July 13th-18th: Prague
Arrived in Prague around 11pm at night after the Orangeways bus. Was met by Erik, the brother of a friend from Austin. Super cool, just like his sister. He lived in an awesome flate on the top floor of this building with his Czech girlfriend (who happened to be out of town this week). The first night he showed me around, gave me the rundown on how Prague works….i.e. you can have weed, cocaine, heroin in small amounts and they take it from you without going to jail. Prostitution is legal and they have a place called Big Sister where you can go for free as long as you consent to it being broadcast on the internet for all of the world to see. The other thing about Prague is all the little casinos on like every corner. They all look pretty worthless but there is an abundance of them for sure. Basically a pretty liberal place and to my liking. You can even buy weed in certain bars, but it’s a little under the table. He took me downtown the first night and gave me a quick tour and we grabbed a kebab. Gotta love the spinning meat. Took it easy that night. Erik has satellite, xbox, loads of movies, music, and nice big futon and a super cool cat. Of course there is no air conditioning and you have to shower sitting down, but I’m sort of used to that by now. He did invest in a big fan though so between open windows and a fan it was nicer than it had been in Berlin.
My sister was arriving in Prague the next morning and was flying home the morning after that so we had a day together. I met her at the train station and we put her stuff in the flat. She took a nap and we got up and went to a couch surfing meet up in a park. About 10 or so people showed up. Nice little picnic thing going on with a great view. The thing about Prague is there are all these great views from different hillside parks in the city and each one has a beer garden. We had some chips and a $1.50 liter of wine. Took a few pictures, met some locals as well as other travelers. Erik called and we went to meet up at a park across the city. Upon getting there we had to climb some ridiculous steps and at the top there was a giant metronome like 30 feet high. It replaced a previous giant statue of Michael Jackson. This is all on top of a stone wall that appearantly 3 people have died from falling off this year…drunks, kids, etc. After that we headed to the beer garden to meet up with some of Erik’s friends (another guy from Austin, a brit, a few others). $1 beers overlooking the city..pretty sweet. My sister and I walked down to get some food at the little tennis club place. Czech food, but wasn’t super great. A few more beers and Arika and I headed home. We got up super early and I walked her to the metro stop so she could head home. I went back to the house but couldn’t fall asleep, so when I finally did I slept until like 12:30. The entire afternoon I was a lazy bum and watched ESPN and caught up on the internet. What was I supposed to do but chill out for a day with all the amenities of home. I finally got off my ass and went to the supermarket down the street. Cheap ass 50cent beers, frozen pizzas, and some sandwhich stuff. Me and Erik ate pizza and basically chilled at the house that night in preparation for the weekend ahead.
Friday I did the downtown self guided city walking tour, hit up the castle, battled toursits, etc. Nice place, one of the more touristy that I’ve been to though. Regardless, a good walk/wonder through town with no map made for a full morning. Met up with Erik for lunch then back to the house for a much deserved nap (i.e. I was awake for 6 hours). That evening we met up with some friends at another beer garden and later he took me up to see some more awesome city views. When it snows in winter, they take the snowboards and just go down the hills of the city and parks and build little jumps. Like everywhere you go there is an awesome view with red rooftops and castles and parks. Vastly different than the communist urban landscape of Berlin.
Saturday the 17th (my 32nd birthday)
Erik, Nick (a British guy I got to talk lots of shit to) and I met up and headed to a lake/trail/mountain swimming hole thing with a few beers in tow. Weather wasn’t cooperating as well as it had been so it was a bit dreary and storms were looming. As such, it wasn’t very crowded. We took a walk up to the top of this big cliff and had a beer and spliff. Awesome views. Headed back down to the water and passed by the nudist beach with people riding in those giant inflatable ball things on the water again like the Flaming Lips do in concert. Nothing like naked guys in giant inflatable balls walking on the water. I’m estimating penis count is pushing 50 so far this trip. Vagina count is more like 10-12 L. We headed away from the naked guys and took a brief swim to cool off. Sure enough a fat Czech guy took off his swim trunks to change into something dry. We headed back home and got changed for the night ahead. Met up with 12-15 of Eriks friend as one of them was having a going away party which we combined into my birthday party. He was heading back to Portland that week and had reserved the rooftop of a bar in the park. Pretty sweet deal. We drank a bottle of champagne and some bootleg honey/plum liquor we had brought. Of course I was a bit drunk by then. We headed down to a club and it started to rain pretty good. There was that wet pavement smell when it first starts to rain. Got there and was a bit crowded downstairs place. I had another beer and danced a bit but ended up getting sleepy drunk and sort of passing out sitting up a few times. Just wasn’t a crazy, happy drunk that night….but at least I didn’t get puky drunk (I rarely do these days). We walked home in the rain, but stayed pretty dry by hugging the walls of the building. All in all a good birthday and nice group of people to spend it with.
Sunday, chilled out and slept in. A bit hungover. Erik took me to a traditional czech resturant for some goulosh and dumplings. Wasn’t into it at first due to the hangover, but after the beer we had with it I was starting to dig it. Of course once the hangover was completely gone, I spent the rest of the day I spent drooling over all the food I had seen there. We were planning on going to an electronic music thing a little ways out of town near/at this bone church (a church made of bones) but the weather wasn’t cooperating so instead I hit the Modern art museum which was like massive and 5 stories tall. All kinds of crazy stuff in there…one of the better modern art museums I’ve been to in recent time. Met back up with Eric and walked to another park with yet more awesome views and chilled on the wall above the river. I can’t describe all the cool little areas with views of the city…absolutely cool city in that regards. Headed back to meet up with Erik a few of his friends for some basketball (the worst game of PIG ever), more shit talking to Nick, then down for another Czech meal and beer. This time it was breaded chicken, pork, and veggies. We walked over and saw an old Jewish cemetery that wasn’t the touristy one in the middle of the town. It was right under the giant TV tower. Some artist had made a bunch of giant black babies and stuck them to the side of the TV tower which was pretty crazy. We went back out so he could finally show me the tourist bars and pub crawl areas which we had avoided all week. We had a few beers but by that point we were basically spent and not really up for too much partying. I had an early bus so we headed back around midnight. I took the liberty of transferring about 50 GB of movies and TV shows from Erik’s hard drive to my netbook before I went to bed….absolutely awesome.
Hit the bus stop in the morning and was trying to avoid getting more krona from the ATM. I didn’t have any food for the bus ride so tried to pay with euros but of course they give you kronas in change. I tried to get as close to exact as possible, but then gave up as I was running a little bit late for the bus. I tried again at the bus station but this British bitch blatently cut in front of me so I gave up in frustration. No food for the next 5 hours, but did get to watch another Vince Vaugn movie…the Breakup. Actually pretty decent.
All in all a great Prague experience (even without prostitutes and drugs!) and it was very much due to the hospitality of Erik and his friends.
