The weekend however, included a weekend trip to two towns in Moravia to celebrate the Czech version of Mardi Gras, which may or may not be called Fasanky (hacek over the s!).
In the spirit of Mardi Gras, it was completely ridiculous.
Clowns!
We started our trip going to a little town where composer Leos Janacek lived. The museum was his old house, and consisted of about three rooms. It was really cool though, because unlike American museums where everything is about not touching anything, the woman in charge asked if anybody could play piano. When about two kids raised their hand, she asked them if they would like to play Janacek's piano. Since getting to do that would be ridiculously cool, they obviously both said yes, and we were treated to an impromptu concert on Leos Janacek's piano.
We left the museum and took a walking tour of the village (cooldowntownwalkingtour as it was called on the itinerary), and walked around part of castle Spilberk (like Spielberg, but Czech). The castle was used as a prison for many years, and when the Nazi's took over, they continued the tradition. Today it's used as a concert hall and art gallery.
After that, we got on the bus and drove a few more hours to Middle of Nowhere, Czech Republic, where the only thing to do was go to a hotel bar or a club located next to a DM (CVS). To get to the club, you had to go into the entranceway of the DM and go through a separate door. Bad sign.
The club patrons consisted of about 10 Czech people (non of whom were dancing), and everybody on the trip. There was also a pole dancer, and a not-so-delightfully creepy Czech man who kept offering everybody his beer. My friends and I decided to forgo the club for a good night's sleep, and had a lovely evening and woke up without a hangover. Our room also had a balcony, which we stood on just to spite our university.
The next day we went to a little town near the border of Slovakia to celebrate Fasanky. It was pretty much epic- the Czechs know how to party.
We arrived at 10 am, and they had already been going for a while.
Fasanky is a bit like Mardi Gras and Halloween combined. You go around the village and peple offer you little things of food and shots of slivovice (sliv-oh-vee-tseh)- plum liquor that's about 51% alcohol. Unlike Mardi Gras, you don't even have to do anything/flash anyone to get anything- they want you to drink and simply hold out plates with food or shots.
Traditionally, there are supposed to be people dressed in certain outfits- bear, doctor, gypsy, and a few others. We didn't learn that much about Fasanky, only really celebrated.
The town consisted of about three blocks, and so there was a fair number of Czech people dressed up, and then 20 fresh faced, coat wearing university students.
The clowns have face paint/chalk in their pockets, and run around putting it on people's faces, either with a smack across the face (not quite a smack, but pretty much the same action without the ouch), or by a sneak attack from behind, which means you get delightfully colored hair as well.
One of my friends tried to run away from the clowns. Never do that. They will win. It's better to let them paint your face, and avoid wearing white. There are musicians and at some points everybody dances and sings. We don't know what the song was about, but it had something to do with slivovice.
There was a bride and groom- the guy was dressed as the bride and the girl dressed as the groom, complete with drawn on mustache. By the time we left- 11 am, the "groom" was extremely drunk. Like I said, the Czechs know how to have a good time. She informed us that her "wedding woman have sex with everybody and I am sad", and capped it off by kissing one of our group on the lips a few times. Needless to say, we all thought she was awesome. Her English was very good too, even though she kept saying "...I am drunk...my English is bad".
A man dressed as a doctor (he informed us he was a gynecologist) checked out our bus, and told us it was in bad condition and so we couldn't leave. But alas, the itinerary said we had to leave, and off we went.
The next town was much bigger, and instead of being a little town thing like the first place we went was a place people came to celebrate and watch dancing. It was also fun, but in a very different way from the first town. Everybody wanted to stay at the first town- the people talked to us, we got to dance and sing and get attacked by clowns, and the people were offering free shots of slivovice. What college student wouldn't want to stay there?
Regardless, we all showed up with our "war paint" still intact, expecting another wave of killer clowns to get us only...no clowns. Nobody dressed up. Almost nobody with face paint. We passed one man with two streaks of paint on his face and he pointed excitedly at us, and then his cheeks. It turns out, however, that some of the people there just LOVED Americankas- Americans (possibly specific to girls. We didn't get any stories like we had from the guys). As we passed the bar to get to the restaurant part of the establishment, we noticed a man who had my friend by the shoulders and was ordering her a shot. When we came up to talk to her, he noticed with glee that we too, were Americanka and ordered us all shots of something called bichoravku. We still have no idea what it is. We did the shots, and then left for the restaurant, which was filled. So we walked back out, past the man, who once again ordered us shots. Trying to give away the shots wound up being futile, and may have almost started a bar fight. We took the shots, and ran outside.
One of my friends and I decided to get food from a vendor, and as we walked around, a hot wine vendor started calling to us in Czech. We decided to try to see what he wanted, and walked over. When he kept going, we realized we had no idea what he was saying, so we decided to see if he knew any English.
Us: Anglicky? (English?)
Him: Anglicky?! (English?!)
Us: Ano! (Yes!)
Him: Americankas?! (Americans?!)
Us: Ano! (Yes)
Him: Czech (?)
Us: ..... (...)
Of the two men and one girl working the counter, only the girl spoke some English. I informed them that "mluvim trochu cesky" (I speak a little czech), and the men got very excited and continued trying to talk in Czech. They asked if we were sisters ("Sestras?"), to which I replied "Ne...kamaradkas....is this right?" (No...friends). The girl informed me that I was correct, and I was very excited.
After a little more back and forth, we informed them that we were studying in Prague (studuju v Praze), and we figured out that the guy was asking us if we had flown here. He poured us hot wine, and I asked how much it was (Kolik stoji?), to which he got very excited about my use of czech again. I gave him money, and I think he gave us too much change. I also think they told us we would get free refills, which really didn't help my friend and I since we don't actually like hot wine. Before we left, the two men ran around the counter to take a picture with us, and one man rubbed his face on my friend's face to get some of the facepaint, which was remarkably less creepy than it sounds, and remarkably less creepy than most other males that were there.
We went back inside, and managed to avoid the creepy shot guy, when one of my friends decided she wanted a picture with him. This turned out to be an idea that only got us drunker and somewhat sexually harassed by several Czech men.
Remarkably creepy Czech dudes, however, were unable to bring our spirits down, as the day had been ridiculously fun. We got back on the bus, drunkish, because of Creepy Czech Men, and slept our way back to Prague.
We also decided that somehow, Fasanky needed to be brought to the states.
No comments:
Post a Comment