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A chance meeting (Czech Republic)

Sometime in 1999 my female cousin decided to marry her long term boyfriend, who in turn organised his stag do in Prague. At the time, not having much money, I declined the offer and went on with the business of life. The trip wasn't until July 2000 and I had plenty of time to organise going if I needed to. Finally a month before the trip a co worker convinced me it was a good idea to join the party......He must have known. Frantically searching for flights on the internet, I found that flights to Prague were now far too expensive for my budget, so decided to use my few extra days holiday and get a cheap Ryan Air flight to Germany and head into Prague from there. Germany seemed like a good idea, as I had spent a year there as an English teacher seven years previous and wanted to reacquaint myself with the country again. Anyway after a few days in Germany and a trip on a night train, I found myself standing in Prague's very unappealing main train station thinking I had made a very grave mistake. Trying to overcome the nausea and tiredness, I made contact with some of the locals to assess where my stag's hotel was. They are not really the most open of people the Czechs and after quite a few false starts, a metro ride and even more confused people, I presented myself at the stag's hotel. Expecting more broken English and unfriendliness, I was so grateful to see a very attractive young lady with a warm friendly smile and almost perfect English. Explaining to her that my friends would be arriving tomorrow and that would she have a room for me too, I nearly dropped dead on the spot when she mentioned the price. Upon seeing my face she quickly explained that her boyfriend had an apartment for rent, which was a whole lot cheaper. I couldn't communicate with the boyfriend at all, as I didn't speak a word of Czech and he of English either. Anyway, after arranging to meet that evening so that his girlfiend could explain everything, I fell into a deep sleep. Around lunch time I wandered off into the town for a bit of sightseeing and on my return bumped into the nice girl and her boyfriend crossing the Old Town Square. I said that I was off home to have a shower and that I would meet them at the allotted time. They were having none of it and invited me to a bar for a drink and to sort out business. To cut a long story short, the couple departed and left me with the pretty girl running the bar we were in. Again there was a small language barrier, but in the end we started speaking the best we could, while she worked and i drank the beautiful Czech beer. I told her that I intended to see Prague at night before the madness of the stag party descended. Truth be told I never got to see Prague at night, but instead spent a very nice evening chatting across the small bar to Lida. Before stumbling off home she invited me and the whole of the stag party to her birthday party the following evening. The stag being an amicable guy was well up for meeting the locals and finally 8 of the 10 made the party. It was a lovely affair, in a small bar, full of candles and guitars. I spent a lot more time with Lida that evening and on my future visits to Prague. Now almost six years after our first chance meeting, we are married and have a beautiful young son called Jakub. The language is still giving me problems, but any Slavic language, especially Czech, would. I wouldn't recommend it as your first language to learn ... but that chance meeting has forced me to do so and kept me on the path to learning. I'm still going strong.

Sent by: Mark

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