As I’ve said it before, “life is never dull living in Europe” and last Friday sure proved that statement. We were killing some time that afternoon before we were heading out to Melnik for a friends birthday party. So Sara, Chelsa and our friend Jason decided to go to this little flea market type shop not too far from our house. Jason and I were looking at some clothes up ahead of the rest of the girls when suddenly we hear Sara yelling our names really loud. I guess Chelsa had tried on a jacket and walked two shops down to show Sara. You have to realize that these shops are super small and are all attached so two shops down is like 10ft. The next thing Chelsa feels is a lady hitting her on the back. So Chelsa walks back and proceeds to say she’s sorry in Czech and she’s not trying to steal. That’s when Sara realizes what happens and we are called in to the picture.
You should know that the lady only speaks Czech so the whole communication barrier is a problem. I have no idea what she is saying and only understand a couple of numbers and “Policie”. Luckily Sara knows a bit of Czech and can figure out kind of what she is saying. The just of the conversation is that she want’s 500kcs which is only about $25. No problem, we’ll pay you that but then we want the jacket. Ah nope, that wasn’t going to work for her, she just wanted the money as a bribe or something for not calling the police. So Jason then gets on the phone and calls Billy. He is the head of Athletes in Action over here and is fluent in Czech. Meanwhile Chelsa is on the phone with Micheal, our agent and native Czech, trying to figure out what to do. They both suggest that we just leave. Well that is easier said then done. as the shops are packed tighly together with only about a 6ft wide walkway and a couple of exits to go to. So I’m in the lead and as soon as I start to go all the other shop keepers start swarming in front of me. Hum…I’m seriously thinking in my head that I’m just going to have to put my arms up and start plowing through. Well that didn’t have to happen because as I look back the lady has a death grip on Sara and wouldn’t let her get anywhere. It was quite a bit of yelling and commotion of course and I guess the lady had already called the police hence the fact that she did not want us going anywhere.
The police eventually get there and of course they don’t speak English. Luckily we had Billy who was on the cell phone to explain the situation to one of the officers. We get back on the phone and Billy says that we are to pay him 1000kcs. Okay no problem, we can do that and then get out of there. One problem...you have to have you passport on you at all times and since we were just going out for a walk/browsing only Sara had a copy of her’s. I had my driver’s license on me, so Sara and I were allowed to run back to our apartment and get both Jason’s and Chelsa’s passport.
What a mess! So by the time we got back to market, Jason and Chelsa were standing by the police car and had everything pretty much sorted out. At first I thought that the money they were going to pay was a bribe to the police but in reality it wasn’t. According to Billy we could have gone down to the police station and figured everything out or pay the fine…for what we’re not sure cause Chelsa is innocent and never stole the jacket…and just have things taken care of right there.
Needless to say we will be sticking to large shopping malls from now on.
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