Plzen - A Beer-Lover's Hajj

August 4, 2011 – Today we took a break from tourism in the traditional sense—we took a day off to visit Plzen, the place where pilsner beer was created.  As our Czech furniture friend from Karlovy Vary told us, Plzen is an industrial town. (He also seemed very confused as to why we would want to go there)  Regardless, we went for the beer.

We arrived at the bus station and began the trek to our hostel.  As we walked all I could think to myself was, “Now this is Eastern Europe.”  The streets were lined with what could be aptly described as “Soviet Bloc[k] Buildings.”  All of the buildings have hard edges, follow the exact same architectural structure, and display no sort of individuality or unique features at all.  It was on this walk that we encountered the remnants of an “Enjoy Capitalism” sign, depicted here.

The hostel appeared no better from the outside.  It was on a dilapidated street and I had a bad feeling about the situation as we walked to the door under an old sign on which the word “Hostel” had been spray painted…and spelled incorrectly.  After two rings of the doorbell, a 30-something Czech man opened the door in blue overalls.  He looked like he’d been pulled straight out of the movie Hostel.  Yet he was perfectly nice.  He told us that he’d spent a year in Louisiana learning how to “work” because he was too lazy when he was younger.  We were the only guests in the hostel—it was apparently brand new—our host had been in the back yard trying to clear it out and construct a bar.

Our first (and really only) stop for the day was at the Plzen Brewery Museum.  It was really neat.  There was an exhibit on Czech “table companies” that reminded me of our Stammtish days at Wabash.  After taking a tour of the underground tunnels that run from the museum under most of the city, we got to sample a real rarity: Pilsner Urquell—unpasteurized and unfiltered.  The difference from the normal pilsner could not have been more pronounced.  It was fantastic!  We also took in The Cathedral of St. Bartholemew, a massive baroque church that looks quite out of place in the middle of the town square, and the Great Synagogue, the second largest synagogue in all of Europe.  Yet the real adventure didn’t begin until after our tour of the city had ended.

At about 16:00 we sat down at a small outdoor patio in the town square to grab a beer and soak up our surroundings.  When we went to purchase our beer, an old guy at the bar, in perfect English, told us that we wanted a different beer (which we didn’t).  Later, he stopped by our table and we found out that he was from Minnesota/Washington (He claims both).  Not long after, we decided that we’d buy him a beer and get him to talk about how the hell he ended up in Plzen of all places.

His name was Danny, he was 67, and he’d been in Plzen for 11 years.  As far as we could tell, he and his business partner Kenny, who will enter this tale shortly, tried to start a night club in Plzen but got ripped off by a local who ran off with their money and now they can’t leave the city because they have no means to do so.

Kenny was even more of a character than Danny.  He stumbled across the square towards our table.  As some Eastern Europeans would say, “He walked like a pretzel.” (He was drunk)  He proceeded to sit down with us and do what all drunk people do—make us laugh at his expense.  Kenny was most fascinated with the fact that Kati (whose name he could never remember) looked just like Kate Middleton.

After the café/bar we were sitting at closed, Danny insisted on taking us to this Spanish restaurant nearby where Kati and I had some fantastic gnocchi.  Our next stop was at the Hotel Continental, where Danny’s friend (and Kenny’s brother-in-law) works as the bartender at a club that plays oldies every Friday night.  It was a pretty cool club, but as with most drunk old men, Danny became increasingly bothersome as the night progressed.  He started ranting about American politics, how Obama is clearly a Muslim and they’re taking over the country, and how Obama’s not going to pay his Social Security check because he’s not really a citizen and doesn’t give a damn about Americans.  Needless to say, we decided it was time to leave.  On our walk back, we stopped in a bar near our hostel for one final beer and Alex and I decided to buy a pizza.  All in all it was quite the successful trip.