Milan, Champion of a Man

Hello Prague! Update #2.

I went for a walk, after visiting the university, and stumbled upon the senate. Lovely park, heaps of statues, slightly too much sun. As it turned out, there was a conference ting going on, which included 3 days of youth wind orchestra concerts. I watched the Czech Republic national youth wind orchestra play a banger of a setlist. Average age 15 and a half, impressive stuff. Sadly, because of the heat, they didn't have much of an audience, but boy did they huff and boy did they puff. After they'd finished, I slogged out of Prague in either 33 or 36 degree heat, and just about made it to Kutna Hora before becoming too exhausted to move my legs or any other limbs.

I had a pizza and beers and camped in a place. My knees hurt, so I got some painkillers from the biggest supermarket in the world. Next day, I passed through Caslav, home of progressive advertising:

And then stopped in an eatery for some Camembert. THEN began a minute but epic adventure.

It downpoured, so I hid in a bus shelter and dried off, wishing I'd stayed where the Camembert was sweet.

Then, when it eased off, and was getting quite dark, I carried on in hope of finding a barmy spot to camp. I wanted forty winks. Unfortunately I couldn't find any, and it was still ruddy raining, so I took shelter in a teeny tiny drinking place, in a teeny tiny village beginning with Z. There was one person inside (among 5 locals in total) who spoke about six words of English, who kindly swapped some of his Korona for some of my Euros. I drank in silence and stared solemnly as the rain poured, thinking oh bloody heck how's this going to pan out.

After a while, a chap called Milan, the proprietor of a similar drinking establishment in a nearby village, emerged from the ether. He looked rather like a lumberjack, and showed a curiosity in me and my Lycra. He spent a good 15 minutes fiddling with an ipad and then stood me a beer. Marie the bartend went to bed and left Milan (her husband, it transpires) to close up. Thence, while the other three gentlemen drank heavily from wine boxes, Milan and I spent the best part of 3 hours, right into the wee hours, communicating via Google translate. We talked earnestly about Teresa May, Vaclav Havel, immigration, the EU, each other's experiences of various countries, and generally got to know each other. All this, in higgledy-piggledy warped imperfect translation. We were also getting a bit silly by this point.

Eventually, after peanuts, he said hey why don't you sleep here? And so I did. Kipped on the pub floor, betrunken and enriched.

Next morning, / THIS morning, Marie made me a veritable bucket of Turkish coffee, like maybe about a pint of delicious Turkish coffee, and we all had a whole breakfast together, talking all the while via technological means. Here he is, in his fantastic dungarees. His Rottweiler is called Aya, or something similar, and is very friendly.

Czech Republic delivers incredible hills. They destroy my knees but I'm getting better at them. Never have I gone so fast and then so slow so many times in a row. And the scenery is marvellous.

Now I'm in Brno! where the statues are extra cool/tall. Here's a horse whose legs you can't see because they're so long.

It's not a very easy city centre to find, but it is very deftly paved, and there is definitely plenty of room for activities.

It's only a shame they don't sell themselves very well here.

But the actual market is great! Here I am, drinking a banana milkshake. I will next to to Wien/Vienna, in a country called Austria, not to be confused with New Zealand I mean Australia.

Ciao for now.