Ach jo!

I love that phrase. It simply means "gah." As in, I am so tired...



It had been three weeks since I'd gone out in Prague on the weekend, so I overcompensated for it the last couple of days. Friday I met Sarah in Holesovice for the beer fest- she had found a bunch of money in the subway, so she bought my entry! Diky! I said her finding the $ was good karma, but then we saw a dead cat in the street. I still choose to believe it was good karma. A couple of hours later I met up with Evan to go to a club called Abaton for a drum & bass night (finally). I needed sustenance, so we ducked into Cross Club, which was every bit as interesting as I'd heard it to be. I can't wait to go back and take pictures of all the weird machinery and structures that make up that place. I had a couple of bramboracky (potato pancakes) and, maybe unwisely, a couple of puffs on a european. What followed was a surreal cab ride to a suburban Prague, or at least a part of Prague the likes of which I've never seen. I think that guy took us for a ride in more than one way.

Abaton was enormous- it looked like a palace, but Evan said it was a warehouse. All I know is there must have been 1,000 people in there, off their faces for drum & bass. As were we. The sound was crystal clear, and D-Bridge and Break played excellent tunes. To get home, we followed some Czechs down a path that led to a tram stop, the tram which seemed to lead to Nowheresville. I haven't been so out of my element in Prague and it was really nice to have a friend along. Luckily all the night trams end up at the same place...eventually...and so I found myself in Mustek in time for smazene syr and a dawn walk over the Charles bridge. I was the only person on it...quite unlike this afternoon, when I approached it, mentally said "Hells no" and took a huge detour to the next bridge. One thing I've realized here is I may not be a good traveler for supercrowded cities. I wish I could just chill, but it irrationally pisses me off when I have to slow my preferred pace for an extended time.

Anyway! I was home long enough to sleep and download my two XLR8R albums for the month, which are both fantastic. One is the Traum 100 compilation--my favorite label right now, whose big anniversary party was in Berlin this weekend. I had really wanted to go to that, ah well. Every track on this piece is divine. Then I had a nice walk to Ross and Sarah's to begin another evening Odyssey. Brandon's friend from mpls is in town and we couldn't find the hostel he was playing music at, so we continued on to karaoke. I had been to the private rooms before with Pat and Christine, and this time I made up for not taking pictures of that night, with 100 goofy pics and videos. We drank slivo and did some suicide karaoke, where other people pick out songs for you. I made Sarah do "99 Luftballoons" auf Deutsch. And I tried my hand at a song by Jana Kirschner (image above). Ever since I got here she's all over the billboards for C & A, a clothing company. Finally I wiki'd her and saw that she's a famous Slovakian pop singer. My Slovak pronunciation left something to be desired. After this we had pizza and then popped into a herna- all-night gambling parlor- because I'd never been in one. The machines didn't seem to want to take our crowns, which is just as well.

I woke from a weird dream on their futon in time for Christine's brunch down the street. Someone ordered a "Neverending cup of coffee" and I thought to myself, what I want is a neverending glass of tap water, with ice. Not because I was hungover but just because you aren't getting that in Europe. That's old news to all you travelers, but I'm a novice. Here you're paying 18-25 crowns for 12 oz. of water in a glass bottle. I can drink that in one gulp. ACH JO! A new friend, Melanie, walked with me to Wenceslas and we had some ice cream. Later we met up for my first Fringe show, a really good performance of Sartre's No Exit. It was in one of those cave-like theaters, which was perfect to create the claustrophobic atmosphere of hell. I saw three more impressive/absurd performances and ate dinner at a cantina. I greeted and ordered in Czech and the server looked at me like, "Quit trying." Sometimes you just can't win. Later, inexplicably, he turned friendly.

I'd like to sleep for a week now, but Fringe demands that I'm out for six more nights. It's an annual theater/performance art festival that I'm covering in Steffen's absence, and I'm to see as many of 40 shows as I can. So I may not update PiP for a few days.

Dobrou noc...good night, for now! Here's my favorite pic of Ross & Sarah from last night. They did a lot of duets :)