Praha, Pivo, Prosim

Well, it’s been a while since I blogged so this one is going to be peppered with randomness…

1. Usually, when using the metro, I stand. This isn’t because the seats are gross and dirty, this is because many times it’s just easier to get off the metro if you are in front of the door. That said, the other day I was seated just minding my own business. Then, to my left and at perfect eye level there stood a man. While this man was facing away from me, therein lies the heart of my story. Uh well, rather perhaps I should say therein lies the ’seat’ of my story.

The man in question was reading a book or a magazine (I can’t remember and it isn’t important) and perhaps he was unaware of an apparently chronic problem. You see, this man has an unfortunate condition; for the sake of definition, this is something that I’ll call ‘twitching ass syndrome.’ Due to lack of medical acumen, I could not nor cannot ascertain what said condition is actually labelled therefore and for the sake of this writing, it is TAS for short.

This guy’s ass was twitching at full speed. Both cheeks were fully engaged in said twitching activity. The alternate flexing and relaxing of the cheeks was a most interesting visual. Perhaps some could consider such movements to be a kind of silent ass symphony.

I’m not even quite sure what the expression ‘full throttle’ means but I’m going to use it when discussing the separate entity that is/was this dude’s twitching proclivity. This display of gluteal twitches went on for about 5 metro stops and that’s only because I got off the metro and went on my merry way.

All of this brings me to a series of queries…..Does this guy’s ass really twitch uncontrollably for hours at a time? Is this a real and diagnosed condition? What (if any) medical treatment can be sought in connection with such a chronic issue? Has the medical field carelessly disregarded conditions like this for the more ‘glammed up’ research of say, warts, necrotizing fasciitis and seasonal affective disorder?

One last note….before you go Googling this condition (and I already have), there is a serious lack of written material on the subject. Funny thing, I actually knew someone years ago who also had a twitching ass (yes really). However, his gluteal twitches are associated with Tourette’s. His Tourette’s manifested in strange and frequent coughing fits quickly followed by a body shake and ass twitch. Metro man was exhibiting no other obvious Tourette’s-like tics so who’s to say what was happening.

2. The closest grocery store to my flat is the Albert at Namesty Republiky. I mention this store often not because it’s absolutely amazing (it isn’t) but because I’m there too much. There are certainly better Albert branches in Prague; I just happen to live near one of the shitty ones. But, the close proximity and frequent sales are a plus so it’s all good by me.

A frequently appearing word here in Czech is AKCE. Directly translated, I’m not sure what it means but it refers to either a sale or a discount. AKCE is in big capital letters all over Albert. Albert’s sales are pretty killer.

Exhibit A…… it was one of the big AKCE promotions that Branik beer was so insanely cheap a few weeks ago. Refresher: cheap as in 3.90Kc/each. Add in an extra 3Kc for the bottle return and you have a beer for between 25 and 50 US cents. NICE!

Exhibit B……….There was also a big sale of Milka chocolate bars a few weeks ago. Czechs go batty over chocolate (and so do I), so these candy bars were snatched up in no time. Also, I’ll mention that the chocolate bars here are not the standard US size. I’m not sure how many grams each bar weighs but I’ll guess and say these babies might be 8-10 ounces. In other words, they are quite substantial. To provide some kind of reference as to how MUCH Czechs love their sweets, there was a per person/per bar limit on the Milka sale. One afternoon, I was behind a family (that although purchased separately) that bought about 60 freaking Milka bars. Um yeah, that’s a lot of chocolate.

Exhibit C………On my morning run to Albert today, I was in the bakery area and took advantage of the AKCE on some kind of breakfast pastry. I didn’t bother to read the name but I jumped at the 4.90Kc price. Anyway, I’m a sucker for beer/alcohol/wine on sale especially when it’s ‘foreign’ to my palate. All this sale stuff I buy could be complete shit but frankly, it’s ‘exotic’ to me so what the hell.

Hmmm, what’s that inside? Oh silly me, it’s chocolate. Ok, I’ll eat it. Poof! Magic! All gone!

I’m posting this pic because these little bastards are delicious. Not much more needs to be said when you have pecans in the mix. I don’t know what it’s called but I’m pretty sure there’s crack inside. *The pic looks oddly like a stock photo; it’s not. The white plate underneath just gives the illusion that this image is for an in-store demo.

Exhibit D………What else have I bought on sale, you ask? Well of course, I’ll tell you….. some locally produced wine! I’ve purchases cheap wine before, I’m not above doing so. I’m pretty far distances from being an oenophile, so I’m insulting nobody buy making poor choices in the vino department. This week the big AKCE was on wine labeled from Prague 4. F.Y.I., Prague 4 is pretty much in the heart of the city so it’s rather laughable that a bottled product is coming from somewhere in Nusle. While Tesco (and even Albert) have super SUPER cheap boxed wine for the homeless guys, this stuff was only about a half notch above that. I dropped a whopping 27Kc on a bottle of this stuff. Eh, it was fine but at least it was in a bottle.

Dramatic posing of said wine.

3. So as I type this it’s Saturday morning at 945. I’ve been up for two hours (boo!) and if I was a normal person, I’d go back to bed. Alas, this will not happen just yet. I should be in bed because I was out much later than usual last night. It’s always the nights that you don’t PLAN to stay out late that shit happens and you just do.

My friend Dita wanted to go for a beer. Cool by me; I’m always up for a good pivo. We went to Chapeau Rouge which is a bar/club here in Old Town/Prague 1. I’d heard of this place and a bunch of friends had been before, but last night I popped my Chapeau cherry. The vibe of the place is pretty cool. There’s tons of random stuff around and it’s kitschy and a bit funky. We sat at a table in the front and there is a hilarious display in the front window.

I’ll do my best at describing it…..Imagine if you will a ceramic Mary. Yeah, Mary as in, ‘I’m having a baby Joe, take my ass to Bethlehem,’ Mary. Mary is holding a tiny CD, she’s positioned in a bowl of plastic grapes which are flanked by wooden fish. Said bowl is underneath a small spinning disco ball. The bowl is situation on a turn table so yes, Mary is a turnin’. As she does her never-ending cycle of spins, it’s then you notice the plastic guns that surround the whole piece. The symbolism is quite obvious and I love it. Now of course to the Christian fundies this is all obviously very offensive and sacrelege. To the rest of us normal fucks, it’s just plain awesome.

So anyway, back to my story…. when we arrived at Chapeau, it was about 8:30. A fairly early evening out even for American standards. But, we arrived at a good time as we were able to commandeer a table and hold it all night. The place filled up relatively quickly but we had our seats. Most excellent.

Dita & I met some interesting folks during the night. First off I’ll say that Dita is Czech and since I don’t know shit about this language, we were speaking English all night. I’m not sure if it’s because people heard us speaking English but they found us more interesting and wanted to talk and practice their own English. One guy we met is a local camerman and he told us some interesting tales of his travels including one of his buddy who had a vital organ removed (no, not the normal hospital variety excision) when he was kidnapped in Peru. Yikes! This guy was nice enough and we got a free beer out of it. Free beer is my favorite kind.

Camerman dude left and then we met the interesting ones… Again, I think because they heard us speaking English is why they asked if they could roll a joint at our table. (Yes, people DO smoke in public here!) This was a trio consisting of 2 Czech guys and a Slovak girl. One of the Czech dudes (Ladislav!) lives in Ronkonkoma (Long Island) and has a Slovak stripper girlfriend. Yes, live the American dream, buddy! The other two were a couple oh and by the way, they were wearing latex. Yeah, latex. Chapeau Rouge isn’t a fetish bar. But this couple you could just TELL is really into some kinky shit. Anyway, George (latex man) was telling me how his latex is the most comfortable and breatheable (my word, not his) item of clothing he owns. That is, until the dancing and fucking happens (this time his words, not mine). So, this statement gave me the visual of him & his latex girlfriend going at it screaming dirty Czech words to each other while they bite and slap and kick their way out of sex harness/swing. Yikes.

All that said, this trio was pretty nice and friendly and the two guys spoke rather decent English. We split two joints with them and chatted away. (’Why yes, so nice of you to offer, I think I will have a toke!’) During this toke toke pass ritual, George then started telling me about some monthly ‘parties’ in Palmovka. (**Sidenote: I wrote about Palmovka in a blog a few months ago. This is an area of town that I referred to a Communist wasteland. Palmovka is NOT the pretty Prague. ) These ‘parties’ while I’m not exactly sure what goes on at these parties have regular ‘underground’ body modification sessions. George then went into detail about what kinds of body mods they do: piercings (um ok, fine sure yeah, whatever), burnings (WTF), scarrification (again WTF)…… I do not get the hardcore body mods at all. I’ve heard of scarrification but burnings? Who does that shit? But the best part? George gave me his e-mail so I can get on the ‘list’ to these parties. Check and done. Really.

4. Even though I live thousands of miles from ‘home,’ I still like to know what’s happening there. Occasionally, I’ll check the local paper and look at local party pics. I came across these while looking through pics from Taste of the Bluegrass.

Other than say The Joker, has anyone seen a grin like this before? It’s like infinity.

Seriously, WTF is up with her dress. A stupid ribbon/bow that goes right across the middle? I don’t know shit about fashion but I am positive this is shit. The guys from Project Runway would vomit cashmere over this.

And now she’s dancing. And what’s with the expression on the face of the woman in the middle. You just know the that the normal and cute friend regretted going out with those two that night. Too many bad photo ops!

5. It’s Saturday. It’s June. The sky is clear. I don’t have to work today. What am I going to do? I think it’s Brevnov Monastery this afternoon. And I’m bringing the tripod. Hotness.

And here’s a random image of my plush quarters here at Chez Andrea.

Note: this is where the magic is NOT happening

Yes, my desk is boring but this is where I spend most of my time. Imagine me sitting there now typing this.

Funny sidenote…. ok, the lowest window at the bottom behind the right door… there isn’t much visible. A while back I popped right up out of bed at 3am one night. I was wide awake. Of course I opened up my Mac and said hello the these here interwebs. Becuase my table/desk is situation just so, I can clearly see the windows of the flats across the street. In the aforementioned window I noticed a light on. And then I saw movement. I had a glimmer of hope that perhaps I could have been a bit of a voyeur that night and seen people having sex. Nope. Instead I saw something different. First, the normally closed curtains were wide open. There was a light on inside. At this point I’ll also mention that my street is one-way so it’s quite narrow and the buildings are closer than average. So, just inside the window and sitting in a chair was a man. A hot, sexy, strapping man, you ask? Ha, no. This was an old man. An old naked man. The chair was turned outward towards the street. This guy wasn’t doing anything sexual he was just sitting naked in his chair. Maybe he was smoking cigarettes or reading Newsweek. I don’t know how long he had been sitting there nor how long he continued to sit there but the curtains are now closed and the show is over.

Ok, here are some random links of places I’ve been so far… these are some I can remember. If I could recall all the bars I’ve hit in 5 weeks, the list would be much longer. Speaking of bars, all but one of the places I’ve been do not have cover charges. This surprises me. Although I’m not a ‘club’ person, I fully expect to pay a charge when entering the premises of a club. Nope. That is good. Popocafepetl is the only place that has charged at the door and that’s because of the band. However, since these places don’t charge at the door and they are more trendy and hip, the drinks are more expensive. But, that’s going to be true of any city. The bars/clubs in Old Town certainly get more Kc per beer simply because of location. Actually, last night I paid the most so far for a beer since I arrived. Sixty Kc for a beer is rather pricey here even though it translates to less than 3USD. If one is outside of Praha 1 (centrum), one can expect to pay probably 25-40ish for a drink.

Another issue of going out is how to find my way home. The streets (especially in Old Town where I now live) are often windy and change direction. My internal navigation system (despite my vagina) is usually pretty on target but when you are making twists and turns on curving streets, it’s hard to know which direction you are going. There’s also the issue of not even knowing street names and not knowing how to properly pronounce the ones that you do. Go ahead and look at a detailed map of Old Town and Praha 1. You’ll see what I mean. Also, because I’m a female living alone in a foreign country and don’t speak the language, I have to be mindful of how much I drink and know my way to get home. That said, I’d like to stay out later and have a few more drinks but the idea of wandering around aimlessly at night is stupid and irresponsible.

Most of these links have English menus on the main pages so just look for the Union Jack flag or a little icon that says EN.

Popocafepetl in Mala Strana–cool cellar atmosphere next to a wine bar. Mala Strana is on the other side of the Vltava and a really nice area of town. Pretty much at the bottom of the hill where Prague Castle is located.

La Casa Blu was a place we hit up last night. It’s a Latin-themed joint with plenty of tequila shooters, etc. Alas, I stuck to the beer because it’s the most affordable and delicious! There was actually a surprise Jagermeister promotion while we were there which was hilarious. Three girls in bright orange tops and black skirts and orange wigs came in holding portable yellow flashing lights….they were followed by a dude wearing a furry deer costume and a dude with a big black bag. Of course the wardrobe was all sponsored by Jager and they traveled around the bar for a good hour giving out shots and promotional Jager stuff. The guy in the deer costume never lost his motivation despite probably roasting in the stupid outfit. They had whistles and danced a lot all the while getting girls to take their tops off in exchange for free Jag shirts.

I can’t say much about Aloha Cocktail because we were only inside for about 15 minutes but I can say it’s yet another cellar type club that looked very cool. But, it was Friday night and busy so we went to the next destination.

Bohemia Bagel is popular with the expats as they have well, you guess it, BAGELS! It’s a bit much in so far as money goes but they serve American style breakfast items so sometimes it’s worth the extra 50Kc to get a taste of home. The Old Town location is about 2 blocks from my crib.

A neighborhood Middle Eastern restaurant, Dahab, is right around the corner. I hit up the deli area for lunch yesterday and had falafel which, by the way, if you haven’t had it, get it. It’s vegetarian and quite flavorful so you can feel a bit healthy despite it being fried. The nicer restaurant portion of Dahab looks super cool so I’ll have to check it out later.

Just a place in Zizkov that we went a bunch of times. It’s right around the corner from the Biscupcova flat and next to the tram stop so it was really convenient.

They say Palladium is the biggest shopping complex in Prague and they (not sure who THEY are) are probably right. Palladium certainly isn’t the biggest mall I’ve ever been in but it’s really nice and has some higher-end shops. I think I blogged about the ‘food court’ before so be sure and navigate to that part of the site. The all-you-can eat sushi place looks really cool with the rotating conveyor belts of food.

Potrafena Husa has a few locations but we went to the one in Andel a few nights ago. New and quite popular and the service staff is all men. The dude employees were not happy that night. I think they hated us. I had the traditional Bohemian potato soup that was served in a crispy bread bowl. Delicious. Potatoes? Check. Bread? Check. Sold.

The night we went to Potrafena Husa, we had quite an international group. Oh, and let me say that despite the reputation Czechs have for being surly and unfriendly…well, the ones I have met have been very nice and generous and accommodating. So, it was myself, the Brit boys, 2 Czechs (Antonin and Jarka), a Sicilian (Sandra) and a few other Americans. Jarka is a student from the Intermediate class and Antonin is her boyfriend or as he said, a ‘friend with benefits.’ They are super cool people so when we did our party at Amigos in Vinohrady last week, they wanted to meet up again. Jarka is a full time German and Russian teacher and takes English on the side. Impressive. Of course that’s on top of being a native Czech speaker. Sandra is from Sicily she and teaches German, Italian and English. Holy Christ. Just speaking one language makes one feel a bit useless.

Another super cool Czech I’ve met is Blanka– also from the Intermediate class. We were required to give freebie one-to-one lessons but since I didn’t do one with the bank employees, I had to give one to a student from a class. I met Blanka at a cajovna (tea house) in Vinohrady and our 1 hour session turned into three. She had promised to bring me some moonshine Slivovice (kind of a plum brandy/Schnapps) and she did not disappoint. Free booze is my favorite kind! Anyway, my opinion of Czechs? Cool peeps once you get them to chatting. They aren’t initially willing to talk much but once they do they are very nice and curious.

In other random news, I got up this morning to find the sky had NO clouds at all. This was a first in the 5 weeks I have been here. Apparently the winter months are quite dreary, bleak and gray so when the sun comes out, it’s a good thing. Being the nerd I am, I quickly got my shit together and headed out on foot to take some pictures. Again, I need to run some stuff through Photoshop, but when I do, I’ll upload and share with all of you! But, as I sit typing this at 11:30am, the clouds have moved in and to that I say BOOO!

 Lastly, I still need a job! But some interviews are scheduled so that gives me hope!