Six Dollar Pizza Debate (Abridged)

It should go without saying that my Czech is considerably worse than Miro’s English, but Miro has a trick when it comes to speaking my language which I cannot compete with. For every comment he finds hard to understand, he decides that there’s an eighty per-cent chance that it was probably a joke anyway, and so laughs uproariously.
This makes conversation with him a little unusual to say in the least.
“Six dollars is a pretty good deal for all you can eat pizza and a couple of movies.” I say. (This, of course, is the sort of conversation frequently overheard at hostels, involving basic economics, junk food and entertainment, but not necessarily in that order).
Miro shakes his head.
“One dollar.” He says.
This seems unreasonable. I say so. Miro laughs uproariously.
I met Miro on the train from Darwin. We ended up at the same hostel in Alice Springs and – having set off on separate trips around the same locations – ended up again on the same train to Adelaide. Right now, we are in the same hostel, and the offer of the day is six dollars for as much pizza as you can eat and a couple of DVDs in the television room.
“Six dollars isn’t bad.” I say again, “It’s about two-fifty in British money.”
I am not sure why is should make this particular comparison, as I’m suspecting Miro is not particularly familiar with the British exchange rate.
“In Darwin, it was one dollar for a meal.”
I blink. Did I miss that?
“For backpackers it should be cheaper!” he insists – he grins as he says all of this. He’s probably the happiest guy I’ve ever met. Even when discussing cheap eats and perpetuating the strange notion that being a backpacker is a privileged position at whom everyone should throw discount vouchers and bargains. Something I – while picking up and using all the discount vouchers and bargains that get thrown, I admit – am a little skeptical about, but there you go.
My look of confusion obviously speaks more than any dialogue.
“At the Vic.” He says, “The Vic Hotel? There were vouchers. One dollar for a meal.”
Oh, that’s right. I do remember now.
“Yes,” I say, “But the Vic was a cattle market. It was a stunt to draw a crowd.”
“Yes, but it was one dollar!”
“Yes…”
“One dollar, brilliant.”
“I see that, but…”
“Six dollars, crap.”
Brilliant and crap, it should be clarified, are the two infallible poles of universal criticism which Miro learnt from an Irishman in Perth.
The conversation continues along these lines for a while and gets pretty much no-where. When the push comes to the shove, I pay my six dollars and Miro heads off into town to find something cheaper.
The pizzas are good, and certainly worth the minimal expense. The films are pretty good too. I tell Miro this when he gets back.
He laughs and laughs and laughs.