#opici

Já mám opici!  Fast becoming my favourite and most overused Czech phrase.  It literally translates to "I have a monkey", which is a great way to describe drunkeness and the effects of drunkeness on the following day's performance/mood/BLEURGH-iness.

When Friday morning hit me like a sack of bricks I had less of a monkey and more of a ferocious mandrill tearing up the inside of my head.  St Patrick's day was only Thursday (you guys know that comes before Friday, right?) but it was still fun fun fun fun fun fun fun fun.

Heroically, I powered on nonetheless.  I've started experimenting with talking to Czech schoolchildren this week.  Most of them look at me blankly, a few quite openly laugh in my face (who wouldn't, to be honest...) and one or two seem to have been quite responsive!  So we're making some progress in this little corner of Europe.  Where the progress is heading is still rather uncertain.  

Oh, and the response of one Czech from a school about 200km away from Plzen?

 "Oh it's nice that you're here.  It's really boring here so now at least I can talk to you."  

Errr... If I was shipped in to Techmania purely to entertain bored schoolchildren who are perfectly happy to travel 200km only to build things out of jenga blocks then I might as well go home now.  I'm holding out some hope that this kid was an exception!

Now to important matters.  The weekend.  Me a my opici had quite an experience last night!

First a bar called "Sally Browns"  in town  We got there at about 11.30 and it was packed full of leather-jacket-and-tattoo yielding punks of varying age and friendliness.  The beer was cheap, the music was Irish, the barman totally understood my request for a malé pivo.  All was well.  There were, however, two things about this place that were really not OK:

A couple of the customers have apparently quite openly and unabashedly announced their support of the IRA

EVERYBODY knew the words to "Go Home English Soldiers" when it started playing.

I'm not really one to judge, but I wonder how a Czech person would feel if they went to Ireland and popped into a bar where everyone was singing a Red Army marching song.  Maybe that's an unfair comparison.  

Still, they didn't seem to have a problem with our distinctly un-Irish accents so they may have merely been ignorant lovers of catchy tunes.  

All this was temporarily pushed out of my mind when we moved on to Míša, where we caught the aftermath of an "End of Winter Party".  The tables, sofas and floors were covered in shredded paper "snow" and Christmas songs were dominating the playlist.

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