Czech me out! (the Praga Blogga)

I honestly do not know where or how to begin this one. It’s pretty hard to begin after you’ve already told the end. There are also about a million things to say and I can’t possibly write them all. Some are completely indescribable. Prague was the most eye opening, existential trip of my life. Okay, I know that sounds really dramatic but I am being serious! The fact that I went by myself and had only myself to rely on was a significant contributing factor. True, I stayed with Beth whom I’ve known for…what, 18 years? But traveling and being a traveler alone is a very different experience than going somewhere with friends. With people you know, you have this comfort factor and you tend to do things you are habituated to and are comfortable with. Being alone, I found myself looking at every decision as a new story to tell. I had nothing to lose! And when I’ve got nothing to lose I don’t hold back and not holding back has shown me how life should really be lived. Holding back is saying “No” and being afraid and clouding the picture with thoughts. Thinking too much creates cages and shackles, rules, restrictions and ropes that bind us and blind us to what’s there for our finding. Self-consciousness and reservations ruin adventures and the only “No” I’m going to listen to from now on is the one that comes from my gut.

So you want to know what kind of epic adventures can create such a change in a person? To be honest, my trip to Prague was probably not as epic as you might be expecting after an intro like that. I didn’t win any money. I didn’t save any lives. I didn’t fall in love. I didn’t get kidnapped and sold into the human trafficking business by the Russian Mafia only to Mcgiver myself out of the situation with my Metro card and a shoelace. I went on a free walking tour. I went on a Pub Crawl. I went on a day trip to a bone church. I made calzones and drank boxed wine. I took pictures on a Russian tank from the communist era. I didn’t get any sleep whatsoever. I ate Czech food. And I missed my flight home by one full day. But you have no idea how much all of this means to me. I went to Prague alone, with no agenda and very little money and I left with a handful of new friends, some great stories and a new outlook on what I want to make of the few years I have on this rock.

It started on Wednesday morning when I went on a free walking tour. I was alone and thought I’d probably meet some people to hang out with, maybe, maybe not. There was a slew of really lame Americans who were being super annoying and lame. I gave them a chance though. I asked where they were from etc. but I all I got were one word answers and a whole bunch of hot air. I smiled, backed off as the tour went on and ended up hanging with this French couple for the first half of the tour. (Yes, Dad, I spoke French with them.) We went to a café together for lunch where I met two other girls who were on the tour as well. Jenny was from New Jersey and Annika was from Australia. They had met each other earlier on in their travels and decided to spend the next few weeks traveling together. I liked them INSTANTLY. After the tour was over, the three of us hung out and did a little walking around, sightseeing, you know, lame touristy stuff, while getting to know each other. We all just clicked. We bonded over the fact that we were three blondes traveling alone in Prague. We exchanged numbers and met up later that night to go on a Pub Crawl. Beth’s roommate, Sarah, has a brother who runs a pub crawl so the to of us (Sarah and I) paid no overhead charges and got to drink super cheap beer. The night progressed and I was having a really great time until...

…before I go into the “until” I would just like to remind you all of the time, back in the 80’s, when my mother was a 20-something and got kicked out of a strip club for telling the dancers that they should have more self-respect and that there is a better life out there for them. If you didn’t know that story, now you do. To continue the “until”, I am my mother’s daughter…

…we were in the 5th and final pub of the night when this guy grabbed Jenny’s butt. She looked at me and said, “Oh my god...that guy just totally grabbed my ass.”
“What! What did you do about it!?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“WHAT?! Where is he?”
Jenny pointed to a creepy older man, probably in his upper 40’s, wearing a suit and a tie, who looked like THE biggest sleeze bag I have ever seen. Throwing all caution to the wind and channeling the my mother’s 80's fire-y feminism (I’m pretty sure being at the 5th bar of the night had something to do with it also) I walked up to this asshole, grabbed him on the shoulder and said, “HEY! Did you just grab my friends ass?”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell makes you think you can just go up to a woman and grab her ass?”
“Well, she had a nice ass and I wanted to grab it so I did.”
“Who the hell do you think you are!? She is not a toy for you to play with whenever you feel like grabbing some ass!...I don’t remember exactly everything I said but it went on for a while. Some of his stupid friends came over, amused by the situation, and started egging me on. I gave up once I realized that I was never ever going to change any of their minds and that it was just not worth the effort I was putting out so I went back to talking with Annika and Jenny. But they were not done with me and now the fact that I was ignoring them, somehow turned them into 12 year-olds. They began poking me and taunting me like pubescent middle schoolers. Sigh…nothing changes. I refused to give them any attention but it got to a point I couldn’t handle so I turned around, slapped one of them *lightly!!! * and went off on another rampage about how they need to grow up and leave me alone and that I was done and wanted nothing to do with them….blahblahblah. They just called me a little fireball and laughed and offered to buy me a drink. No one really takes you seriously when you are 5’2”, blonde and have the face of an innocent doll but believe you me, I could have ruined them. And I would have, had Sarah not come to my rescue, tell me it was time to leave, and pull me away from the situation. As we were leaving, I heard one of them make a comment about m boobs or something, I don’t know and I said to Sarah, “Hold on. Take my purse.” I turned back around went up to the asshole who had been poking me and punched him in the face. Then I left, feeling quite satisfied, thank you very much.

The next day, I slept in as long as I could. Jenny and Annika were pretty much out of commission for the day so sort of wandered around Prague, taking in some of the sights by myself. There was a full moon and I really enjoyed taking pictures of it. I planned on laying low that night but as I have come to realize, you can’t really control what you do in Prague, Prague kind of controls you. Beth didn’t have to work that next day and we had to go out into Prague together at some point so, naturally, tonight was the night. We went on Sarah’s brother’s Pub Crawl, again, but this time around was much less eventful because, well, not many people showed up for it. So basically, we just got cheap beer and hung out with all of Beth’s friends. Three girls who were on the pub crawl the previous night were at Fat Boys (kind of like the Cheers of Prague for this crew) and I had a really good time talking with them. One of them just graduated with an Industrial Design degree and the other one got a breast reduction a year ago so between the three of us, we had a lot to talk about.

The next morning, I woke up WAY too early and met Annika and Jenny at the train station where we caught a train to Kunta Hora, a small town an hour outside of Prague where there is this Bone Church…it’s a church that this crazy monk converted into a shrine of human mortality. There are nearly 40,000 people’s bones in this church. The monk decorated the inside of the church with skulls and femurs and every bone imaginable. There is even a chandelier made out of every bone in the human body. We were really excited to go there but after about 10 minutes inside, we were pretty creeped out. We left, and no one said anything for about 5 minutes straight. We decided to walk around the town the church was in for a bit because Jenny had heard that it was a cute place. Well, whoever told her that must have been on Meth because it was hands down THE MOST DEPRESSING PLACE I have ever been to in my entire life. I mean, I could FEEL the post-communism depression in the air and every-so-often we would walk through a cloud of poop smell. This happened at least once an hour, maybe more. Poop air and communism. But we ate some good pizza and got ice cream so it was worth it.

Saturday was just a barrel of laughs. First Beth and I went to the Medieval Castle and I ate some lunch there. Then we met up with her roommate Andrew. I decided that I wanted to see the edgy, real side of Prague. I was tired of tourists and beautiful architecture. I wanted to see some graffiti and gypsies.

So Beth, Andrew (one of her roommies) and I bought some boxed wine and went for a walk. We walked for a good while and I definitely fulfilled my graffiti and gypsy wish. But the best was yet to come…

…there must have been some kind of magnetic force pulling us up this hill. Without even consciously deciding to turn right, we did, walked up this hill and found and old communist Russian tank. A straight up real ass TANK. Naturally, the cameras flew out and we had an America’s Next Top Model photo shoot. These pictures are absolutely ridiculous and I love them. We kind of hung out there for almost two hours…then Beth and I got hungry and wandered off. We somehow cough*boxedwine*cough* got on the wrong tram and ended up lost. We were hungry nonetheless and asked this nice looking dude where a good restaurant was and he told us, two stops on the right. So we got out there, went inside and two minutes later, the dude showed up at our table! He asked if he could join us and we said sure. The place didn’t take cards so Petr (the dudes name) just bought us beers and said he’d help us get somewhere else. He was a very nice dude.

Long story short, we finally ended up in the right part of town at this great restaurant. I treated everyone to food and let. Me. Tell. YOU…

…Czech food is surprisingly….AMAZING. I couldn’t eat my food slow enough. This meal was easily one of the top 3 things I have ever eaten in my life. I love Czech food. We met up with Sarah at this bar called Crossclub which is made out of old Bus parts. Obviously, I was fascinated with the place. There were moving gears on the ceiling and cool things made out of other cool things and I thought it was amazing. It was a very fun day, my favorite.

The next day AKA Sunday AKA the day my REAL flight was on, we had a big Calzone party at Beth’s. Instead of flying back to Lyon…I made calzones. My turned out to be more like a casserole because it busted open and I had to put it in Pyrex. Whatever….it was still delicious.

…Monday rolled around and I packed all my crap up, said by to Beth, met Jenny and Annika for lunch (which was more AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING Czech food) and headed out to the airport where…well, you know what happened. Ruby’s Portuguese Adventure.

When I finally got home after The Portuguese Adventure, I went to class with my suitcase, took care of Meg who had the Stomach Flu, went to class the next day and then we all went to Anncey where Julia's grandparents own an apartment. Anncey is a small town at the bottom of the Alps. I went Snowboarding for the first time! I am addicted and can't wait until I get another chance to go. It was so much fun. It was nice to have a relaxing deczechification break after my Prague adventure. I had had quite the eventful week, if you ask me. One might even venture to say...life-changing???

All in all, what made this trip so incredible was my complete lack of any kind of agenda. I had absolutely ZERO expectations and ended up having the best break ever. I know it’s so hard to do this but when you let go of everything you’re afraid of or worried about or expecting to happen and open yourself up to what is presented to you, when you allow yourself to make decisions and mistakes, THAT’S when you have the real adventures. I felt so unclouded by judgment on this trip and it was absolutely amazing. (Beth…you did not ruin my trip what so ever. April, baby. April.)

If you made it through this blog...KUDOS. It was a doozy. I even left out lots of little details (like how the Czech languages likes Y's at the ends of words more than I do!!!!) and it still turned out to be about 4 pages. KUDOS to you.

And I'm out.