My tale begins from the moment I left my sister in Sevilla. A little after 4:30 in the morning, armed with a steaming travel mug of hot chocolate and a fresh shower, I hopped into the taxi outside Viriato to go to the airport. My driver was very talkative and we found our common interest in futbol – very surprising in Spain – and I talked until I got to the airport. When we arrived he asked me – in Spanish – if I knew the price for the ride. I did, Fuschia had told me the night before that the most she has paid is 23 euro. So I said between 20 and 23 euro and he said quite emphatically, no! It costs 27 euro. We argued back and forth and finally I just reached into my pocket in exasperation and paid the man. Then he asked for dos besos and in my early morning state I just figured, why not? It's my last chance to do my favorite Spanish custom for a while. I went in for the kisses and then when I went to exit the taxi he asked for two more. Strange, but sure… I guess. I should have known to stop when I was ahead. Kiss number one – no problem. Kiss number two – fine, I guess. Then he stuck out his tongue and went to grab the back of my neck to lock me in for something quite untraditional. Fortunately, I'm pretty quick, especially in those types of situations, and quickly extracted myself from the car. Called him a name and turned my back to enter the airport. Where I waited for about an hour before the ClickAir counter was even open. Then I flew to Barcelona where I found out that ClickAir doesn't do transfers and I would have to recheck in.
I was kind of frustrated because the maximum weight for bags for international travel is 23 kg and I had squeaked by with 23,5 kg in Sevilla. I hadn't wanted to push my luck. So as I was toting my life around with me all I was thinking about was how to convince the person behind the counter to let me by with the 0,5 kg extra. In such a state, I didn't realize that standing right in front of me was Michelle!!! My roommate for the Czech Republic. We were supposed to meet in Barcelona, but I thought we would just see each other at the terminal. It was so great catching up with her and running into one of her friends at the terminal who was on his way to Oslava via Prague. Wow, it's a very small world, right?
We got to the airport and had to wait around for Jana Weagová, our landlady to find us. We were speaking in Spanish with Julio and I think she assumed we were Spanish from that point. To make us feel comfortable, she tried her hand at her limited Spanish. She had been to Spain a lot – Marbella, anybody – and wants to go to Mexico at some point. We took the scenic route to our apartment and had to park a bit away because of the lack of parking. By the time I did actually get to the apartment, I was sucking wind. 23,5 kg AND another 15,0 kg or so AND a purse kind of weighs you down. After relaxing for a little bit, Michelle and I went for a walk around the Old City in the -11 Celsius weather and had dinner at this tiny pizzeria.
Then we passed out. The next day we took another little walk to buy some food at the supermarket and to get a cell phone. I was under the impression that everyone in the Czech Republic spoke English. Someone needs to go to Vodafone and tell them to take some English lessons! I mean, I start off with the Ahoj! Dobryden. Mluvité anglitsky? And he shook his head. Not a big deal, I thought. How hard is it to point to a cell phone, point to a SIM card and clap my hands together to show that I want them both and that I want him to put the SIM card in? Success. Then I walked out of the store and looked at my phone again. It was in Czech! So I had to go back in, talk to Dominic with gestures and asked him to change it to English. (The next day I had to return it. Apparently when you change the language to English, the majority of it is still in Czech…)
That night, Michelle and I decided it was time to enjoy the Prague nightlife. We started by heading to a bar called Dubliners. Empty. But it was unusually early for us, so we decided to have a beer and see how things went. Two beers later and it was time to go. We were bored out of our minds. So we followed the sound of music when we left the bar and found this amazing bar! As soon as we had descended into the cellar we were surrounded by a group of Scottish guys on holiday celebrating their mate's birthday. Stephen, the first Scottish guy found out I was American and apparently was making some comments about it to his friend, so Michelle decided she'd be Spanish that night…
… and that she was on remission from cancer – to explain her short hair…
… and that her parents had died in an accident…
Everyone loved Michelle's joie de vivre and the fact that she could still be so positive when so much had gone wrong in her life. She went to the dance floor with Gaz, another of the Scottish guys, and I turned to talk with one of the Australians, Jordan. We talked all night and it was great conversation, really. I don't know about anyone else, but I have a very imaginative mind. It's very easy for me to pretend something in my head and because of this, I always run through every possible scenario. So, talking to Jordan and seeing Michelle and Gaz out of the corner of my eye, I thought… hmmm…. Maybe he'll get lucky and we'll make out tonight. (Along with many other scenarios – one being that I find out that he's not really Australian and that he only came into the bar to escape a group of Czech thugs trying to get the gloves back he stole from their friend's souvenir shop.) Then he said something that sounded kind of off for the conversation we were having. So, I said, "Wait! You have a girlfriend?!" And he was like… "I mean, yeah. How'd you know? I hope this doesn't affect anything. I don't want to waste your night."
In response, I told him to get over himself, but that I was having fun talking to him. Then I led him onto the dance floor where the four of us plus all the creepy Brazilian guys jumped around to techno until around 6:00 in the morning. We then made plans to meet up with Jordan the next day for the Real Madrid v. Mallorca game at Dubliners.
Of course, being basically españolas, Michelle and I didn't wake up until about an hour before the game. We showered and headed over to meet Jordan, who had brought along his friend, John-O. The Real Madrid game wasn't on but we stayed anyway after being guaranteed that the Barcelona game would be on at 22:00. The first thing we did was let Jordan know that Michelle was American. We watched the ManU game instead, and then we had to run to get Rachel from the train station, with the promise to return for the Barça game.
Which wasn't on. Are you kidding me?!?!?! The bartender said I didn't deserve to watch the Barcelona game because I was a Real Madrid fan, which ipso facto means that I'm fascist. I shrugged it off and went back to my table. We stayed until around one and then walked home – or rather, we ran. It was freezing!!!
The next day we did some shopping to prepare for Kevin's arrival and had a full dinner ready and on the table for when he got to the house. Did I mention there was a bottle of wine involved? And that after we finished that, we opened another? And that after that we opened a bottle of whiskey and mixed it with Fanta?
Then we went to this other bar with live music and tonight there was more than one Spanish girl. For those of you who have seen me really drunk since I went to Trujillo that first time, I always fall into Spanish. So being American just wasn't in the cards for me. The Czech guys we met were so impressed with our broken English that they kept on buying us shots of whiskey. Or maybe they just liked watching us being ridiculous. I thought the bartender and I had become friends, but Kevin informed me that the bartender was telling him to get us out of there… something about me not being allowed behind the bar. Then we got in the cab home where I thought the cab driver was amused by Michelle and I screaming at each other in Spanish, but Kevin informed me that the driver was having an anxiety attack because he couldn't understand us. Then we got home and I saw that I had a missed call from Brandon (who is, by the way, the only person from America besides my family members to call me using that awesome domestic number I sent out on facebook!). So thank you Brandon, and I'm sorry, because I think I must have called you 14 times or so that night. I saw that the next day when I checked my phone log. And I guess I talked to Aubrey too. I found that out later as well.
Basically, the next day we all agreed to not drink again until our orientation on Thursday. We went for a run today by the Charles Bridge. We did a roommate workout routine – thank you Men's Health and Kevin!! – and then we went to the Museum of Communism.
Tomorrow we meet the rest of the Euromasters students. I hope they're awesome.
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