Oh, the humanity!

I am starting this new page...with an old entry.During the Summer of 2010 I lived in the amazing city of Prague. Loved it and wouldn't change a second of it. I'll often be telling stories from that time. But there were some times when I experienced what it means to be living in a foreign country as opposed to being a tourist passing by. This entry is one of the best example's...I give you:

Broken toilet:

While the Czech Republic is in no way a poor or undeveloped country, there are moments where I am reminded that this is a country only 20 years into capitalism and western development. For example in the race to catch up to west in communication, cell phones were made the norm and everyone has one. But, there are no landlines as they just skipped it all together. They also don’t have dryers here so you just hang all your clothes to dry. Which in the summer isn’t all that bad.I am not looking forward to the winter however. And while the food is good, they are very simple in flavor. The Czechs KNOW how to cook any type of meat, just haven’t got around to learning different ways to spice it up. They are also somewhere between 2-20 years behind in fashion. Clogs shoes are everywhere. Polo shirts that were not cool 5 years ago and still aren’t are all the rage. And occasionally I see someone who looks like they came out of 1995.
But I was REALLY reminded of where I live yesterday. In the morning my friend informed me that the toilet was not flushing at all. The buttons we are supposed to use to flush were useless. So I went downstairs to the real estate company office that owns the building to tell them. The lady told me that both on site tech guys were on holiday until the end of the week (Both, at the same time!). She asked if I knew anybody who fixes toilets in the CR and I looked at her thinking, “I can’t order a sandwich without messing up, how would I know to ask for my toilet to be fixed”. She must have read my mind because she laughed and said she would contact someone. That someone was NOT a plumber. Though a very nice man, he came in with a screwdriver and pliers. He spoke no English and after 10 minutes he left and didn’t come back for about 20. The he came back with my real estate person to translate. The problem, he didn’t bring the right screwdriver. His solution was to, “Use a bucket if you need to go, when I fix it I will dump the waste from the bucket into the toilet.” I stared at him and said, “Um yeah, I will find another toilet to go into, thanks”. After they left I stared at my roommate and said, “Did they really just suggest we go in a fucking bucket!!”

He came back a couple of hours later and fixed it. We were pleased and said thank you. Two days later In the middle of the night, it broke again. To say that night was uncomfortable is an understatement. The next morning I went back down and told the people it was broken again. They send back the same man (still sure he wasn’t a plumber and just a friend of the lady who worked downstairs). He fixed it and went on his merry way. Saturday morning…guess what happened? It broke again! Since it was the weekend (Czechs don’t work on weekends...ever) We had to make do the old fashioned way. Fill up a bucket of water (from the bidet, respectively) and keep pouring in the toilet to manually flush.

So to sum up the rest of the week, he came back fixed it. Only for it to break 24 hours later. Fixed. It broke on the weekend when there was no one to fix it. It is fixed now and looking good. I have just become very well acquainted with the KFC around the corner for using their bathroom daily.