2004-01-27..12:43 p.m.

Back at work after my Czech crimbo, at a loss as to how to enjoy new year�s � parties? clubbing? corking some champs riverside and watching the crowds pass in silly hats, making a lot of noise? As Nelle (one of my best friends and partner in crime) had her wallet stolen yesterday, it�ll likely be the third (lovely bottle of bubbly supplied by one of the suppliers we use at work as a thank you and good tidings, as my co-worker Myra is rather muslim and I�m not, I got to take it home whee!) Wallet snatching is the latest incident in holiday follies that will leave me forever with a warm and wonderful glow when I think back to the past few days. A glow and warmth comparable to coming into work and finding the last remaining exotic fish in the reception aquarium hovering an inch above the bottom quite without life.

Nelle and I had the choice between spending Christmas with Mick and Nicky, the unbearably boring, pogue-fanatical, screen-play waxing irish couple who would have had us chanting along in merry jingles, donning tinsel and coercing permasmiles at midnight mass; or with mike, a scrawny guitar-playing, canvas savvy aussie who got thoroughly excited about a vegan Christmas, and promised happily to supply us with all the comforts his one-room pad could offer. As Nelle has a thing for the weedy oz, we went with that and showed up on his doorstep early xmas eve afternoon. Mike lives in some unpronounceable town, an hour from Mlada Boloslav (where Nelle lives, an hour outside Prague), filled to the outskirts with pretty unused churches and pretty empty town squares. (we did end up going into one of the pretty unused churches in a last ditch attempt to find jesus before the big day, and ended up getting kicked out for heckling mass). The eve was spent in a czech sports bar with one of mike�s students (he, like ellen, teaches English), being laboriously taught a handful of chords on the guitar (me) and learning how to sleep shoved up against a wall with fingers crammed firmly in ears trying not to listen to a fledgling relationship fledge (also me).

Consequently Christmas day could have been mildly awkward if not for an overwhelming talent on my part to repress everything. (I unwrapped my gifts, cried over my cards, and donned every item of clothing sent to me so I looked like a six year old on smack while they cooed and wowed and respectfully refused to make eye contact. Nelle�s gift I had to wait for until we got back to boloslav: a painting! Done by her! she used the paints her parents sent her for Christmas to do it and ruined all her good brushes, it�s the most beautiful and save my camera the best thing I have ever been given ever) Improvisational culinary genius on my part too as I successfully threw together a three course meal on the hot plate mike calls his kitchen. Three bean and beer soup for starters; spinach, lentil and mushroom �bake� with �steamed� veg, cranberry/chestnut stuffing and roasties for mains; and classic pud for afters. All told, properly chuffed with myself.

Didn�t stay w mike Christmas night as planned as Nelle was due to leave for London boxing day (inspirational, our skills at organising: I wasn�t due to leave until the 27th), which was spent primarily in Prague. We exchange keys and instructions, I see her on the Prague-london coach (cheap-skate a-go-go), catch the correct bus back to boloslav, navigate my way to her flat, front door key doesn�t work. It goes into the lock, just doesn�t turn. Check that I�m at the right block of flats, I am, try the key again.

Try all the keys again.

Not panicking I buzz all the buzzers until someone lets me in, remember to make sure the door to the elevator is shut before pressing 7, remember to make sure the elevator has in fact stopped moving before stepping off (not a mistake you make twice), door key doesn�t work. It goes into the lock, just doesn�t turn. Check that I�m on the right floor, I am, try the key again.

Try all the keys again.

Not panicking I knock on the door of one of the neighbours (who up until this point only know Nelle as the Mute From the Seventh Floor). �Jorge�s English is as nonexistent as my Czech. He tries the keys twice before deciding they�re not the right one�s and appears to ask if I�m sure I�m in the right building. He knocks on the door of the old guy across the hall. Old Guy doesn�t speak English, but does speak german; however as I don�t, that scrumpet of hope is useless and I�m stuck in a lego box hallway pleading with two men in communist-issue jimjams to stop playing about and find the damn landlord who can let me in. Finally, they understand that my bag, passport and ticket out of there is locked inside the flat of the Mute who�s on her way to London and arrange to take me to the nearest hotel where the receptionist speaks English. I start to cry and Old Guy pats my shoulder and mimes that a good nights sleep is all I need.

The receptionist at Hotel International refuses to let us in, rather tells Jorge that there�s no one there who speaks English and gestures at us through three glass partitions to please leave with the telephone. The woman at the Hotel Forman across the street opens the door despite the hotel being closed for the holidays. She doesn�t speak English, but she does speak German, and her only guest is a German who doesn�t speak Czech, but does speak English. Saved! A domino relay of events takes us an hour and a half forward to my crying into a long-overdue cigarette with relief after being told that Jorge will let me stay at his place (�in a separate room�) until the following day when the landlord will be called to come over with a new key and being wished a safe journey back to the sanity of London.

Back at the ranch we knock on Old Guy�s door to get the number for the landlord at which point OG�s wife asks why we didn�t go downstairs to Property Management to get the spare key? I nearly died.

The 27th was comparatively tame. I found my way to Prague without a hitch. I bought a guitar and case for about �20 (I had asked the guy to knock 20Kc off the price so I could get back to the coach terminal, instead he took off 140Kc and seemed genuinely embarrassed to have been the cause of so my joy in one person.) I got picked up by an American dude with v cool dreads in the Bohemia Bagel and philosophised the state of things over tea in a houka joint. I got stopped by the ticket inspectors at Florenc station told my ticket was invalid as I�d bought a children�s pass in error and would have to explain it to the foreign police why I couldn�t pay the 400Kc fine (I had just spent the last of my dosh on a guitar and they weren�t getting that). For the fourth time in two days I found myself crying in front of strangers. So there I was stuck in the metro envisioning post-commie prison conditions and lifetime bans from the Czech Republic, when I get yelled at for loitering and told to piss off.

The swirling fondant of it all was the two hours at customs after twenty-three and a half hours on the road with four small sobbing children and their parent�s who were powerless to stop them.

Now if you�ll excuse me, I�ve a dead fish to pull off the bottom of his tank.

May your holidays have been as momentous as mine, happy new year!