Prague

Monday, May 28th

The mood is tense in Kathi’s sister’s automobile. The day started off in Krumbach at her grandmother’s house. Now we were driving back to Munich and later that evening, I would be in Prague.

We went to Krumbach to visit the grandmother one last time before I headed back Stateside. Her grandmother is a pretty cool lady and a great cook. Add to that the fact that her house is in a tiny village and it’s a very peaceful place to be. The one obstacle to that peace though, is the tension that came when Darren invited me to Prague. Darren, my best buddy in Germany, left inlingua and took a real job which sometimes requires travel. He supervised his company website’s transition from German to English and was doing the same thing for the company’s Czech and Polish versions. This would require a visit to Prague with transportation and hotel paid for by the company. He asked if I wanted to come.

Kathi’s sister was less keen on the idea because I would be leaving her within a matter of days and she thought it was unfair that I’d be gallivanting around the Czech Republic without her for a few days. I, however, recognized a fantastic opportunity when I saw one and was chomping at the bit to go. To make a long story short: I decided to go and now I was feeling the chilly blowback from that decision. Fuck it though, I’d live with the consequences.

Darren picked me up and we began the trip. We almost got started off on the wrong foot but Mary rescued us. Mary was what Darren called the GPS navigation system and that name stuck. I was the previous navigator and decided we should drive through Nürnberg rather than Regensburg and that was a bad decision. We programmed Mary and she wasted no time in telling us to turn the fuck around. Nice.

Most of the rest of the drive was uneventful. We saw a kick-ass billboard with two lesbians about to kiss almost as soon as we passed the Czech border. It was for a bottle of vodka or something. Liquor and lesbians: the Czechs have their finger on the pulse of male agenda.

The smooth ride changed when we got into Prague though. There was road construction all over the place and Mary abandoned us. Our final destination wasn’t in her database so we programmed her for Prague and we were IN Prague so she was all out of ideas. To top it off, the only map we had was a very small map in the back of Darren’s Prague guide. Still though, it was enough to help me point us in the right direction. Problem was: I’d find a route that would put us on the right track and then we’d run into construction and detours that took us off the map. We’d start all over again, run into the same problem and start all over again. This happened quite a few times before we finally got to Wenceslas Square where out hotel was but then a new problem arose: our hotel was across the way in a pedestrian zone and the hotel’s parking garage was nowhere in sight. I had to run in and get a dude to drive with us to the garage and immediately he starts telling us where the strip clubs and shit like that were. I was happy enough that he didn’t think we were gay.

We went up to our room which was really cool and then went down into the city for our first night of drinking. This was actually a bit of a first for me. The first time I was in Europe, I did all my traveling solo. This time, when I went somewhere, I went with Kathi’s sister, which was cool in its own way but she’s not exactly a raucous drinking partner. This would be the first time I was in a cool city with a buddy and would be able to really hit the town and get wasted. The closest I’d been before was when Rick and Bryan were there for the World Cup but even then, we were kind of on a schedule, arriving in towns, making our way to the games and then leaving town for Munich again. This time, I was in a sweet city with a good buddy and I had no schedule and no plan to follow and drinking was definitely on the agenda.

We planned a couple of quick drinks as Darren actually had to work the next morning. Things didn’t work out that way. First, we wandered around looking for a suitable pub setting before finally settling down in the city’s main square for drinks. First round was beers and Jäger. Second round was beers and Jäger. Third round was beers and some other liquor and the rest of the time we just stuck to beer. We didn’t finish until early in the morning.

Tuesday, May 29th

The next morning came and Darren was off to work. I felt bad for the sucker because we drank our asses off and he only got a couple of hours sleep. He left and I fell back asleep and stayed asleep into the afternoon. I didn’t feel terribly bad about that because I had already been to Prague and done most of the sight-seeing stuff. When I did finally wake up, I felt like a bag of ass, chundered more than a few times and barely made it out of the hotel. I felt McDonald’s would be good hangover food and it took me forever to eat because I was so f’d up. Nevertheless, I hit the city and started feeling better once I was up and moving. I crossed the river and headed up to the castle and a monastery a little further on. There were great panorama views of the city there so I enjoyed that before going back down and crossing over the Charles Bridge into the old city. I checked some souvenir shops and also scouted for some bars for tonight’s round of drinking.

I met back up with Darren after he got out of work and we waited for his Polish counterpart. We started with beers at the hotel and then met with the Polish dude and headed off in search of better drinking environ. I found a place during my wanderings and we headed there and it was pretty cool. It seemed to be a place for English-speaking ex-pats. They had the All Blacks rugby game on and cheap, cheap beers. The polish dude picked up the tab for that round and it came out to 100 Czech Crowns (which sounds like a lot but it’s actually only three Euros or so. For three beers).

Unfortunately for us, they didn’t serve food so we looked for another pub with food and, believe it or not, we ended up at a T.G.I. Fridays. The food was good but more than that, the bartender was hot. We had a table but after the food was gone, we moved over to the bar because the view was better but, sadly, there was a shift change or something and a dude bartender was there the rest of the time. Luckily, all was not lost as I noticed that they stocked Absinthe. I bought a round of beers and Absinthe shots and set the bar on fire without noticing it (the bartender did and fixed it up). I noticed Darren grimacing and flinching whenever he took a sip and that made me laugh a great deal. A bit of a back story:

We met up at an Irish pub back in Munich one time and set about trying to kill each other with liquor. We had an obscene amount of beer with multiple shots spaced out in between. I felt Darren was trying to punish me for something so I made up my mind to show him was true punishment was by ordering a Three Wiseman. When the shots came, I closed my eyes and steeled myself for the death I was about to drink. I sucked it down and looked over to see how Darren was reacting to it and he took the damn thing like a champ. It almost seemed as if he enjoyed it. I was defeated.

Back in Prague, it was good to see that there was something that went down like battery acid for him so I had my revenge some months later. We went back to the hotel and continued drinking at the hotel bar before retiring for the night.

Wednesday, May 30th

Darren woke up at some ridiculous hour and couldn’t sleep anymore. He figured he’d take the opportunity to wander around Prague for a while before he went to work. He asked if I wanted to come and I was going to tell him to pound sand before I reconsidered. We went out at about 5am and checked things out. My hunch was right: I wanted to hit the city before the tourist flood started. We got to see all the main sights and there were zero people there to screw it all up. We even made it to the Charles Bridge before all the vendors did so we got some great pics and wandered around a little. When it was time for Darren to get back, we went to the hotel where he got ready for work while I went back to sleep.

When I woke up again, I went to see some of the things that are a bit off the beaten path and then made it to the Jewish quarter. There weren’t to be any more drinking adventures as we were driving back to Munich in the evening. We left the hotel and made our way back to the garage where the parking attendant had tons of attitude for us but we left without incident. We left Prague, greeting the lesbian billboard and then made the way back to Munich.

So sehen Sieger aus, shah la-la-la-la!*

Well then, if there's anything that could wake me up and get me writing on this blog again, it's the US kicking ass on mexico.

Again.

There just cannot be anymore excuses. This was an important tournament with the winner of Sunday's game going on to play the other regional champions in the Confederations Cup in 2009. The US was missing a couple of players due to yellow card accumulation (Hejduk) and red card suspension (Bradley) but still managed to field a deep and talented team. Mexico was fielding their top team and again they lost. They can whine about bad breaks and not capitalizing on their opportunities and then they can watch the tape and see Brian Ching hitting the post despite having an empty goal to shoot at. They'll also notice Beasley hitting the crossbar despite having an empty goal to shoot at. They'll also notice Clint Dempsey failing to capitalize on TWO great scoring chances. And then they'll be happy that they only lost 2-1 and not 3-1 or 4-1. Uck-fay exico-may.

Note: My drawing of the US flag eating the mexican flag kicks fucking ass. Respect it.

Note #2: Yeah, I know that mexico's flag has inexplicably turned blue instead of green. The original file had the green but every time I import it, it turns blue and I can't fix it. But then again, piss on mexico. I don't give enough of a shit about them to make their flag the right colors anyway....

Edit: ...but Bryan does. He's fixed the image.

*This is what winners look like, shah la-la-la-la

I'm back, shitheads!

So yeah, I've realized I've totally been neglecting this site and that sucks. However, there are some mitigating circumstances which have been keeping me busy, namely travel and the fact that I'm moving back home in about a week. That's right... coming home to Tucson where the temperatures are probably 1000 degrees now. It's time though.

Having said that, there are a couple of things to expect for this site in the near future. The first thing is a trip report for my recent visit to Prague. Second, another short pause while I get my internet shit sorted out in the US. Last, a return to the funny. I was digging through my archives searching for something a while back and realized that I used to consistently find funny shit to put on here and also realized that I should be doing more of that again. So, in that spirit, here's a video of some dudes playing pranks on kids. The audio is SUPREMELY annoying, but the video of kids trying to kick a heavy-ass soccer ball is awesome. Click here.