Home Sweet Home July 15 - 19, 2001 on how tough it is to get there without losing your car radio, and your baggage.

	Purple bellflowers at Flossenbürg

I promised you a story about our car radio and Weiden, so here it is. We could not simply continue from Weiden into Bohemia, because we had a NON-REMOVABLE car stereo. The last time I left a fix-mount radio in a car in front of our house in Prague, it brought me a broken window, a dent from a paving stone on the door (and that on Skoda Favorit, which can be opened with a shoelace), and a destroyed radio (they could not steal it, so they broke it). It meant for me, besides an unexpected expense, a wasted weekend, for I spent a whole day calling all over the place for a car repair that would be open on Sunday and carry a window. Eventually, giving in to despair, I pulled my car mechanic from his holiday lunch and talked him into locking my car up in his garage, so that it would not be left standing open on the street. Well, one can be stupid once, but I'm not a complete idiot to try to tempt the fate hoping it would not happen again. I simply insisted that before we would reach Prague, the damned radio had to get out of the car.

My husband (an engineer) already removed a flimsy cosmetic frame around the thing and inspected it saying that without special tools there was no way to pull the radio out. We thought it would be easy to locate some German car specialist in this German town. Sid claimed that many gas stations should employ a mechanic, who could handle it. At the first gas station was only a startled woman who kept asking wonderingly, whether the car could drive at all in such a condition, and told Sid that the mechanic had a day off, and basically told him to go away. The next place produced a mechanic, who ignored Sid's assurance that the radio was not possible to take out by hand, and had to try it himself, pulling at it and joggling on it for a while; he eventually stated that without special tools it was impossible to remove it. He, however, had no such tools, but advised us to go elsewhere, where they might have them.

Then we found a Citroen dealership, momentarily devoid of customers. A salesman, probably grateful for any kind of action, even had appropriate picklocks, but even he was unsuccessful. He pulled and jerked with the appliance for a period of time, and then sadly concluded that it might be failing because those keys were made for Blaupunkt brand name radios, while ours was a Philips. We could keep the wires, and were sent to inquire at Hudl's, who sell car stereos.

	These two simple wires kept us amused (and with us a whole line of Weiden's car mechanics) for a whole Saturday morning.

We followed his directions, which besides a minimum of five traffic lights contained a handful of useful reference points (like "then there's this block of houses..."), toward the above mentioned Hudl. Note that we were still in this confusing town of Weiden. There was no Hudl, but we found a BMW dealership. Hoping they could have the correct set of tools, Sid ran out to negotiate. Inside, a person in heavy make-up sat at a desk with a microphone, patiently listened to the story about our radio, and why if we don't pull it out, they would demolish our car in Czech. Showing complete understanding, she turned on the microphone and called for a manager. A round, sweaty boss emerged, listened to the same story, and knowingly nodded his head, saying that we really cannot go like this to Czech. He instructed the woman to use her microphone to call for a mechanic. A large man in a dirty overall arrived, listened to the same story and said that although he lacked the proper tools, he would look at the apparatus -- and rushed to our car to use our wires to poke at our radio. He, too, toiled to no avail - and concluded the whole thing had to be broken. He made a vague suggestion that we may have the whole dashboard disassembled, but that would have to be done at Volkswagen and they were not open. We immediately dismissed the idea of dashboard removal, but had the wits to ask if he knew where this mysterious Hudl could be found. He was somewhat surprised, and pointed right across the street, don't you see? Signs there read "Red Zak". Tell me, would it not be obvious to you that Hudl owns a store with the sign Red Zak?

	A family get-together with photograph viewing

Unfortunately Hudl was not a car radio specialist, but a general electronics store - from washing machines through wires to chandeliers and flashlights. Asking for car stereos, Sid was dismissed that they merely sell them, but for installation he might elect to go to a car mechanic, that's not the kind of business they do there. We felt like characters of an ancient fairytale. We sat in our car in front of Hudl, and discussed complicated and logistically difficult ideas, how to solve our situation. All my suggestions, including enthusiastic involvement of my father, plus some car swapping, could not gain Sid's approval. He said that he looked at some samples of car stereos they were selling in the store, and they all looked the same, as far as mounting bracket goes. He pushed our wires into the holes again and -- the thing jumped out. I will never know why it was impossible until then, and why it took three mechanics to let my husband do it. Could it be that radios, too, have their days?

We were only a short distance from the border, and since we had no reason to hurry, we selected the tiniest roads. Our reward was Flossenbürg, an ancient ruin, and a discovery that a strange, local border crossing we found on a map was for real locals only. A customs man gazed at our Austrian plate like on a two-headed calf; but he could not be persuaded to let us pass. We had to turn around and take a dozen miles detour to a regular crossing.

It took only a short drive to Prague, where we visited my mom, Sid met my grandmother, and we both were to appreciate my mom's cuisine. Besides cooking, my mom likes to paint, and here I would like to invite you to visit her virtual gallery. Then we moved to Brno, just to appreciate (for a change) Sid's mom cooking. Rising at four a.m., we finally left for Vienna, and flew home.

Having both of us on the plane together was a lot more fun and a lot less embarrassing -- I refer to those situations when you wake up and find that you drooled all over your neighbor's shoulder. It's much better if that person happens to be your spouse. Getting lost on some foreign airport is, too, a lot less stressful, just like dealing with immigration officials. The one that fell on us was in a joking mood, and Sid answered correctly his question, "why do you people come here?" -- "To get stuck in traffic jams...!"
He then motioned towards long lines in the SFO immigration hall and said that all this was just a basic training in QUEUEING. Another, advanced training was available at Disneyland. Then we had to go to a special INS office, and although we were fresh permanent residents, we had to pass through not one, but two checkpoints!!! The second one featured Eddie Murphy, or rather his perfect clone masquerading for an INS employee. I must say that despite my thorough knowledge of English, I was glad for Sid's interpreting -- we were exposed to a barrage of jokes, fun (and definitely non-PC) comments, and of course official instructions; it was too much for me. On top of that, the PA system kept calling our name and urging us to appear at the baggage claim desk. My nervosity grew with every second.

	California's Welcome...

Sid said that Air France surely had sent our bags to Pchjong-jang or Congo, and I leaned toward a suspicion that they simply destroyed them. We were both wrong, the bags "only" did not manage to get transferred with us in Paris. OK, that may happen. They promised to deliver them one day later, on the same Air France flight, i.e. in 24 hours. I was eager to play it cool before Martina, who came to pick us up at the airport, how light we travel, only with a tiny backpack, but I was denied this little vanity. Martina, who waited for us quite a while, said instead of a greeting: "Don't tell me anything, they held you at the INS and lost your bags... right?" Well, she's more traveled than we are, it seems.

With all our stuff held back somewhere in French channels, we canceled our plans for a dinner out and waited for our bags to arrive. By nine o'clock p.m. we lost all our patience and started calling numbers we got at the airport just for a case like this. All we got was answering machines, with French language message. There was not a single office we could inquire, if our bags were still under control. To make this short -- they brought the bags at SIX IN THE MORNING. By the way -- during all this process, we never heard any "apology" or "sorry". I must say that my past trips brought me a variety of flying-related experiences (a direct flight from Prague to London, during which I switched through three different airline companies, and arrived with a ten hour delay, or my encounter with security agents in Rio, who let me through the gates only after my plane departed for takeoff). I could always rely on airline personnel who tried to fix any problem that occurred; with Air France, they simply don't care.

We now we're finally at home. California welcomed us with a strange fragrance. I noticed it already last year in the summer, and I wonder what it may be - flowers? grass? It smells like sweet spices - simply our home sweet home.

Copyright © 2001-2005 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.