Pivo

By Chris Sarcletti

City: Prague

Prague is one of the most impressive cities that I’ve visited in my travels. It has wonderful architecture, the amazing Charles Bridge and a gothic feel that is different from any place I remember visiting. Prague also produces some of the world’s best beer. Whether it’s Krusovice, Radegast, Staropramen or Pilsner Urquell, it’s truly fantastic. You only need to peak into a few of Prague’s many bars in order to form the opinion that the Prague locals enjoy their beer on a regular basis. It is probably safe to say that many tourists, like me, may enjoy it a bit too much. On this visit to Prague, saying that I sampled too much beer is definitely an understatement.

After a splendid day walking around the city, we began this evening with a wonderful meal at a hidden restaurant called Peklo, which translates to ‘The Hell’ in the Czech native tongue. In regards to our meal on this evening, you could almost say the experience was a bit spooky. Why? Well, Peklo has a very unique atmosphere as the restaurant is in a wine cellar that only gets as warm as 68 degrees. In addition, the whole feeling of the place, in addition to the look of the host, had a feeling of Hell. The name Peklo originated because the gardens above were called ’In the Paradise’ so everything located under the gardens was thought to be ‘the hell’. Anyway, on my first trip to Prague a few years prior, I spent a significant amount of time looking for this restaurant without success.

On this visit, I had a bit more success, although it definitely wasn’t easy. The only information we had about Peklo was that it is located next to a famous synagogue which holds a well-renowned collection of art. With this abundance of information, Jim and I spent 2 hours walking around and asking random people on the street until we finally struck gold and found the restaurant. Even after finding the restaurant, things were a bit tense as the host originally indicated that there were no tables available for that evening. Fortunately, he was mistaken and we were able to secure a reservation for later that evening. Given the difficulty we had finding the restaurant in the afternoon when it was still light outside, there wasn’t a chance in hell we were going to try and find the restaurant on foot without the benefit of daylight. We decided that showing the address to a taxi driver made much more sense.

In any case, after a fantastic and gluttonous dinner of chateaubriand, we made our way back into the city center to try and find a jazz club we read about that was supposed to be quite good. After entering the club, I really didn’t know if we were in the right place as it looked like a typical bar to me. As it turns out, there is a bar upstairs and the jazz club is in the basement. Over the next few hours, we saw a lot of the bar but very little of the jazz club. To be honest, we didn’t see any of the jazz club and the only music we heard were some faint sounds emanating from the club that penetrated the bathroom walls. Come to think of it, we did spend a lot of time in the bathroom and it is located next to the jazz club, so….. Honestly, our intentions to sit down and enjoy some jazz over a few beers were true when we entered the club. As is the case sometimes though, plans go awry and these plans began to unravel about halfway through our first half liter of beer.

The reason we didn’t head downstairs immediately after entering the venue is because we opted to grab a beer at the bar upstairs as a bit of an appetizer to the music. That was our plan anyway. The only problem is that the beers we were drinking were in half liter glasses that were more like jugs. Obviously, it takes a while to finish one of those things. After I managed to down my first Radegast, Jim had another one waiting for me when I returned from the bathroom. Who was I to argue with the notion of having one more round before we headed downstairs to listen to some music? As I approached the table, I noticed that Jim was engaged in a conversation with a unique looking blond gentleman at the bar. I thought to myself, ‘it’s too bad that he’s not talking to a blond woman’ but quickly got over that, joined into the conversation and proceeded to shake hands with Johan. Johan was from Norway and was visiting Prague for a 5 day holiday. It was his last night in Prague and he didn’t hesitate to inform us that he was up for some hard partying tonight, before he hopped on an 8 AM flight back to Oslo the following morning. He came to Prague with another Norwegian friend, Sven, and they were in the company of a local Czech gentleman whom they met at the bar. One look at these guys and the many empty beer glasses in front of them should have told us all we needed to know about where the night was headed from here. On second thought, maybe it did and we just followed suit.

Our ensuing conversation, accented by many beers, led to discussion about Bill Clinton, the U.S. bigger is better philosophy and Jerry Springer of all people. Our discussions ranged from laughter filled ones to quite tense ones. Many of Johan’s sentences began with “In Norway, “. Johan was unquestionably an interesting and entertaining guy. His friend Sven seemed much more composed. Maybe he was just less drunk. Yet again, maybe he was so hammered that he didn’t know what the fuck was going on because I did notice that his conversation with the Czech gentleman had dissipated. Nonetheless, we began to talk to Sven and he was also quite friendly. At this point, the beer was taking its toll on my bladder and it was time for me to make another trip of many to the washroom.

When I returned from the bathroom this time, I was quite surprised to find out that Sven was extremely interested in arm wrestling me. This was definitely unexpected and I initially declined. Not only did I not want to arm wrestle anyone, but Sven was a lot bigger than me. I’m 5’10 and he was at least 6’3. I weigh 170 pounds and my guess is that Sven was closer to 220. I figured he just wanted to make an American look like an idiot and I was pretty sure he would. I declined numerous times and tried to change the subject, but seemed to be getting nowhere as Sven was very insistent. I finally accepted the fact that my efforts to change the subject were not working and that Sven, while being pretty good natured about the whole thing, also wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Since I wasn’t ready to leave the bar I was quite comfy at just yet, and I didn’t have too many other options, I agreed to arm wrestle Sven even though I expected to get crushed and look like a fool in the process.

After I agreed to arm wrestle Sven, Jim got a good laugh and he, Johan and the Czech gentleman quickly cleared the glasses from the table. Sven and I then squared off, locked hands and began to arm wrestle. I surprisingly managed to hold my own for about 60 seconds. However, given Sven’s weight advantage and apparent strength advantage, I began to falter quickly. To put it bluntly, I knew I was going down and I was just hoping to hold off enough so that I didn’t get my ass flipped to the ground with a resounding thud and look like even more of a fool. Luckily for me, that didn’t happen. Who knows, maybe Sven held back before he finished me off calmly, as there wasn’t even a loud thud when my arm hit the table. Fortunately, there were no hard feelings and this little episode managed to erode any tension that may have existed prior to this “lock up”. It wasn’t more than a few moments later that an animated Sven and Johan were laughing and slapping me on the back as the bartender placed 5 glasses of absinthe in front of us at Jim’s behest. Jim and I had both sampled absinthe before and were interested drinking it “the correct way”, whatever that was. Based on our observations of others, we believed it had something to do with a spoon, fire and sugar. It appeared that Jim and I were the only people in our group with an interest in the details of properly drinking absinthe as the other three glasses in front of us disappeared quickly. I am not sure if the Norwegians realized that they were drinking a liqueur that is illegal in most countries due to its potency, but they downed it like a shot of tequila. I am sure their Czech friend knew the implications, yet he also downed the absinthe in one large gulp. In any case, the coughing episode I saw the three of them go through wasn’t pretty. Actually, it was painful to watch but those guys were so drunk that they really didn’t care what kind of a scene they were creating.

At the same time, Jim and I were fumbling with the utensils in front of us to try and figure this absinthe puzzle out. We scooped a bit of absinthe into the spoons which already had sugar sitting in them. The next step was to heat the absinthe and sugar mixture until it burned down to a residue. The last step is to stir the residue into the glass and then sip, not slam, the drink. Well, we, actually I, fucked that up pretty good. I inadvertently spilled some of the still lit sugar absinthe mixture into the glass and the whole glass went up in flames. I’m lucky my hand and arm didn’t go up in flames with it. Feeling embarrassed and a bit like I wanted to laugh at myself, I tried to avoid looking like a complete fool and minimize the scene I was creating by grabbing the glass, blowing the fire out and ‘shooting’ the absinthe just like the others had. The absinthe hit me the same way it always hits me. My eyes filled with water and I’m sure anyone who saw my face sure as hell wouldn’t talk to me in this state. Despite the fact that I was very drunk, my nod to Jim was all the indication he needed to order another round. I needed a beer to wash down that hellacious drink.

As we delved back into conversation with our new found friends, we found out that Sven was married and Johan had a 2 year old son with his girlfriend. It was nice, even in my drunken state, to hear Johan talk about his child and the wonder of being a father. It made me wonder a bit and laugh to myself when Johan and Sven revealed to us how incredibly proud of themselves they were that they didn’t indulge in any physical contact with any of the beautiful Czech women they encountered during their trip. Jim and I then began to tease Johan and Sven about their early flight. Johan didn’t hesitate to give me a solid, but joking “Fuck You.” At least he felt comfortable enough with me to say that, I guess. I think the absinthe did the Norwegians in and actually made them think a bit more about the fact that they had to get up for an early flight, because it wasn’t long before they were donning their coats and heading for the door. We gave each other some raucous goodbyes highlighted by some hearty handshakes.

Jim and I looked at each other and laughed as they left the bar, before turning to our Czech comrade and continuing on with the night. We may have had another beer or two left in us, but there would be no more absinthe and we never did listen to any jazz.