CHAPTER 2 - Getting There

I fingered through the pages of my forged passport again and again as I waited in the lobby. Here I was at the airport, with ticket in hand, and the only thing that could possibly stop me from making it to Prague was that little blue book before me. I needed a cigarette and a cup of coffee in order to calm down. The cappuccino did nothing as I leafed through it again.
"PASSPORT: United States of America
ALTERATION OR MUTILATION OF PASSPORT. This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way. Alteration may make it INVALID, and, if willful, may subject you to prosecution. Only authorized officials of the United States or foreign countries, in connection with official matters, may place stamps or make statements, notations, or additions in this passport."
The entry visa stamp on page twelve was the problem. The original was put there by Greek officials when I had first arrived in the country earlier that summer. But that stamp had also been altered. I knew because I had done it. If I got caught now... shit.
But what other option had there been? I had changed the stamp in September after having talked to my parents one Sunday. My father asked me how long I was allowed to stay in Greece before any legal problems would arise. I had no idea what he meant. He assured me that if I overstayed the time allotted by my tourist visa, I would no longer be considered a tourist. Rather, the Greek government would view me as an illegal immigrant and possibly force me to pay a fine upon departure. Since I was of Greek descent, I couldn’t be an illegal immigrant. I could only be a potential citizen who hadn’t completed the necessary paperwork. That would mean eventually receiving my eagerly sought after EU passport – but only after being forced to serve a full eighteen months in the military. I told my old man he had no idea what he was talking about. Besides, I was sure the visa was good for six months. I hung up and searched through the phonebook.
"United States Embassy in Athens. Department of Citizen Services. How may I help you?"
"Yes. Hello. I’m an American citizen visiting Greece and I’d like to know how long my tourist visa is good for."
"Three months, sir."
I looked at the entry visa stamp in my passport. 18-06-01 THESSALONIKI. "Yes... And what’s today’s date again please?"
"The twentieth of September." She paused. I paused. "Will that be all, sir?"
"Um... No. One more question please. What would happen, well, let’s just say, I happen to overstay those three months?"
"You shouldn’t."
"Yes..." I paused again. "But what would happen if I did? Completely by accident of course."
"Well, if that situation arose, you would probably have to pay a fine of some sorts. You may even be denied future re-entry to this country."
"Uh-huh. I see. Well, um, let’s just say again, that my parents are Greek and I, again, happen to overstay those three months?"
"In that case, you really shouldn’t do it..."
"Well, what could possibly..." I interrupted her as she prepared to interrupt me in return.
"Sir, trust me. Don’t do it... Will that be all?"
"I suppose. Thank you." I tried to hang up the phone but missed the receiver.
There were many possibilities. Maybe Passport Control wouldn’t notice that my stamp was over three months old. They could just stamp it again with an exit visa and let me leave for the Czech Republic without even a second glance. Then again, they might notice the date and could – God knows what. I could just say that I had traveled to Italy and back, never having actually stayed a full three months in Greece. The officials wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise seeing as they no longer checked or stamped during travel between EU countries. But my stamp was from Greek Passport Control, from a Greek international airport, and flying in from a non-EU country. All clearly over three months old. Military service? Fines? Possible legal problems? I did what any fine, upstanding American citizen would have done. I tried to cheat the system and didn’t look back. With red marker in hand, I had carefully changed the 18-06-01 THESSALONIKI stamp to 18-08-01 THESSALONIKI.
And so, I finished my cappuccino at the airport café and paid as the loudspeaker announced that the flight from Αθήνα (Athens) to Praha (Prague) was now boarding. I was attempting to leave the country nearly five months after I had first entered. There it was. A booth marked "Passport Control" with a Greek official sitting inside. Police officers everywhere. No passengers were waiting in line. I would be first. I stepped up with my ticket and passport clasped in wet palm.
"Passport. Ticket," he requested in English.
"Here you go. Looks like you’ve been working hard today, what with these long lines of passengers."
"Ah, you speak Greek? Sure friend," he replied sarcastically as he barely glimpsed at my passport. He promptly stamped the first empty page he found. "These endless lines of tourists are killing me!" he added as he looked up at me, smiled, and handed me back my passport. He wished me a safe flight, leaned back into his seat again, and took a sip from the coffee cup by his side. The plane was airborne twenty minutes later.

I landed at Ružinye International Airport in Prague on the seventh of November. A new country. A new language. A new life. I went outside, rolled a cigarette and started a conversation with the man next to me as I smoked it. It turned out he was Greek and was just visiting some Czech friends of his for the next few days. A few minutes later, two tall stunningly beautiful women interrupted us. They were his friends. The man introduced us and the girls suggested we all go for coffee and, afterwards, if I wanted, they would give me a lift to the center of town. I was powerless to resist.
We sat and talked in the airport café – mostly in English but sometimes in Greek. The one girl worked for a Greek clothing company so she knew a bit of the language. The other, her sister, only knew pidgin English and would throw in a comment or two whenever she managed to pry herself away from the make-up kit she had pulled out of her purse. When the girls weren’t listening, the Greek asked me what I thought of Czech women. I asked him if these two beauties were the norm. He laughed and assured me that I’d get whiplash just by walking down a busy street.
They treated me to the coffee and eventually dropped me off in the city center having wished me good luck. I then made my way to the hostel that I had stayed at earlier in the year and dropped off my luggage. Actually a word about my luggage would be in order. When I left America in May for God knows how long, all I had taken with me was a small duffel-bag filled with a pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, two pairs of underwear, three tee-shirts, a summer jacket, toothbrush, and comb. Socks? Who needed them with summer shoes? More underwear or shirts? Screw it. I’d just wash them when they got too dirty. What if I got cold? I did say I brought a jacket, didn’t I? When, though, I was preparing to come to Prague – and its harsh winter – I knew that I needed more, and warmer, clothing. Regardless, I still managed to arrive with only that one duffel-bag. It was now filled mostly with my dad’s clothing from the 70s. Clothes he didn’t want or wear anymore in the US so, he figured, why not let them rot away in a closet in his parents’ house in Greece? I exchanged my shorts and tee-shirts for his corduroy pants and polyester shirts, an extra jacket that I could wear on top of my own, and a few socks if they could fit. So I left that bag, all my worldly possessions, at the youth hostel and went outside to explore the city.
As I wandered the streets that afternoon, Praha was just as beautiful as I had remembered her to be. Sure she was a bit colder, but I had two jackets on, my dad’s and my own, and the buildings were so breathtaking as to take my mind off the weather completely. I strolled through Nové Město (the "New Town" Quarter) and stopped to enjoy the wide, gently sloping Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square), the bustling modern hub of the city lined with architecture ranging from the Baroque to Stalinist. On the top of the square stood Národní Muzeum (the National Museum). Like a jeweled crown, its golden façade glimmered in the sunlight. I then crossed Můstek, a popular meeting point at the other end of Václavské náměstí, and wandered through Staré Město (the "Old Town" Quarter) and Josefov (the "Jewish" Quarter), inadvertently getting lost in a maze of claustrophobic alleyways as I searched for Franz Kafka. I eventually ended up on Staroměstské náměstí (Old Town Square). It’s considered to be one of the most beautiful spots in Europe and, visiting it again, I could remember why. In the center of the vast cobblestone square, gracefully worn with age, stood a statue dedicated to Jan Hus, a Czech national hero. From there, all one could see were tall, well-preserved, colorful buildings covered in ornate sculpture and statuettes. Numerous church towers loomed in the distance as the intricately detailed Town Hall Clock on the other side of the square continued to tell onlookers the time, date, position of the stars, and current saint’s day – just as it had been doing for centuries. All I could do was sit down, awe-struck, and absorb it once again. Having taken my fill nearly half an hour later, I walked towards Karlův Most (the Charles Bridge) in all its majesty. On each side of the bridge, as it spanned from once side of the Vltava River to the other, stood gilded Gothic towers with their massive peaks. The actual bridge itself was lined with thirty or so individual life-size statues. Alone, they were nothing too spectacular. When viewed as a whole though – statues, towers, and all – Karlův Most was Beauty incarnate. Across the river lay Malá Strana (the "Little" Quarter). It was the section of the city that most revealed a Medieval upbringing as its endless narrow streets wound through the shadows cast upon them by Hradčany (Prague Castle) and the gothic St. Vitus Cathedral within. I bought a copy of the weekly English-language newspaper, The Prague Post, at a kiosk and sat down inside one of the many hidden pubs that, for centuries, had been staring uphill towards the massive castle walls.
I had written e-mails in Greece to one or two Prague language schools that I had found on the Internet. They all agreed to an interview after my arrival in Prague. All I had to do was call them. But why not look through the local classified too, I figured? Consider all of my options. And so I sat there in that pub, drinking beer and searching for anyone crazy enough to hire me. Then one school caught my eye. Whereas all the other schools had mundane names – Prague Learning Centre, Charles Language School, the British Academy – this one was beyond. ELVIS. I finished my beer, went to a public phone, and scheduled three interviews for the next day. Two were with what I figured might be the best paying and most respectable schools, and the last one would be with the King.
The next morning, I put on my Sunday best, faded white corduroys with short-sleeved blue polyester shirt and tan summer shoes with white athletic socks (not to mention my two jackets on top), and made my way to the first interview of the day. They asked me for a Curriculum Vitae. I told them I had none. They asked me for a certificate proving I was qualified to teach English. I told them I had none. They asked me about my shoulder-length hair. I told them I had plenty. They were a school specializing in teaching mostly business English to large corporations and they were willing to hire me if only I would eventually produce a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate, which I couldn’t because I didn’t have one, and, most importantly, clean up my image a bit. They were implying I cut my hair and shave off my goatee. My body immediately aligned itself with the door marked EXIT.
My next interview of the day was also with a business school. Later on, I found out that this wasn’t so surprising seeing as nearly all of the foreign language teachers in Prague did just that, teach corporate personnel. It paid the best. Anyway, this school didn’t tell me that the certification the previous school had asked for was necessary. They just told me it was recommended. In the end, they still agreed to hire me on the spot. This job, just like the previous one, entailed traveling throughout the city, throughout the day, to different office buildings. That meant a lot of commuting but, they assured me, I could work whatever days I wanted and as much as I wanted, as long as they had available classes. This school paid a little less than the one I had spoken to earlier in the day, but they at least offered to help me find accommodations. I told them I would keep in touch and went to see what the King had to say.
ELVIS was completely unlike the other schools. The office where my interview took place wasn’t in the center of Prague as the two earlier in the day had been. It was in the basement of some building in some neighborhood it took me forty-five minutes to find. The ELVIS office itself was nothing but two rooms and a closet that doubled as a smoking room and storage space. The larger of the two rooms had two desks, an outdated green-monitor computer, and two secretaries that hardly spoke a word of English. The other room was a smaller study room of sorts with bookshelves, dented copy machine, another computer, and dozens of papers tossed onto the floor. Everything in the office looked at lest ten years old.
As I entered, the secretaries seemed not only oblivious to the language I spoke, but to the fact that I had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon as well. They pointed me towards the study room and waved their hands in a "Please, wait here" fashion. Soon the school’s director, Kamilla (I would later find out that she was actually the director’s wife), appeared from virtually nowhere and offered me a cup of tea. She was in her early forties, of average height, and had brown hair that extended a bit below her slightly sunken cheeks. She also struggled with her grammar as she stumbled through each English sentence.
Kamilla told me about ELVIS Jazyková škola in her broken English. Unlike the other two schools I had been to, this one didn’t teach business English. Most of their classes consisted of 15-20 post high-school students who studied for fifteen hours per week in the morning, smaller classes with the same kind of students who studied for six hours per week at night, and the occasional one-to-one private lesson. All of these were held in the same city center building which meant no endless commuting back and forth throughout each day. As Kamilla spoke, I could only think of one thing. I found it odd that the director of an English language school hadn’t mastered the language herself. I also knew, from that fact alone, that I would take a job with them right then and there if only I was offered one. I didn’t care if they paid less. I didn’t care if they offered less working hours. It just seemed right. It seemed like me.
Then the questions started. She asked if I had a TEFL. I said no but I had graduated Cum Laude from university with an Honors Bachelor’s Degree in History and Minor in Philosophy. She seemed impressed and wanted to know if I had a Curriculum Vitae on me. I told her I had written one – I’ve never written one in my life – but had forgotten it in Greece. I would get a copy of it to her, along with my diploma, as soon as possible. She never saw either. She asked if I had any experience. I said sure. I told Priscilla I had taught English to illiterates and immigrants in Philadelphia for a year. I had actually only done it for three weeks as a volunteer at the local library and only to illiterates. I told her I had tutored other college students and even foreign students in a number of subjects. I've never tutored a day in my life. Hell, I never even knew a foreign student at college. And so, Kamilla said I had a job if I wanted it but, unfortunately, I had come too late seeing as a full-time morning class had just begun a week before. I told her I would take whatever was available and she gave me six hours worth of night classes that started in three days, promising to give me more hours when available.
I was then informed of all the details concerning employment at ELVIS Jazyková škola. The pay, which ended up being better than what any other school had offered me, was given out on the tenth of each month. I’d also get a small Christmas bonus and summer pay if I stayed on until June. All the necessary legal paperwork would be acquired by them and, then, I would have to take it personally to the appropriate Czech Republic government departments. She told me that the school building were I would be teaching was located in the Karlín section of the city, showed me on a map how to get there, and gave me some textbooks to use in class. Kamilla then asked me if I had a place to live. I said no and, after a hurried phone call, she informed me of a place with cheap rent in Modřany. I had no idea where Modřany was but said I would take it without even thinking twice. She gave me directions to my new home, told me I could move in the next day, and wished me luck as she stood up and subtly directed me to the door. Unsure of why she was in such a hurry but grateful for what she had just done, I followed her body language and stood up as well. I said thank you and goodbye to Priscilla and the two secretaries as I put on my jackets and left the office. All three of them scurried towards the closet with cigarette and lighter in fumbling hand while the door closed behind me.