For lack of a better title -- Prague:

I left Vienna in the early afternoon and took a train to Prague. I was enjoying myself, traveling alone -- albeit briefly -- as it afforded me the chance to look the part of the worldly intellectual I often pretend that I am. Boarding the train in Vienna, I happened to be sitting a couple of seats down from an American mother and son -- the boy in his early teens, judging from the sound of his annoyance -- who were arguing animatedly about what would happen if the boy was allowed to leave the train for a minute and it left without him. Bemused, I chuckled to myself, remembering those long-forgotten days when I, too, might have fussed with my parents over such a petty issue. Of course, now, being a worldly intellectual as mentioned previously, I looked out the window with an air of pensiveness before dramatically unfurling my newspaper and pondering the important issues of the day.

Later, as the train approached the Czech border, in a display of even more self-aggrandizing sophistication, I took out my Moleskine and began to write. I've been writing with increasing frequency (though not, perhaps, with similar improvements in quality) over the past few weeks and months -- because of, for, and as easily seen on this blog -- with the hope of honing my limited abilities into some semblance of literary respectability. Mostly, this shift has consisted of my having to reframe my ability to spin words out of nothingness -- when in regards to essays or oral presentations, I frequently refer to this as my propensity to "bullshit" -- as, instead, my "craft." And with that, my transformation into the aforementioned pompus, worldly, intellectual asshole is complete.

But back to the train. I was writing:

"The Czech Republic looms like a cloud (literally, a wall of clouds is hovering over what I imagine to be the border) on the horizon, and then you cross over and everything is darker, dirtier, and vaguely Soviet. The sky is dark with what is indeterminably pollution or fog, or just remnants of Chernobyl. Outside of the windows of the train, there are small shacks the likes of which I had first seen in Sweden, and then again in Germany and Austria -- built as family garden plots during the second world war and lovingly maintained ever since. Except here, as we pass, I notice smoke, and then someone squatting over a cooking fire outside, and I realize: people live there. Instead of brightly-colored gingerbread sheds in cheerful hobby gardens, these are corrugated metal shanties, perched on a barren plot of earth in the formerly Soviet nowhere.

The Czech Republic and Prague is much as I imagine Nevada and Las Vegas to be: all resources are sucked towards one tourist center, while the rest of the area languishes in (in Nevada's case) meth labs, spoilt wilderness, and irrelevance. We pass a playground that is either for dogs or children -- a makeshift collection of old tires, scrap wood, and pieces of metal. Everything is covered in rust and graffiti, the remnants and hallmarks of many years of disuse and disrepair."

...So was my introduction to the Czech Republic. And while our approach to Prague wasn't heralded by soaring hotels or faux culture on the horizon, my eventual arrival in the city did bring more urbanity and modernity than the train ride would suggest. As the train pulled into the station, I closed my Moleskine, foled my newspaper, put on my beret, and commenced smelling my own farts. With a look of haughty contempt, I bid adieu to the mother and son pair and left them with a particularly pungent aroma.

Off the train I exchanged some money and went out to hail a cab. My friend had told me to only take a Triple A Cab, as all of the others would rip me off. I walked outside the station and, noticing the large group of cabbies standing and talking together, tried to get a glimpse of the company logo on each respective cab while giving off an impression that says, "No, I am not looking for a cab as I idly circle your group with my enormous suitcase and look of general befuddlement." Eventually, I caved, and asked the nearest driver how much a ride would be to my friend's address. "600 Koruna," he says to me.

My friend had told me it should be about 300 (roughly $15), so in a voice that expressed as little confidence as I felt, I said, "Oh, really? Well my friend told me it should be about 300." The guy said nothing, and for a minute I worried that he was tired of dealing with know-it-all travelers, but a couple seconds later another driver came over and took me to his car. It was a Triple A. "300?" I asked. "300," he said.

A couple minutes later we were driving down the cobblestone streets of Prague, and we arrived at my friend's apartment. A quick call upstairs on my cell phone (no comment on the phone bill I was slapped with after three weeks of international calling) and a couple seconds later, and I was immediately happy to be in a place of lodging with more than one room, an actual couch, and a direct link to American television stations. It was nice.

That night my friend and I went out to a couple of bars and clubs, where I got a good sense of the Prague nightlife. While the streets seemed generally less active than in Copenhagen, there were still plenty of good places to go to on any given night. We made the rounds of a few bars, where I confirmed that Czech women are on (or even above) the level of Danish women, in terms of attractiveness. For whatever reason, I was feeling confident in those Praha bars. Despite my complete lack of success (and admittedly, lack of effort) with women in Copenhagen, whom I've determined to be cold, reserved, and unwelcoming of strangers, I was willing to give Prague a shot. In one bar themed vaguely after Harley Davidsons, my friend and I struck up a conversation with two Czech women that we had absolutely no business talking to. And while in Copenhagen I sometimes feel sheepish about not knowing enough about the city (or even being able to pronounce many of the names of places), in Prague all of that shame was gone, and I used the, "I'm only here for the weekend, what's cool here?" line with complete abandon. I can't say it really worked, but the girls didn't walk away, either, and we ended up talking to them for quite a while. I also can't say we really made any inroads whatsoever (especially with the prettier of the two -- I've found that in non-English-speaking countries, the prettiest girls are the ones least likely to understand a foreign language, which makes depressing, Darwinistic sense), but they did invite us to take a round of shots with them. After one flaming-shot-sucked-through-a-straw (a B-52, by another name) each, we walked away as the girls struck up conversation with some of their friends. On the way out, my friend realized we were probably expected to pay for the shots. I had thought they were just friends with the bartender. We decided to make a quick exit.

The next morning I woke up on the couch, and both of us feeling the effects of the flaming shot (made with absinthe, as we later discovered) and the completely unnecessary cocktails my friend had made upon our arrival back at the apartment, we decided to take it easy. We spent the day getting food at a cheap local place (more or less everything is a "cheap, local" place in Prague) and then watching Donnie Darko (I had never seen it, if you'll believe that), followed by some good old American football. A busy day.

On Monday, my friend had class, so I spent a good portion of the day wandering around Prague to take in some of the non-bar or club sights. Prague really is a nice city, and melds the historicism of most European cities with this coarseness that is both medieval and Soviet. Prague seems afflicted by a more aggressive brand of tourism than many more western cities (noted by the number of people looking to rip you off), but is at the same time really charming, with great views both of and from the Prague castle on top of the hill.

After a few hours of mingling amongst the hordes in Prague, I returned to the apartment to meet my friend after class. The next day, Tuesday, was to be a national holiday of some sort in the Czech Republic (not sure what it was for), so our expectations were high for a fun night. We started the night with my friend's roommate (an American expat working in Prague) and a couple of his coworkers at a Mexican restaurant. A Mexican restaurant? In Prague? Seriously, Mike? Yes, I know a Mexican restaurant isn't exactly authentic European fare, but after a couple of months going without, nothing sounded better to us than some margaritas and burritos. We grabbed a table, and over the course of about two hours we each had our fill of Mexican food items washed down with the best in pseudo-Mexican margaritas, tequila shots, and beer. It was a fun time.

Afterwards, we went to a club to meet up with some other Middlebury students who are studying in Prague, which was nice both because it was fun to see some friendly faces and because they had started the holiday early. People were in varying states of inebriation, but for some, few words come to mind other than, say, "shitshow." (A highly-provocative vocabulary is an essential part of my "craft," you see.) We spent a couple hours drinking and dancing before different groups wandered off to different clubs. We went to a couple different places, although it might just have been me going there, because at 4:00 I sent my friend the extremely-informative text message (again with the phone bill): "Are you still inside? I'm on the bench." One phone call later revealed that, no, he was not inside, or anywhere near me, and that no, he could not find his way back to his own apartment. So I started walking.

I walked for a couple of minutes, looking for things I might recognize, and eventually found a store I remembered from earlier. It was at an intersection, and I walked up and down each street in order, trying to remember which one was right. Process of elimination eventually completed, I managed to recognize some more landmarks and find my way back. All told, it was about a 45 minute affair. Upon reaching the apartment, I had the good fortune of discovering that someone had left the door to the building ajar, so I was able to walk right in, knock on my friend's door, and deliver myself back into familiar territory. That night I spent a couple more illuminating hours debating the differences between American and Czech politics with my friend's roommate and one of his Czech coworkers before going to sleep around 6:30 AM. I set an alarm to wake up about an hour later, a bit before I had scheduled for a cab to come pick me up and take me to the airport for my flight to Madrid, my next stop.

A while later I woke up to what I eventually realized was the sound of the cab honking outside. Panicked, I grabbed my things and threw them into my bag (including the still damp laundry I had been doing earlier), ran down the stairs with shoes untied, and hopped in the cab. It was off to the airport. On the way there, I amused myself with my own mis/good fortune and considered the fact that I finally had a somewhat exciting story to tell. My whole time abroad I had bemoaned the fact to my friends and family that, "Things are pretty good here, but I can't say I've got too many exciting stories to share..." "I'm sure in a couple of weeks," was always my eventual qualification.

So finally, I had a story that was somewhat exciting, and somewhat worth telling. At the time, I realized that of course I hadn't had any stories yet, because a story is inherently something that is outside of the norm. People don't tell stories about going to school or going grocery shopping (at least the kind that people listen to), because those stories are predictable and within the realm of human expectations. Stories, by definition, are something different, something unexpected, something that for a moment remove us from the rhythm and meter that is our daily lives. Satisfied with myself, I planned to be less predictable in the future (the irony is not lost on me) in the hope of enjoying myself more, and, in turn, having more to write home about.

Nursing my hangover with reheated pizza in the terminal of the Prague airport, I congratulated myself for my introspection before pulling my beret far down over my eyes and unleashing a particularly oppressive stench on all in the nearby area.