Women in the Czech Republic consider a much wider range of colors when dyeing their hair. In younger women, true burgundy and a sort of reddish orange color are very popular, and among older women, pastels are VERY popular: lavender, pink, light green, etc. These colors could be applied on the entire head, or in streaks that approximate "highlights" in the U.S. The vast majority of the hair color I have seen, and the way in which it has been applied, makes me think I am not getting my hair colored while I am here. I saw one woman on the street today who had great highlights and wanted desperately to ask her where she gets her hair done but thought it might seem odd . . .
Moving on . . . some people have already heard the rather traumatic story of my arrival in Hronov, but I will recount it here nevertheless. Following our departure from lovely Podebrady, something went very wrong with Mr. Mach's transmission. The first plan was to stop in a town called Hradec Kralove (Hra-detz Kra-low-va) where he would go to a repair shop and Kamila and I would continue our journey via bus. However, he could not find the repair shop and was afraid to stop the car so we kept going, arriving in Hronov after all. Kamila has a friend with an auto repair shop in Hronov so she was going to take Mr. Mach there to have the car evaluated. Thus, I was dropped off fairly quickly (although Mr. Mach, at nearly 70, insisted on carrying both of my gargantuan suitcases up to the fourth floor), which made me cry, both out of fear and loneliness, and my conviction that I was a jackass because not only had I kicked Mr. Mach out of his house for three days AND had him miss a day of work to drive to Hronov and back, but I had also been the cause of his car breaking down. I could only imagine how happy he was to have met this "Americanka" (pronounced Amer-ee-chanka). I was also waiting for my mentor teacher, Martin Vancl, to meet me at the apartment and wasn't sure how long it would be before he arrived. Luckily, it wasn't more than ten minutes. This was good for the loneliness part, but bad for the part where I was still crying. Have I mentioned that the Czechs aren't so much emotive? So, I knew I was making a REALLY good first impression on Martin as well. Super! I was really off to a stellar beginning in Hronov.
Initially, Martin and I got off to a bit of a rocky start. I think he was hesitant--completely understandably--about just what he had gotten himself into in agreeing to be my mentor for the year, and I made a couple of self-deprecating jokes that he clearly wasn't sure how to interpret. (I was really batting 1000 here.) BUT, the good news is that it took less than an hour for us to be on very good terms. I think the turning point was when he commented, "You are always joking," and I responded, "Well, when I'm not crying, yes," which made him laugh. At that point, I was pretty sure we were going to be fine.
Martin's first task, as assigned by my exchange partner Honza, was to orient me to the theatre festival that was well underway in Hronov. Honza & Marketa had arranged tickets for me to three shows, with the option of getting more, so Martin took me for a walk so that I could learn where the theatres were located. He pointed out that there were daily concerts in the park, one of which was just about to start, and would I like to see if it was interesting? Sure. "We could have a beer," he said. Oh, then abso-@#$%-lutely. That was the best idea I had heard all day. The band playing was from Hronov, and were just setting up as we approached, where Martin bought me my first beer in Hronov for 14 kc (about 75 cents). It was a group of men, all in their 60's & 70's probably, and as they warmed up, what should greet my ears but totally Louis Armstrong-influenced, big-brass jazz. I'm pretty sure I laughed. I had flown across the Atlantic and half of the European continent, driven on successively smaller roads to arrive in a small town just a few kilometers from the Polish border, and walked from there into a park that was barely differentiated from the forest around it to hear American music? What were the odds?
(Here is the band--unassuming in appearance, but they sounded pretty good.)
Oh, but it got better . . .
After a couple of songs that varied from Dixieland to Big Band, a male singer was introduced and began a song I was sure I recognized. Wait . . . what IS it? Oh my god, it's "My Way" with Czech lyrics. I turned to Martin and said, "Oh my god, it's Frank Sinatra!" He looked at me and clearly had no idea what I was talking about.
K: Frank Sinatra--you know who he is, yes? This is his signature song!
M: Oh. Oh, yes. But not in Czech.
Well, you got me there, Martin.
(Here is Frank Sinatra's Czech version.)
But again, it got better . . .
A few more songs later, a young woman came out who was also going to sing. Martin translated her introduction, to tell me to get excited because she was going to sing in English. Awesome! Her first song was "Sentimental Journey". Being the mean and catty American woman I am, I had a very hard time stifling the laugh that I knew was absolutely inappropriate. While I'm fairly certain she was singing the English lyrics, they were almost entirely unintelligible, largely due to pronouncing English words using the Czech alphabet, which I assure you causes very different results. Her next song was "I'm Beginning to See the Light" which was, well, equally entertaining for me. (I need to add that she had a very sexual stage presence, and was heavy on the sort of gravely vocalizations that I associate with the stereotypical "torch singer" here, which only heightened the comic effect as it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. As a side note, try explaining what "torch singer" means to non-native speaker sometime.)
(Here is an unfortunately disappointing photo of the torch singer . . . I hope your imagination can fill in the details for the full effect.)
And yet again, it got better . . .
I was sorry to see her leave the stage, but leave she did. The band played some more songs. The male singer returned for a few songs. And then, yes, she came back. She was going to finish her set with Billy Joel's classic, "Just the Way You Are." I knew this was going to be good, but she actually exceeded my expectations. (Perhaps it's only fair to mention that I was most of the way through my second beer by this point, and still very much working on acquiring a European tolerance for alcohol.) How did she exceed expectations, you ask? Because in addition to her inappropriately sexual presense for a park concert in broad daylight and her rather funny pronunciation of English words, she also knew less than half of the actual lyrics to the song. One verse, in her version, went something like this:
I said forever and that's forever
You don't know how much to say
So now I love you even more
I love you just the way you are
AWESOME. Excellent, excellent performance.
Following the concert, Martin walked me back to the apartment, having presented a full schedule of events for the next day. Meanwhile, I was beginning to think that life in Hronov wasn't going to be so bad after all.
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