Seven Capital Cities in Seven Days (3 of 8)

Wine Festival…

Hana arrived in Bréclav, for one of the annual wine festivals, and we had dinner in this pink restaurant. Took a taxi to what seemed like a community hall and Vlastik paid our entry fees. No sooner had we arrived in the front door when we were accosted by a small group

of well-developed women who were amazed with my style – there I was standing with my makeshift Georgio Armani suit finished off with a superman t-shirt underneath. No matter where I turned, the Breclavians were astounded at my ingenious sense of fashion.

Vlastik introduced us to Melanie from Perth in West Australia. Out of the farrago of wine tasters emerged a certain scruffy looking character who Vlastik introduced as “Jamie from London”. The west-ender had

manky reddish hair and eyes full of mischief. The English dude pretended not to understand my perfect English accent and went on to say that the Irish had the best accent of all the English speaking peoples. A compliment, I’m sure…

There were hundreds of different varieties of wine to choose from and Shane was asked which one would he like to try first. The elusive Corkman rebutted that he’d “like to start at number one and work his way upwards”! A bit of a stupid question to ask a Corkonian.

Our friendliness reclined to a table as we tried to talk to each other over the loudspeaker which was proclaiming the winners of the raffle. This raffle, however, seemed to go on all afternoon and Jamie enlightened us to the fact that all Czech occasions of importance have raffles lasting the whole day. Our English compere went on to say that 80% of the gathering would go home with a prize, as always. I quipped that first prize was probably a week in Bréclav, while second prize was two weeks in Bréclav!

Crowds began to dwindle and we were starting to tire of the evening of Czech ticket numbers and serial numbers. We invited ourselves back out into the fresh air and walked for about an hour along the banks of the river which turned out to be a tributary of the Danube. Rested in a

conservatory-style bar and supped pints of orange juice.

Meanwhile Jamie started the conversation telling us that he was not trying to make any particular point of view, just that he was making viewpoints. The West Ham supporter was making absolutely no sense at all until he started on about the Northern Ireland situation. Now, whatever about trying to raise a dispute with a student of politics (as Shane is) on this subject, it is almost lethal to raise this argument with a Corkman. Myself and Shane-Boy battled against this unknowledgable English bloke and every point that Jamie made, we counterpointed his point and totally outclassed him in every department. In the end, the sub-standard West Ham fan conceded defeat.

After walking Hana back to the train station, we bid her adieu and I told her I’d see her in the morning. Back to Vlastik’s place and dreamt about dreaming about sweet dreams.

Read all eight parts of Seven Capital Cities in Seven Days
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight

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