggage or anything but at least they cared enough to establish the fact that the dark shape in the back of my car was, indeed, a suitcase and not a nuclear device or an Albanian refugee. In addition, the Hungarians checked the same papers THREE times as opposed to the usual two; bless their paranoid little hearts.

I had no idea where I was going and randomly took off at an exit for the city Györ. I drove around in narrow streets on the outskirts of town when I suddenly saw a sign for "Hotel Relax". Ever an easy prey for smart advertising I obediently followed the signs down winding passageways until I finally reached the hotel, a two story building in what seemed to be a residential neighborhood of middle class standard. The parking lot was in a courtyard, protected by an iron gate. To my surprise, the man behind the desk spoke English quite well and I got a reasonably priced room on the 2nd floor. The standard wasn't much compared to western hotels, but it was clean and comfortable.

Feeling tired after walking around Brno I decided to have a quiet night in. The TV had close to forty channels, four of which were in English. I could choose between the cartoon network, the fashion channel, MTV and CNN. I stuck with the latter for the remainder of the evening. Feeling peckish, I went downstairs to see if there was any food around. The hotel didn't serve dinner, but they had a wide selection of menus for local restaurants that brought food. I settled for pizza and Buffalo wings from a local Pizza Hut, but when the food arrived, it was something of a disappointment. Not up to the usual standards one would expect in the west, the pizza was bland and rubbery in content and the wings were plain horrible.

I still managed to consume enough to tuck in without feeling hungry and I was just drifting off to sleep when I felt the bed shaking and the windows rattling as a big freight train whooshed by right outside my window. "Relax, my ass", I thought and suddenly understood why the room had been so cheap. I eventually managed to fall asleep, but I was awoken several times during the night by the thundering wheels and the piercing whistle of the night trains.

Day 3: Brno

Just around the corner from the Bishop's Court was one of the two major city squares, Zelný trh (this language has a serious shortage of vowels). Zelný has a big market where local farmers come to sell their produce. At one side of the square stands a famous baroque fountain from 1695. I strolled around for a couple of minutes before entering the Moravian Museum, which is right next to the fountain. The museum was established as far back as 1817 and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people I encountered inside have been working there from the start.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the first person I encountered actually had a working knowledge of English. Again, they had tickets for the various floors and a combination ticket with a slight discount. Feeling grand, I bought the full Moravian experience and was handed a pamphlet written in somewhat uncertain English, highlighting the various exhibits… of last year's season.

The first department presented the history of dinosaurs, and the man on duty even had a manual in English for me to borrow. It was all presented in an accessible and academically solid way and I felt very upbeat when I finally handed the manual back and moved on to the physics exhibit. This one looked even more impressive and well done than the dinosaur section, but sadly, the information was all in Czech. Still it was so well made that even yours truly, no rocket scientist at the best of times, was able to understand parts of it.

The next exhibit was a huge and extremely well done presentation of the history of Moravia, with lots of old artifacts (weapons, tools, jewelry) from different periods, displays showing how people used to live, dress, eat etc. There were also several miniatures of old settlements and cities. It was all very well made and all in Czech. It was the most frustrating thing. I was clearly walking through one of the better museums on the European continent and I couldn't understand a single word of it. Not one of the employees lurking in the corners and fixing me with a stern look could answer a single question in English. My tip to the management: Look for less paranoia, more foreign language skills next time you hire people.

On the top floor was an exhibit centered on the Czech rivers - the country has an abundance of them - and here I again encountered one of those extremely talkative ladies whose utter lack of foreign language skills does not in any way stop them from droning on and on to poor foreigners. This particular lady seemed to have a fetish for glass. Even though I made it clear as… well… glass, that I spoke no Czech, she insisted on following me around, pointing to the various objects and chattering incessantly in Czech. About every other word she pronounced was "sklo", which means glass. Smiling tightly and clenching my fists in my pockets, I was able to leave the room without killing anyone, but it was a narrow escape.

In the next room was a series of paintings, all of Czech rivers. Some of them were quite nice, others were of that peculiar school of art where the main point is to confuse the hell out of the spectator as to what he's actually looking at.

During the two hours I spent in the museum, I saw nary another living soul, except for the employees (and I suspect some of them, though technically alive, were pretty soulless creatures). The Moravian Museum is an unrefined diamond, it must surely be a wonderful museum if you speak the language and if they'd only bother to make some translations available, it should also have a huge potential with foreign visitors.

By now, I was feeling pretty stuffed on experiences but famished on actual food, so I decided to find a place to lunch. I found a very pleasant looking restaurant a few yards east of the square, just behind the baroque fountain. The place was almost full even though it was only 1PM, and the main course seemed to be beer. I managed to grab a table at the far corner of the room where I was presented with a most impressive menu. It contained page upon page with the most delicious sounding goodies and it was presented with a charming wit. The waitress even understood a few words of English.

When she first came around to take my order, I was only halfway through the menu, so I asked for another five minutes. She graciously awarded me closer to thirty, by which time I was ready to eat the tablecloth. Settling for something that should be easy to make and would thus reach my hollow frame before it expired from lack of nourishment, I settled on omelet and toast.

Ten minutes later I was presented with a huge plate of steaming omelet and a smaller plate with two thin slices of very dark bread, each heavily salted and with a small slice of garlic on top. This was obviously what passed for "toast" in Brno. In addition I was brought a basket of regular bread, which was included in the meal (I had failed to notice this, but it did say so on the menu). The omelet was good though maybe a tad bland, since all the remaining salt in the establishment's possession seemed to have gone on the "toast". Still, it was more than sufficient to quench my hunger, the price was ridiculously low and the service, except for the long waiting period before I could order had been friendly and good, so I left a solid tip and staggered out onto Zelný trh.

I walked a bit up and down the narrow cobblestone streets around the square before popping inside the tourist information office to inquire about seeing the old City Hall Tower. There are a number of anecdotes and tall tales about this construction. The building itself is from the 13th century and it was in use as City Hall until 1935. The present entrance area is from 1511 and was made by the sculptor Anton Pilgram. The various statues and figures on the front represent different virtues, but for some reason the spire above the image of "justice" is strongly bent out of shape. According to legend, this was done because old Anton didn't receive his last payment from the city council, and he therefore decided to bend the spire as a final and permanent "fuck you", set in stone for the coming generations to see. I immediately felt a warm kinship with the man.

In the passageway, a crocodile hangs suspended from the ceiling, a gift from a Turkish ambassador back in 1608. Locally it's known as a "dragon", and the dragon is one of the city's symbols. On the wall is a wheel, another symbol of Brno. The story goes that a wheel maker from the nearby town of Lednice made a bet that he could chop down a tree, make a wheel and roll it the 50 km (31miles) to Brno all in one day. He won the bet, but it was rumored that he'd entered into a bargain with the devil, and from that day on, he lost all his business and died in poverty.

I paid a few cents to enter the old tower and climbed wearily toward the top. I have a slight problem with heights and the wooden stairs were creaky in the extreme, but I fixed my stare at some point straight ahead, clenched the railings tightly and finally made it to the top. The view was great but I was too terrified to enjoy much of it. The floor was creaking even more than the stairs and I had no intention of becoming the lead character in the paper headline "Obese tourist killed as floor gives way". Besides, I knew that the tower bells were about to strike and wishing to preserve both life and good hearing I descended as quickly as my shaking legs would allow me.

Having safely made it to the bottom, I went outside and spent the next hour or so idly strolling around the city center. Brno has the largest pedestrian street grid in the Czech Republic, even bigger than Prague and the narrow streets and cozy open spaces all seemed most inviting. There are lots of pleasant little shops and cafes all over the place, and in the other of the two main city squares, "námestí Svobody" (freedom place) I bought an overpriced lemon sorbet and sat down to send text messages back home to Norway.

I went back to the cyber cafe to check my e-mail once more, and then drove off in the general direction of the Spilberk fortress, situated on the highest of the hills surrounding the city. Spilberk was built in the 13th century, but most of the present structure is from the 1640s. It has withstood attacks and sieges from many invaders before finally falling to Napoleon in 1809.

Personally, I love the story of the Swedish siege here in 1645. The Swedish commander, general Torstensson had sworn that he would take the city by noon on Easter Day, and came very close. The townspeople were at the verge of surrendering when one of them had the brilliant idea of ringing twelve strokes with the cathedral bells even though it was only 11 o'clock. General Torstensson, being a Swede, fell for the trick and withdrew his troops. To this day, the church bells of the Brno cathedral strike 12 times at 11 to commemorate the stupidity of the Swedes.

I drove around for a long time unable to find a parking lot close to the fortress. When I finally found one, it was at the foot of the hill and I had the longest, most exhaustive climb I hope to have for as long as I live. Hundreds of locals on foot or on bicycles were spending this sunny Saturday afternoon on the numerous roads crisscrossing the steep hillsides. If I hadn't been dangerously close to a heart attack, I would probably have found the scenery very pleasant.

I finally managed to crawl the last few meters to the entrance level, where I bought some refreshments and slumped down on a bench. I was panting like an asthmatic hippo and perspiring freely. The view from up here was good and there were lots of tourists swarming all over the place, many of them foreigners. After I few minutes of rest I felt strong enough to conquer the last few steps up to the actual fortress.

Being too cheap to pay for admittance to the interior, I was satisfied to drift idly around the ramparts and the courtyards. Along one side, there were small structures, which at first almost looked like small bell towers. On closer inspection and inquiry, these turned out to be shafts providing air and a means of transporting food down to the prison dungeons below. I briefly ventured inside to see if they had a souvenir shop. This consisted of a couple of books in Czech, and one type of postcard with an overview of Spilberk. As I was about to leave I noticed that on the other side of the fortress was a huge, half-empty parking lot. Swallowing my tears I half walked, half rolled down the steep hillside again, to where my car was parked and set course for Slovakia.

Driving out of Brno I could see several herds of deer grazing in the fields or along the edges of the forests. The scenery was sunny and pleasant and I was in good spirits. I had finally gotten in touch with my uncle, and we had agreed to meet in Bratislava the following day, since he was busy trying to negotiate jobs this evening (he's an opera singer). On impulse, I decided to make a quick detour into Hungary just for the hell of it. I crossed the border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia without any kind of passport or customs control at all, but I had to buy a new "vignette" to show I had paid the Slovakian road fees. I then managed to negotiate the complex and confusing roads around Bratislava without getting lost more than a couple of times and soon found myself approaching the Hungarian border.

Day 3: Goodbye Kertek

I awoke around 5:30 and had a quick, hot shower. I was on the road again by 6, taking advantage of the almost empty roads and really pushing the pedal to the metal. After an uneventful drive through a foggy but pleasant Czech countryside, I finally hit Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The spelling looks strange to a westerner, but the r is pronounced almost like a vowel, so the name almost sounds like "burno".

Allow me at this point to enlighten you a little about the Czech Republic. It is one of the two countries to emerge from the former Czechoslovakia when that country split up in 1993 (no prize for guessing the name of the other country, not even if you're American). It has just over 10 million inhabitants and is traditionally divided into two landscapes: Böhmen/Bohemia and Mehren/Moravia. Bohemia is the largest, with about 60% of the population including the capital, Prague, with 1,3 million people. Brno, with its almost 400 000 is the biggest city in Moravia.

Czechoslovakia was always one of the most liberal of the former communist countries, even after the Soviet invasion in August '68, and the people of the Czech Republic are very conscious about being CENTRAL Europeans, not eastern Europeans. Ever since the old communist block crumbled, they have been bending backwards to adopt western ways and distance themselves from everything Russian. To some extent, the memory of the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire still lives on, and German is much more widely spoken and understood than English, even though young people are becoming more skilled in the latter. For centuries, even before the Austrians took control of things, German was the dominant language of the elites, and any Czech movement for cultural and political independence didn't really catch on until the early 1800s.

I should also add that the western parts of Bohemia were heavily populated by Germans until 2,5 million of them were thrown out after the 2nd world war. Germans know the area as Sudetenland, and the expulsion of ethnic Germans and the seizing of their property after the war is still a major source of contention between the two nations. Ever so often, some conservative German politician will start mumbling about how the Czechs can't possibly expect entry to German markets unless previous wrongdoings are addressed. By tradition, this is met with a diplomatically phrased, yet resounding "fuck you, Nazi scum" from the Czechs, though lately they haven't even bothered being diplomatic about it.

Brno is a very typical "former communist" city. The old town center is full of charming old buildings, gray and worn from lack of maintenance but with an aura of wealth and industry about them. Surrounding this island of peace and beauty is a vast belt of concrete slabs, except for maybe a small area of villas where foreign diplomats and local Communist Party leaders used to live.

I exited the motorway and drove into Brno on random. It was still early morning, so I didn't have any problems finding a parking space in the middle of town, and found to my delight that there were no parking fees on Saturdays. My luck was further increased by the fact that I had randomly parked just across the street from a cyber cafe. I went inside to check my e-mail and catch up on news from the home country. I emerged a few minutes later, having caught up with the affairs of the world (not much of an effort required there) and started wandering around aimlessly.

Again, I adopted my "communist" principle - I simply followed the flow of people. Soon I found myself in the old town, just outside the museums I had been looking for (I had a small map of Brno with me, but I thought it would be cheating to look at it). I first went to a museum of Czech nature located at the old Bishop's Court. The weather was turning a bit gray and drizzly so I was happy to get inside.

The museum seemed to be empty, except for the three chattering middle-aged ladies behind the counter. They spoke maybe five words of English between them, sadly none of which were relevant to the purchase of tickets. Through the usual mix of sign language and pidgin German, I gathered that the museum had two different sections, one downstairs and one upstairs. I could buy entry for either floor for the ridiculous price of 30 Koruna, or both floors for 50. Feeling adventurous, I took the combination alternative, which seemed to please the ladies no end.

By now, I had found that two of them spoke a little German and understood a few words of English. The third seemed oblivious to the existence of a world outside Brno and was therefore, by the natural laws of the universe the one who took it upon her to assist me. She pulled out a thick wad of paper sheets in a plastic folder and set off on a galloping lecture in Czech. At one glance, I could see that the folder simply contained a list of all the animals and plants in the museum, with their names written in Czech, Latin and English. Mistaking my lack of proficiency in Czech for general mental retardation the old hag still insisted on a long explanation including much wagging of fingers before I was finally entrusted with the sacred folder.

Nodding humbly and repeatedly and grinning politely from ear to ear, I was finally able to back out of the reception area and venture inside the actual exhibition. The first rooms were full of stuffed animals in glass cubicles and birds either suspended from the ceiling by way of string or simply nailed to a branch. There was in fact an enormous amount of birds everywhere. Looking at my sheets and at the various befeathered corpses perched all around me, I quickly decided that if you've seen a dozen birds you've pretty much seen them all, so I tucked the folder under my arm and moved on. Still, I have to admit that the overall impression was actually pretty good and managed to give a pleasant presentation of the variety and richness of Czech nature.

Down a flight of stairs, I came to the aquarium, where a lady was sitting with two very bored looking children, staring at the fish swimming by. Some of the fish were huge sturgeons, the most popular fish on Czech dinner tables. These ones had obviously been pardoned and put to work instead, and looked almost as bored as the children on the other side of the glass did. Given the choice, they would probably have opted for the dinner table (the sturgeons, not the kids).

Having exhausted the somewhat limited means of entertainment on the 1st floor I tried to sneak up the stairs, but was caught by the airhead behind the counter, who insisted on following me up. In a way, it was just as well, since they hadn't unlocked the doors, nor turned on the lights up there, but she also took the opportunity to start lecturing again. Fortunately, the aquarium lady and the two bored kids came up the stairs just then and I managed to duck inside the doors while she turned around to eye her new victims.

This floor contained more stuffed animals and I idly wandered around looking at the various stiffs when I was suddenly dumbstruck by the sight of a glass case full of stuffed moles. I moved in close and peered at them with eyes wide. Cold sweat was breaking out, my paralyzed tongue fell out of my mouth and my head was spinning. I suddenly felt bereft and empty as I saw a cornerstone of my childhood crumble into dust.

Allow me to explain. When I was a kid, the Norwegian state broadcasting company, NRK, had a monopoly in Norway. Try to start a private TV or radio station, and you'd be thrown in jail - I kid you not. To save money (and possibly to further the sick ideals of the commies then running the company) the NRK always bought huge amounts of crappy but cheap eastern European children's programs. One of the very few series actually worth watching was an animated cartoon starring a friendly little mole named Kertek. Everybody, I mean absolutely everybody in Norway around my age knows this little fellow. The thing is: In the cartoons, he was drawn so that he looked to be the size of a small dog - enabling him to interact with a number of other animals without looking ridiculous. But it had all been a cruel lie. Because the hard truth, now on display before my watery eyes, was that these animals are actually the size of a small rat. They reach a maximum size of 17cm (6.7 inches) and have a brain the size of a pea. Deeply shaken, I stumbled down the stairs and out into the fresh, cold air.

Day 2: Stretched okapi, anyone?

I was waved through the German exit point and entered the typical two-point entry of Eastern Europe - first a very bored guard takes a look at your passport and waves you past, then two meters later another equally bored guard looks at the same passport and waves you past. If they ever do ask a question, you know it's just something they do because they've been told to; there is absolutely no element of actual checking in anything they do. But they're uniformed, they're armed and they're bored, so you answer their questions politely with an endearing smile and thank them profusely for taking up your time with inane chatter. The only people that get any kind of actual attention are those with cars or looks of a decidedly southern type - mainly Rumanians, Yugoslavs and Albanians. These always get pulled over, questioned and have their bags searched.

A few hundred yards inside the border, there were signs telling me I had to buy a sticker, (or "vignette" as they curiously call it in Eastern Europe) to confirm that I had paid the appropriate road tax. I stopped at a gas station and managed by a series of grunts accompanied by hand movements that would probably have gotten me beaten to death by anyone familiar with actual sign language, to convey that I wished to purchase a sticker. These came in different time categories ranging from ten days up to a year. I got the cheapest one and attached it to the inside of my front window, cursing the governments of the world for their seemingly endless creativity in coming up with ever new ways of sucking money out of me.

If anything, the traffic here was even more insane than in Germany. The Czechs think nothing of overtaking one another while going over a hilltop, around a bend or entering a tunnel. They will sometimes happily do this while the car they're overtaking is, in fact, in the process of overtaking another car. At first, I thought this strange, seeing as the Czechs are the least religious people in the world and would therefore be careful with their lives, having little hope of reaching any great Autobahn in the sky. However, I soon came to the conclusion that I had gotten the cause-effect backwards. The Czech population is so unreligious precisely because most of those with a belief in the afterlife have already perished on the nation's roads. Judging from their driving, there should be no religious people left in the Czech Republic by 2010, at which time it will also be safe for a westerner to drive there.

After driving for a couple of minutes, I got another shock to the system. I was still not mentally up to speed from lack of sleep and having spent so much time behind the wheel, so when I passed a couple of girls with heavy make-up and skimpy clothing dancing outside a small structure I idly thought "well they sure start partying early on Fridays in this country". Turning a bend, I noticed several more small structures lining the road on both sides. Almost all had dancing women outside them, and reality suddenly dawned on me. For several kilometers, literally hundreds of prostitutes were offering themselves to passing motorists in broad daylight. Besides the small structures clearly built for a single purpose, almost every little bar, inn and hotel along the way had someone standing outside. You could probably tell the quality of the place by the looks of the girls. The more upscale establishments sometimes had more than one girl, and usually young, pretty ones at that, wiggling their assets heartily at passing cars, while the worn down places had some 40-50 year old standing idly by the door, smoking and looking bored.

By the looks of it, these women were almost all foreigners - Russians, Baltics, Rumanians, maybe some Poles and Yugoslavs. To them, the Czech Republic was a rich country, a place where they could make more money in the sex trade than they could ever hope to make doing normal work at home. There didn't seem to be much of a market this early in the day, but most of the cars I saw parked were German. I imagine the place would be teeming with Krauts later in the evening, but I didn't stick around to find out.

As I drove out of this rural red light district, I noticed that the landscape and the buildings looked more worn and poor than they had in the former East Germany. New structures were few and far between, concrete 50s slabs seemed to be the preferred fashion. Still, every now and then, up on some remote hilltop could be seen an old castle or fortress - built centuries ago, yet sure to be still standing long after the last communist structure has crumbled to dust.

I drove on towards Prague and after an hour or two, the road widened into a proper 4-lane motorway, although of decidedly poorer quality than the German ones. I soon began amusing myself by reading aloud the various road signs and trying to translate them into either Norwegian or English. When driving in a country with such a decidedly different language, this can be an endless source of entertainment and I highly recommend it. You often have to stretch the similarities a little bit, but it's still good fun. I passed signs with words looking eerily like "vasectomy" and the wonderfully absurd "Stretched okapi". So that's what they call giraffes in this country I thought, snickering like a madman.

I knew from my Danish guidebook that the Czechs are ardent hitchhikers, and just outside Prague, they stood in droves, lining the motorway. Quite a few of them must have been westerners, judging by looks, clothes and backpacking equipment. Normally, I would probably have stopped and taken in some poor souls, but I was feeling so tired and worn out by now that I couldn't stomach it. Just an hour or two south of Prague I stopped at a decrepit looking motel and got a room for the night, even though it was still only afternoon.

The girl at the reception desk spoke almost no English, but through my highly personal use of the German language (which I don't speak); I managed to get a room anyway. The girl seemed thrilled to have an actual guest, even a westerner at that, and was nervously making cooing sounds as I forked over the twenty Euros she translated the sum quoted in local currency into. I got a terrible exchange rate, but was in no mood or shape to start arguing, so I meekly followed her up to the room.

The motel was of a somewhat less than western standard, but clean. The room was tiny, hot, and had only a narrow bed and one chair. No table, no desk, no closet, no sofa, no phone. The bathroom was very narrow, but ran the entire length of the bedroom. Again, spartan but clean. I opened the window to let some fresh air in, and ignoring the thundering noise of the highway traffic outside, fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

I awoke a couple of hours later, famished. I splashed some water in my face, put on some clothes and ventured downstairs to my first meeting with the Czech cuisine. The employees all seemed nice and service minded, and they at least seemed to have the brains to be ashamed of their lack of English skills, unlike the Germans, who will merely see it as a reason to hate you even more. Using my English, my pidgin-German, some French and a word or two in Russian I was able to order a meal. The restaurant was about half full, with a dozen truck drivers sitting in a corner and a few couples spread out around the room.

My Danish guide has this to say about Czech food: "The art of cooking in the Czech Republic and Slovakia will leave you full, but with a very few exceptions it is not very refined." As in so many eastern European countries, almost all the several items of a course is ordered separately, which means that theoretically it's no problem to have asparagus with your ice cream. The food is usually heavy - meat, potatoes and lots of fried & fat stuff but sadly lacking in the sense of spices and actual taste. I settled for pork and fries, with pancakes & cream for dessert.

Motel food is seldom a great experience at the best of times, and the pork steak I had wasn't too bad at all - a little hard to chew in places, but ok in taste. The French fries were fine once I had drowned them in tomato ketchup. As expected, the vegetables were not fit for humans, but I didn't see this as a big problem, as I'm really a meat eater. The pancakes were a big disappointment. It looked very promising - several pancakes bathing in cream on a huge platter - a whole meal in itself. Sadly, there was no sweetness in the pancakes, the warm fruit inside them were more nauseating than tasty and the cream was so bland I'd might as well been eating shaving foam. Time and again, I would observe this: Eastern Europeans just don't know how to make otherwise good food TASTY. Still, I'd had so much and so heavy food I could hardly walk when I was done. I had also consumed a couple of bottles of Coke, and all at the ridiculous price of 7 Euro. I was once again being ripped off in the conversion from the local Koruna the food was priced in to the Euros this gringo tourist was paying in, but I was so happy about the price and the very attentive service that I added 2 Euro, a handsome tip in these parts of the world (actually a VERY handsome one, seeing as the Czechs usually don't tip more than a few cents).

Sitting at my table digesting the food, picking my teeth and making small content noises I slowly delighted in a sort of twilight zone feeling. By now, the place was almost full, people were chattering all around me - and I didn't understand a word they were saying. I turned my attention to a TV placed up in a corner of the room. Some intellectual looking old goat with a smirk was being interviewed by a very meek young journalist looking impressed and nodding his head off every time the goat finished a sentence. At the other end of the room, the truck drivers were getting raunchy. You could hear from the tone of their laughter they were talking about something dirty. Every now and then, they would break out in song.

At nine, the news came on. I still didn't understand a word, but from the pictures, I gathered what the main story was about. Apparently, a female journalist had been able to sneak into an airport, and actually enter an empty airplane and then sneak back out again without anyone noticing. It had all been filmed with a hidden camera. After the tapes were shown, the news presenter turned his attention to some official looking man squirming in his seat in the studio. To increase the unpleasantness of the situation, the cruel bastards had actually placed the journalist on a higher level than the guest, looking down on him. Watching with ever-greater fascination I witnessed what must surely have been one of the harshest public crucifixions ever.

The poor man was sweating and squirming, his eyes bouncing around in their sockets, while the journalists tone of voice went through the motions from inquisitive and querulous to angry and mocking and then back again. You didn't need to speak a word of Czech to know that someone would soon be looking for a new job. Having completed his butchering, the presenter turned to the camera with a very visible smirk and continued with other news.

Since there didn't seem to be much of interest going on I soon dragged my tired and bloated body up the stairs and got into bed, where I was lulled to sleep by the incessant roar of semi-trailers and cars going by in the warm April night.