One Way Ticket

10 hours; cars, planes, buses, trams, and trains - with a fair bit of hiking - takes me from Leicester to Plzen in the Czech Republic. I check into the echoing, high cielinged hotel, drink some beer and eat some stew and rice at a little Restaurance, then sleep the deepest, most refreshing sleep in the last two miserable weeks.

Monday morning: I could be at work in Leicester, organising the logistics of delivering hundreds of packages. Instead, I choose the 11.40 local train from Plzen to Domazlice, pulled by an old white, yellow, and blue diesel. 91ckz ( Czech Koruni ) buys me a 118km ride through the lovely rural countryside, past fields of nodding sunflowers, and rippling barley behind the goggle faced gaze of the smoky museum piece. It actually does look like it's wearing a pair of glasses: but the strange quirky design is not unattractive, and fits perfectly in this bittersweet country. I sit on the patched vinyl seat, my notebook on my knee, gazing out of the window, writing and thinking.

Almost 12 years working for the same company but not seeming to get anywhere; a few precious weeks snatched here and there, riding around Europe on trains. Luxembourg and the Blankenberge Express, Germany and the Ruhrtalbahn; Hungary, and an ill-fated trip to Bratislava.

I arrive at Domazlice and wander around the little farming town for a while. The harvest is being taken in, and the rhythm of the place has quickened since I last visited.
I'm drawn back to the Nadrazi ( station ); I sit at a formica table in the Restaurance and order a cold Gambrinus beer. My notebook and foreign clothes are objects of study for the local workers lunching in the canteen: I am probably English, and possibly eccentric. I couldn't argue either point.
The canteen is a classic Soviet era model of stark functionality; some modern touches, like a microwave oven and an electronic till have been added, but it seems largely unchanged by independence, and EU ascension. Witness the chrome and plastic hat stand in the corner, the huge radiators that march around the walls, their communal hot water pipes dropping from the high ceiling. Large windows filter dim sunlight through faded net curtains and provide the only light until evening, when the harsh fluorescent strips will finally be turned on. There is beer and vodka, and steaming basins of stews, soup, dumpling and cabbage. The cream plaster walls are punctuated with awful 60's tiles, and the worst of cheap Eastern Bloc wall hangings; a strip of gold tinsel is draped across one wall, in celebration of something unknown.
"Haben Sie Toilette, Bitte" I ask as another beer trickles into my glass.
"Ya: Auf dem Gleise, Zwei Links" She hands me a small key on a huge Gaoler's ring.
"Danke Vielmals". The exchange gives me an immense amount of pleasure; it incorporates almost all the German I know, but works perfectly.

One Friday in late July, a new tenant moved into the flat above mine, and a party started that was still going 19 days when I slammed the front door, and dropped the keys into an overflowing wheelie bin at the bottom of the grim street. Friends stored the few items of value I had removed; I left everything else there, and made my way to the airport with my one-way ticket to Central Europe. I didn't look back.

I decide to have dinner in the hotel's huge, echoing dining room. The hotel opened in 1893, and is a sprawling architectural delight built, full of huge mirrors, carvings, and statues. It is only partially restored and utterly charming for this: if history could not find a room at the famous Hotel Continental, you would find it here.
The only other guests in the hotel are a party of deaf German tourists; they are having dinner, too. The whole experience is strange. The usual sounds of the restaurance are there: chinking glasses, the rattle of cuttlery on crockery; the odd cough, and the rustle of a napkin. But there are no vocal sounds whatsoever. Its like watching a film with that part of the sountrack edited out. I order my meal, the waiter and I needlessly whispering and I feel ashamed for our behavior. The group's guide is standing at the head of their table. Hes explaining tomorrow's iteniery, or perhaps reviewing their day: I can't tell, as he speaks in sign language, and lipreads questions from the party. Others in the party get up occasionally, and take their turn addressing their friends, and are followed by an appreciative round of applause. They are happy, relaxed, and enjoying each others company. I sit at my solitary table and feel utterly humbled, and utterly isolated.