My visit to the only UCG member in the Czech Republic was the inspiration for this post.

How would you like to be the only person of your faith in an entire country? That’s what Irene Vylupek experiences as the only UCG member in the entire country of the Czech Republic. Irene’s husband Josef was also a UCG member, but he died in December 2004, leaving her as the only UCG member in the entire country. She lives in "Ceske Budejovice" in the southern part of the country (called "Budweis" in German). She keeps the spring festival and the Feast of Tabernacles in Schluchsee with us, and she receives mp3 sermons CDs in English from Cincinnati and German mp3 CDs from us in Bonn. I am able to visit her in Budweis twice a year.

The first 2 visits Monica and I made with our car several years ago, and then we went by train once to see Irene. Since then I went on my own a couple of times by train. There are two possibilities for the trip by train. One is to go from Bonn to Nürnberg, and from there to Pilzen in the Czech Republic, and then on to Budweis. The other is to go from Bonn to Linz in Austria and then north to Budweis. Both trips take all day (10+ hours), but the trip via Linz is more reliable, since the connecting times are better (I missed a connection in Pilzen once and was a couple hours late arriving in Budweis).

Alas, the no-frills airline "Germanwings" comes to the rescue! One of "Germanwings’" main hubs is at the Cologne-Bonn airport, only a 25 minute drive from our apartment. "Germanwings" started flying 4 years ago and is one of the few European no-frills airlines likely to survive the ongoing route and price competition in Europe. Among their many European routes, they fly from Cologne-Bonn to Prague. When I visit Irene I now fly late morning from Cologne-Bonn to Prague and then catch a train to Budweis. The Prague central station is quite an impressive building, including the old main entrance with its huge cathedral ceiling (in the picture on the right), dating back to the days of Kaiser Franz Josef . According to my train ticket, the distance from Prague to Budweis is 169 kilometres (about 105 miles). The trip by train takes 2 hours 37 minutes. I travel about the same distance in Germany from the Siegburg-Bonn station to the Frankfurt airport in 39 minutes. I guess the line from Prague to Budweis could use some work. 🙂

Irene met me on Monday evening when my train arrived at the Budweis train station at 6:00 p.m. Her husband Josef had sold their car some years ago, so when she needs transportation by car either her son Charlie (who lives in Prague) or a local taxi driver will chauffeur her. She met me with the taxi driver, and from the Budweis station we went to my hotel for my 2 night stay in Budweis. On Tuesday we spent nearly the entire day at her apartment, talking about her husband Josef, our experiences over the years in God’s church and the future. Irene plans to be in Schluchsee again this year for the Feast.

There was no chance for me to do any scuba diving, but that didn’t matter. Irene and I had dinner on Tuesday evening at the Gomez Hotel in Budweis. A tourist group from Switzerland in an adjoining room wanted to hear Bohemian folk music, so we were entertained "indirectly" during dinner by a five man band playing polka music and tunes like "Roll out the barrel". Which brings me to the subject of this post (since Irene would not let me take her picture). Budweis in the Czech Republic is the home of the real "Budweiser" beer, which is named after the town where it is brewed: Budweis. The brewery is now owned by the state, and in numerous court challenges over the years the brewery has maintained its right to be the sole distributor in Europe of the trademark beer name "Budweiser". That doesn’t sit too well with an upstart brewery in the new world from my home town of St. Louis, Missouri. After tasting both Budweiser beers, I would have to say that the original beats the upstart. The price also helps: a half liter of original Budweiser on tap in Budweis costs around US$ 1, which is hard to beat, legally or otherwise. 🙂