Brno, Czech Republic

Authors note: This is the story of me getting lost in Brno, Czech Republic during my English class' trip to Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. I was lost for approximately two and a half hours.

                 THEY LEFT ME. Motherfuckers left me. I told Eric to wait; he can see over most medium sized building and therefore had to know where the bus was. Arghhhh tall people can be so inconsiderate of the normal heighted. If I get kidnapped by gypsies and pass their initiation quests first thing I am doing with my new gypsy magic powers is shrinking that tall fucker into the world’s most ironic lawn gnome. Vengeance plans aside, my mind is fuzzy like a porn channel on a less than legal cable set up. The three days of heavy drinking surly is not helping my opaque memory of our arrival. Probably should have stuck to coke and water during lunch. But when you’re a 17 year old American and someone offers you a beer, whether on a plane, a train, or in a restaurant whose walls are rather tainted with stain, you gotta to accept; its sacrilege not to. I am never going to drink again during the day… that’s a lie. Great now I am lying to myself and I am lost; I am pathetic.

 Why did I have to use this bathroom in this shitty pizza place, in this shitty town, in this not so shitty country? They shouldn’t even have pizza in the Czech, stick to what your good at: beer and beautiful women. Fuck I need to focus. Stop the inner monologue; the only people who monologue internally are sissy man-baby’s on comedic hospital shows and old guys providing voice over to a video series about their childhood in the 60’s. Now is neither the time nor the place to be a scrubby Kevin Arnold.


                  I stumble out the door and into the square, a place awash with sunlight and unscrupulous looking people. I half expect everyone will be waiting outside, a funny to everyone but me practical joke. I scan the plaza looking for classmates, teachers, Gerwin, any familiar face; fuck no one. Where the fuck am I? I wish every city and town in the world was like the theme song to Full House: “When you're lost out there and you’re all alone/ a light is waiting to carry you home/ everywhere you look.” Seriously what the fuck did ever happen to the milkman or the paperboy for that matter?

Shut up brain remember the inner monologue about the trite nature of inner monologues. Trite is such a pretentious word. Why is my mind alternating from vh1 pop culture talking head whore to douchey English grad student? Did I really just think people outside were unscrupulous? Mrs. Rad would be proud. Am I panicking and freaking out or were the mushrooms on that pizza sinister to more than my stomach. Fuck it, this fear/possible against my will hallucinogenic drug intake induced hazy state is just something I am gonna have to cope with.

Goddamn it, where is the bus again?  I think I remember seeing a big vegetable market when I exited the bus. How many open air markets could there be in a town that is half gypsy? According to my mildly-racist tour guide Gerwin and the many cutely-bigoted Jewish grandma’s across the world, gypsies steal; a lot. Would it really be advantageous to have a lot of open air markets if half your population shares a profession with Danny Ocean? There must be only one.

Outside the pizza shop I gaze upon my reflection in the window. Leave it for the moment that I’m lost in Eastern Europe to realize how ridiculous I look. Almost a full season of tennis has left me with a ghastly farmers tan. The particular outfit I am wearing is embarrassing. It is reminiscent of the picture day outfit a specific sect of kids in 3rd grade wore: the ones that nobody liked because their moms tried dressing them like little grown-ups, resulting in an unnaturally premature maturity, which far too often manifested itself in the form of tattling.  My ugly blue le Tigre polo with orange stripes is just disgusting. My khakis are embarrassingly bordering on outrageously oversized. My far too expensive Nike Sunglasses are a neon vacancy sign to muggers. The cherry on top of this big ugly American sundae that is my outfit is the orange and royal blue EF Tours backpack I am rocking. Shit If I saw me putzing around aimlessly in this part of the old world I would rob me. Well at least no one would want to steal this fucking grotesque polo and these business casual parachute pants.

With this comforting thought I decide standing still is probably a poor decision.  The general direction of the bus is kind of pushing its way through the fog in my head. I should go in that direction as quickly as possible.  If I am running at least the gypsies can’t reach into my pocket. More importantly, throwing a burlap sack over my head to kidnap me would be exceedingly more difficult. I don’t want to have to barter for my freedom. The Gypsies will probably ask for custody rights to my future first born child. Explaining that situation to a potential mate might make me a less than desirable life partner. Maybe we could adopt a gypsy orphan and give it to them; a gypsy trick for tricky gypsies. Sounds like a plan except, oh god the paperwork for international adoptions is unbearable in its scope and breadth. I am lazy and have bad handwriting. I need to marry a calligrapher or an accountant.

 I start running: huff huff…need to find a police officer… huff huff… perhaps my outfit is so egregious a style faux pas the fashion police will find me, they might know the location of the vegetable market...huff huff… Lucky Strikes is a partial misnomer, after the two at lunch I am feeling less than lucky, however my lungs do feel like they have been struck by the bubonic plague…huff huff… oh shit so so many gypsies…huff huff… dadamn that girl is fine as… FUCK, FOCUS; you’re a goddamn Jew lost in Eastern Europe. If you get kidnapped Nancy Grace might do a special on your disappearance and use you to further her goal of destroying as many American souls as possible. Larry King might look like a thousand year old demon but Nancy Grace is one.

I run into another plaza and a couple hundred yards away I spot a couple of police officers, one male and one female. I jog up to them and force out:

“English?”

The male officer turns to me. Talk about Adolf’s ideal Aryan. Blonde, blue, tall and he may or may not have been the main antagonist in one of the many excellent films starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Well at least if he try’s any funny business, I know he is susceptible to roundhouse kicks to the jaw. He opens his mouth and utters something incomprehensible, next. I turn to the female officer and ask her the same:

“English?”

Now full disclosure I am not generally attracted to domineering uniformed women, but for this beauty I would make an exception. She is gorgeous with the most symmetrically proportioned face and body I have ever seen. I was told not to drink the tap water in the Czech, but after meeting these two specimens of genetic engineering that would make Mendel proud, I think I am going to start.

The Female officer gazes at me and gives an ever so delicate nod. Is it just me or did I detect a hint of sass in that nod. I flash the dimples, it’s all I got. Hold up, no time for flirting, get to the business:

“Thank god. I am very very lost. My high school class is here on a trip from America. We are traveling by bus to Prague and just stopped here for lunch. My friends left me waiting in line for the bathroom and now I can’t remember where our bus is but I do remember seeing a vegetable market next to it. Have any idea where that is?”

I spit that out as fast as possible, always a good thing to do when speaking to someone for who English is likely a third or fourth language. She looks at me and in utterly adorable broken English says:

“Ve ave meny marks like these, sex or siven.”

Fuck.  I look at the blonde cop who to me looks like his name is Wolf or Klaus or possibly Wolf Von Klaus. Anyway Wolf is giving me a look that is best described as a confused yet murderous scowl. I shift my weight to my back heel preparing for a roundhouse but decide against it. These cops are useless and possibly sinister. There is no American embassy here. No one speaks English and my body and my possessions are in perpetual peril. What am I going to do? I am fucking fucked. I have reached the acceptance stage of grief. However, in this darkest minute the solution comes through the fog that had overtaken my brain, bursting out like the molten cheesy substance in a freshly zapped hot pocket.

 The only rationale thing to do is run back in the direction of the pizza restaurant. Mrs. Rad would never leave me. Her ass would be fired so fast. Plus if she lost me she would have to deal with my mother whom she has had the pleasure of meeting before. My mother’s demeanor is at time more fitting of a mafia enforcer than a public relations guru. Rad would be more likely to leave the group and head for Siberia than have to make the “Travis is lost” call to my mother.

I make my way back to the plaza where the pizza restaurant is located. I am exhausted and sweat is being excreted from my every pore. As I enter the square off in the distance I spot the back of a tall man wearing a Celtics hat. Now perhaps the Celtics dominance has resulted in a rabid fan base here in Brno, or perhaps I have found an American savior. I close in on the purported prophet. As I get closer I realize he is wearing a throwback Celtics warm up jersey that can only be described as green, white, yellow, and ugly all over. There is only one other person in the world with such a low aptitude pertaining to fashion to wear ugly so brazenly:

“ANDY” I shout.

6’3’’ and one of the biggest freaking heads you have ever seen but goddamn it I have never been so happy to see it. My happiness subsides quickly however. As I approach Andy I realize my teacher Mrs. Rad is huddled next to him. I walk up to her and see a stream of tears dribble down her face. This is making me incredibly uncomfortable. She is speechless and immediately grabs me for a ferocious hug. Thank god, I thought she was mad. I pull away from the hug not wanting her teacher tears to taint my already sweaty polo. It is at this moment she winds up and slaps my shoulder as if she were swatting a mosquito:

“Nevah again Travis. NEVAH AGAIN.”

I look at her. In front of me is a woman whose whole livelihood was just jeopardized by a big goofy highschooler whose need to frequently pee almost got him kidnapped by Gypsies. I finally open my mouth and retort without much thought:

“Rad I literally promise to never ever again get lost in Brno, Czech Republic while on a school trip you are chaperoning.”

Insensitive? Absolutely, but I couldn’t not make a joke in this situation; it’s who I am. Luckily in an instant the awkwardly emotional wreck that has overtaken the once confident outspoken hard ass mamajama subsides. Rad glances at me with a devilish smile that appears to instantly evaporate the off her face and quips in her famous sassy suburban Boston twang:

“Gawd Travis you are so fresh yah know that. I should have let the gypsies take yah. Gerwin says your dimples could earn them some serious money on street corners.”