I was going to wait until Ben saved the pictures from his camera to a disc for me, but this post is overdue, so I'll just post now and alert everyone when those pictures are on Flickr. There are on few on Flickr now that I took with my own camera, in the set titled "prague," but most of them aren't so spectacular.

I had a great time in the Czech Republic, aside from a few setbacks. It was my first time abroad, and I was long overdue for a vacation. I've decided to make a separate post for each day I was there. The subsequent ones will be in my journal, and I'll try to make one each day from here on. I don't know how interesing any of this will be for most of you, but it's pretty significant in the past year of my life, so I feel like it warrants posting.

The Flight:

I flew on Austrian Airlines to my connecting flight in Vienna, and it was a very endurable eight hours, much nicer than flying within the states. The flight attendants were very attentive, the food was much better than anything I've had on a domestic flight, and the free booze allowed me to doze for a little bit. I had poached salmon with snap peas and mashed potatoes, chocolate mousse for dessert, and some red wine to wash it down. After my meal, I had a scotch and soda night cap and swallowed a melatonin pill before turning my light out. Prior to this flight, I had never been able to sleep at all on a plane, and even with my sleeping aids, I probably only got an hour of light sleep, if that. After just 4 hours of attempted sleep, it was already time for breakfast, and just another 2 hours before we'd arrive in Vienna. In Vienna, I waited about another hour before boarding my flight to Prague, which lasted only another 45 minutes, I think, putting me in Prague at about 11am (5am EST).

Praha, day 1

After getting off the plane, I probably waited in line about 20 minutes to have my passport stamped before finding an ATM, buying a transportation pass and taking a bus into the city. The ride into the city reminded me a little bit of driving through parts of Texas in the spring, lots of green hills and wild flowers. And I saw something I'll probably never see again, a "Kentucky Fried Chicken" operating out of a little shack, the same sort of place you'd go to buy a sno-cone or a BBQ chipped beef sandwich - I really wish I had been quicker with my camera. This wasn't KFC, of course, but Czechs do love KFC, and McDonald's. In fact, they seem to love anything fatty and greasy, and they drink beer with almost every meal. Yet few of them are remarkably overweight, and I'd say very few of those overweight people are younger than 45. I don't think I saw anyone morbidly obese the whole time I was there, and if I did, the person was probably a tourist. Anyway, I took the bus to it's last stop where I got on the Metro, and as soon as the bus drove away, I realized I no longer had the small suitcase with all of my socks and underwear. I'm not sure if I left it on the bus or if I just absent-mindedly forgot to take it on the bus with me. Guess how I spent most of my first day in Prague.

The Metro ride to the stop nearest the hostel I stayed was only about 10 minutes I guess, and from there, it was just a short walk to the hostel. The website said about 300 meters from the Metro, then right onto a short street and another right at the bottom of the hill, and I'd see the hostel on the left, just a few steps away. Well, at the point I was supposed to take a right, there are two streets converging at that point, and in my exhaustion, I didn't even notice. So I turned down the wrong street and thought, "Short street, my ass! I don't even see the bottom of the hill!" So after reaching the bottom of that hill, I knew that either the directions on the website were horribly wrong or I had taken a wrong turn. After backtracking up the hill, I saw the hostel's street, turned right and walked probably another 3 blocks before I arrived at the hostel. I checked in with no problems and was delighted to discover that only one other person was sharing my 5-bed dorm room with me, a shy Scottish guy who'd be leaving the next morning.

I really wanted to shower, but it was already about 2pm, so I decided to find a quick bite to eat and shop for budget socks and underwear before the stores closed. I also forget to bring a jacket, so I'd need a cheap jacket too. After wandering around the Zizkov district where I was staying for about an hour and not seeing many menus with English or being otherwise intimidated, I settled on cheap Chinese food. Afterward, I walked about 20 minutes until I reached a big strip mall in Old Town, easily the tackiest part of the city. I walked in and out of stores for hours, and it must have been 8pm by the time I had all of the clothes I needed. I found some bargain socks for about a dollar a pair at a general cheap crap shop, and some moderately priced underwear at good ol' H&M. The best jacket I could find is a pseudo military thing that I bought from some store with "New York" in its name. You just can't get away from America.

After getting back to the hostel and having a much needed shower, I got dressed and headed straight to the bar in the basement. I was greeted by one of the bartenders named Chris, a jovial Australian guy, and sat down with my beer to mingle with the other travelers there, most of them much younger than me and pretty annoying. However, it was refreshing to note that the most obnoxious jackass of the bunch was Canadian, not American. After drinking for a couple of hours and talking about nothing very interesting, I should have just gotten a bite to eat and turned in for the night. But instead, I decided to go out with a few of these people to some basement bar or club that we never found, if it even exists. The American guy leading the way probably wasn't more than 20 years old, and he talked about this place like it was a big secret that he was privileged to know about. "So what's the address of this place? Does it have a name?" I asked. "I don't know," he replied, "but I know the general area. We've just gotta look for a place that's underground." What fun! We ended up just going to a random bar to have one beer each and then all waited for the tram back to Zizkov, except for the leader of the pack, and the Canadian I believe, who were both determined to find their little secret, to no avail I'm sure.

i probably will close the window and forget this whole thing when i'm done, but it feels so good to type about it as i think.

tonight i consummated my relationship with the fuselage, posting foolishly for and with people that don't care and might be idiots. i wonder if my little brother will read my posts, that would be something. he'd be embarrassed, i bet. he doesn't even know about killoggs.

speaking of family and killoggs, i spoke with my mother today. in the hours i spent with her in may in the hospital, while we watched my brother recover from kidney surgery, i lent her my copy of gene wolfe's "the fifth head of cerberus", and i couldn't be happier that i did so. it was way fucking better than watching her knit.

i guess its important to say that any book i ever really loved i borrowed from my mother (excepting "the book of the new sun", gene wolfe, given to me by a good friend on my birthday. mom will get that next, if josh ever finishes it). she has such an impressive collection of fantasy and sci-fi and ficton and mystery, anything she likes, i guess, often two books deep in the shelf (which can be so frustrating!), such a resource for a young person.

so, as i said, today we talked about it (cerberus), and our conversation was full of her trademark pauses and silences. it was a book that made you think long and full after the reading, she said. and i replied that that is what i enjoyed about the author. she noticed things about the book that i hadn't - genuine horrors of the colony glazed by wolfe's casual narrator. you have to read it again, i told her, i need to read it again!, essays have been written about this book!, and she had read up on it. she knew everything. i love my mother so much sometimes. she is really my great librarian.

in twelve hours i'll be at school again. i can barely be tired. i hope all of this takes me where i imagine myself. i kindof want to be someone else's librarian.

Yesterday at Chuck's brunch, some dude who showed up the party rather late --long after the rest of the beer was already gone -- joined the rest of us on the patio drinking a Corona. I don't know the guy though he knew most of the other folks there and works at Crooked Beat. Anyway, earlier in the conversation when someone mentioned my Clap Your Hands Say Yeah t-shirt I overheard him saying something snarky about the band. Something about an interview he'd read and lead singer Alec Ounsworth soundling like David Byrne blah blah blah. I didn't hear the gist of what he said but I could tell by his tone that it was typical record store snobspeak. I'm quite fluent in record store snobspeak so I know it when I hear it even when I can't hear what's being said.

So anyway, Crooked Beat dude moves to a more comfortable chair he sits down with his (lime-less) Corona and makes the following statement:

Real men don't need fruit in their beer.

To which Peter and I both responded (I mean this couldn't have been scripted any better):

Real men don't drink Corona.

Then he tried to lamely come back with something like:

Well at least I have a beer.

No seriously, his comeback really was something like that. I suppose I could have come back with something else but didn't really care that much. Besides, I think the insult in stereo from Peter and myself was effective enough.

The moral of the story is, talk about Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and fuuuuuurious anger.

Well, probably not but it sure did make it that much more satisfying in this instance.

Sweet! Dirtfarm's got a plug on the Seattle Stranger's blog...