White Out

Feb. 12, 2013
The sound of my new cell phone ringing woke me up the in the morning. It was Ivana, “Good morning Zachary,” she said. I looked at my clock. It was a quarter to 11:00. For the past two nights, I’d gone to sleep between midnight and 1pm, woken up at 5am just wide awake, and then fall asleep again and felt tired till nearly noon.

“Hi Ivana,” I said.

“I am in town square and thought we go exchange your cash from koruna” she said.

“That sounds great!” I mumbled, still a little foggy from sleep.

“Ok, I meet you at Hulsneska, the station for school, okay?” (Not sure on the spelling of that, but that would be the phonetic pronunciation.)

“That will work,” I agreed. “What time?”

“What time you are there?” she asked.

“How about 11:30?” I suggested.

“11:30? Okay I see you then.” She hung up.

I got up and got dressed. As I tucked in my shirt and pulled open the curtain, I was surprised to see my view of concrete, communist buildings was transformed. Now, the scenery was covered in snow, with more white flakes falling down.

I dug my heavy jacket out of my duffle back and headed out to the tram. Once on the tram, I again tried to go straight-faced, no eye-contact to blend in. As I road along I listed to driver announce in Czech the names of the stations. When I heard what sounded correct, I got off. As soon as the tram pulled away, I realized I was wrong.

My phone rang again. I answered it. “Hi Zachary. Where are you?”

“Hi Ivana. I got off on the wrong station. I will be there soon.”

“You will get back on tram?” she clarified.

“Yes I will get back on and be there soon,” I told her.

The 9 came along again soon and I climbed back in. This time I watched the board for the station name to light up. I saw one that read Olsanska. That looked like it could be pronounced like the name Ivana was saying over the phone, so when we pulled up, I got off again.

I was wrong again. This time, I called Ivana. “Hi Ivana. I’m at the wrong station again.”

“Which one you at?” she asked.

“I don’t have a clue how to say it. It was spelled something like O-S-A-N-S-K-A.”

“That is not a station,” she said. “You must be spelling it wrong. Say again.”

I spelled it again. She finally guessed from my incorrect spelling which one I was at. By the time we had figured it out, another 9 had come along and I was back on the way to her. It turned out the next station was two stops later.

When I got off, she was standing under the canopy of a restaurant to keep out of the snow.

“I am freezing, Zachary,” she said. We got on another tram, this time a 26 into the Old Town Square where we had been the first night. There we found an exchange booth, but the door was closed.

“I do not know why the door is closed. It is supposed to be open,” Ivana said. We both pulled a little at the wooden door.

“Closed!” a man yelled at us from across the street. “Is closed for weather.”

“Now I look like a stupid tourist,” I said.

We walked to a formal exchange office around the corner and I traded out my cash for Coruna. I game some of it to Ivana to pay back the loan she had given me and promised to get her the rest that night. As we walked back through the town square, the snow and the towers and the buildings all looked like something off a postcard.

“I have to get a picture of this,” I said. I stopped and pulled my camera out of my pocket. Snapping a few photos I told Ivana, “Now I really look like a stupid tourist.”

“Stop saying that,” she said. “You are stupid tourist. You got lost on tram twice.” I went ahead and told her about the night before and she laughed about it.

We got on the tram and went back to school. “I come to dorm to meet you tonight to go clubbing with all the exchange students.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Thank you so much for your help. I’ll have your money then.”

Back in the orientation seminar, Katrina was joined with a few students who I got the impression served in a role similar to being an RA. They explained the rules of the dorms as well as some tricks to communicating with the ladies at the front desk.

“Basic rule,” Katrina said, “most people under 30 know some English. They may or may not be good at speaking it. Anyone over 30 from communist times and before does not know much English and probably cannot speak it. The people at your dorm offices will definitely be over 30 so is in your best interest to get along with them.”

After the orientation finished, I went up to the cafeteria. I saw Suzanna and Samuel eating lunch. I went over to talk to them.

“Hello!” Suzanna lit up when she saw me coming over. “You have lunch yet?”

“No,” I said. “How does this cafeteria thing work exactly.”

“You go up and look at the menu, tell them what you want, pay and they will give you ticket with a number. When your number shows up on the board, you take your ticket up and hand it in to get your food,” Samuel explained.

“Do they speak English?” I asked.

Suzanna laugh, “No! I will come with you.” We went up the counter and she ordered something for me. It was good she had come because there was apparently a debate with the lady behind the counter over how much money I owed.

Just as Samuel had described, they called my number when my food was ready. The dish she had ordered for me was something with bread, bacon, and white cheddar cheese. It tasted awesome.

“We can wait for you,” Suzanna said while I ate. As we sat there, we again discussed all kinds of world and cultural issues. They both asked some questions about America and answered all of my questions about each of their countries.

“France and America are a lot alike,” Samuel said. “We both have faulty education systems and we both think we can save the world. If we could put aside our differences and combine forces, we’d be unstoppable.”

This lead to a few jokes about freedom fries and other stereotypes.

“I have to say,” I admitted, “I am going to have to take back a lot of the mean things I said about the French.”

“Oh the French can be very snobby,” Samuel admitted.

“The biggest thing I was told was that they wouldn’t speak English to me if I went there,” I told him.

“They will, but they resent it,” he said. “People all over Europe know some English because we get American television and business papers are in English, but it is not their language. It is kind of like Americans learning Spanish. A lot of things are in Spanish in America, and the Americans resent it because they think if people want to come there they should speak American. The French feel the same way.”

It was a great lunch and an amazing conversation. I was again struck by how universal the human story was and how all of our problems seemed to be the same.