The night I spent in Bratislava
was fun. The food was great, and the drinks were dirt cheap. The next morning,
however, didn’t feel so good. My head was about to explode. It felt like my
stomach was inside out, and my liver about to jump out of my mouth. I needed to
stay in bed all day, but that wasn’t an option. I had to go to Ceske Budejovice
that Sunday for my first EGG (Eastern Generative Grammar) Summer School, which
started the following day. I bought a large bottle of water, made my way to the
train station and boarded the EC towards Brno, Czech Republic.
The trip took about an hour and a half. There
were no empty seats, so I had to stand the whole way there (not fun, especially
if you’re hungover). My stomach was growling when I got to Brno. I wasn’t sure
if I was hungry or sick, but I knew for sure I didn’t want to see or smell any
kind of alcohol. I wanted something like the Caldo Gallego I had in Santiago,
or the soup-like concoction my dad makes called “Levanta Defunto” (rise from
the dead). I know every country has its own hangover antidotes, and in Czech
Republic, I learned that it was called Gulášová polievka.
Gulášová
polievka is goulash soup, of Hungarian origin but a Czech/Slovak favorite. It
is a very hearty soup with beef, onions, potatoes and different kinds of herbs
and spices. This is a must if you’re in the area (hungover or not). I really
enjoyed it. I also enjoyed the fact that the bowl of soup at the train station
cost me less than one dollar. I was in Czech Republic, where euros still haven’t
been implemented. The Czech Koruna (CZK) is the local currency there, and the
exchange rate makes American dollars worth a lot.
From
Brno, I caught a bus to Middle of Nowhere, which is the name I gave to the
location where I transferred to the Regional train to Budejovice. I can’t
remember the exact Czech name of the town, but I know it had three words, with
possibly more than forty consonants and at least twenty diacritics. No one at
that train stop spoke English. If you can still feel the gloominess and sadness
left by so many years of Communism in Bratislava, I can tell you that, in country
town Czech Republic, that feeling is ten times more intense. It’s like stepping
back into 1980s Czechoslovakia.
I
finally arrived in Ceske Budejovice at 8pm that Sunday. I took the bus to the
University of South Bohemia - Jihočeská univerzita, where
the EGG was taking place that year. I found a seat close to the front and tried
not to fall asleep. A few minutes later, I heard a voice that sounded familiar,
saying what sounded like my name. Was I dreaming? I looked back and saw
Carolina, fellow linguist from Lisbon whom I had the pleasure of meeting during
my first week there. We had talked about the EGG then, but arriving there exactly
at the same time was a huge coincidence. She was with a large group of
linguists that had come on the train from Prague, and right after we got off
the bus, I was introduced to each of them.
Like the Braga post, this one
will not talk much about the summer school itself, but the good time I had and
the awesome people I met in Ceske Budejovice. Carolina introduced me to a goofy looking Italian
guy who half an hour later became my roommate. Fabrizio and I were a two-man
team during those two weeks. I also met Alex, who had driven there from his
native France with an American named Christen. Veronique had come from
Brussels; Nataša and Jovana were Serbians studying in France. Another member of
that group was Amui, whom I worked with at FIU. That was our “gang”, which got
much larger as new members were being added day after day. We checked in at the
dorms, dropped off our bags and headed over to the “City Center” for dinner.
On a Sunday night, that seemed
like an impossible mission. Most restaurants we saw on the way were closed. We ended
up at Jack Bar Restaurant (Panská 183 370 01 Czech Budejovice)
for typical Czech cuisine at affordable prices. This became our favorite
restaurant in town. It was a bit distant from the dorms, but it was relatively
cheap and had great food and drinks. The goulash soup I had in the afternoon had
certainly cured my hangover, so I was all ready for a cold Černy Pivo (dark beer). No regrets there. My liver
clapped and screamed words of joy after every sip I took. I was going to be in
Czech Republic, where beer is a religion, for two whole weeks! This was just
the beginning of a somehow unexpectedly amazing journey, which will be depicted
here in the next posts.
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