Work yesterday marked the end of our first official live week, and it felt great.
It's weird.. usually I go somewhere on vacation and the second I get there, I LOVE it. And then after several days, after I've seen what there is to see, I am tired of it and ready to go home. With Prague it's been the opposite. When I first got here and felt so weird and alone those first couple weeks (not solidly, but I had my big spells of homesickness), I'm three weeks in and I can't imagine not being here anymore. I don't miss driving. I don't miss smiles in the street as much. Now that I've gotten at least a few words of Czech, I don't feel so lost.
For example, that first week, I tried to ask for directions to the office. I didn't know a word of Czech, so nobody wanted to answer me. Yesterday I was trying to find the metro stop at Karlovo náměstí, and I asked a woman, "Prosim... metro?" That means, "Excuse me... metro?" But she smiled and pointed me in the direction. ONE word! And that's all it takes to get a nicer reaction. :) I really love Prague. I just wish I could bring my mom and my friends here with me, because that's the only part of me that doesn't feel complete.
Anyway, my days don't really start until 6pm or so, when I leave work. I went with Moff and Naima to a bar/cafe/restaurant out at Karlovo náměstí and had a big leafy chicken salad - it was fantastic. I don't get a lot of vegetables here, so when I see them on the menu (since it's usually an option of pork or ham, or another kind of pork, with dumplings or potatoes), I get really excited.
I left alone and managed to find the metro with a little help, since I had to go meet Katy. We had plans to hit some latin clubs. We met up by the National Theatre and headed down to a place called Manes where I heard they had good dancing. We looked inside for about a minute and decided it wasn't for us - it was fancy and formal. She knew a club nearby called Karlovy Lázně, which advertises itself as having five floors of different music, and being the biggest club in Central Europe. So we went. We paid 120 Kc to get in (each), saw that everyone in there looked like they were 18 years old, did a shot of absinthe, drank a rum&coke, and left without visiting any other floors. :)
After that we tried a Cuban bar she knew called Bodeguita del Medio. The music was great but it was insanely packed in the front room, to the point that you couldn't even stand or order a drink, and in the back it was just boring with empty tables and looked more like a calm restaurant. Katy tried to ask a question to a waitress, and she replied, "Do I look like I want to answer you?" so we decided they weren't worth all the Kc we planned on spending and left.
We went back to my safe-haven, Rincon Latino, which is (again) about a 3-minute walk from my hotel and the best music/dancing I've seen in this city yet. We stopped first at a fast-foodish pizza place next door, since Katy hadn't had dinner, and while we sat there two very Arab-looking guys came in and sat down a few tables away. They were cute, and I swear I heard them speaking Arabic, then again I think people are speaking Portuguese when they're speaking Russian sometimes, since I just base it on one or two words I overhear. Anyway, I was convinced at the time that they were Arabs.
We got some drinks and sat at the only free table, which was way back in the corner. But it was lame sitting back there, and we decided to ditch our jackets there and go stand up by the bar. And that's when it got fun. We had some cuba libres and some mojitos. I started dancing with a guy who I figured was Cuban but was actually from Guinea, so we spoke French. He kept getting annoyingly angry at me because I had trouble with his accent in French and it took me a few tries for everythiing he said to understand. He was like 45 and kept asking me if I had a boyfriend back home, a boyfriend here, a husband anywhere, at what age I want to get married, so I got creeped out of course and just avoided him the rest of the night. He wasn't a bad dancer, though.
Katy and I switched off with a guy who I also figured was Cuban or African, since most of the black guys here are one or the other, but it turned out he was from Holland! He was a good dancer though, and really nice. I told him I was sorry I don't speak Dutch, but that I do not how to say "Ik hou van jou" which means "I love you" :) But we agreed it wouldn't get me far in Holland. He doesn't speak Czech either but has been here for about 8 months. He said he feels as lost here (language-wise) as I do. It's nice to meet other lost people. :)
And finally I kept seeing those guys we saw at the little pizza place! I thought this tall gordito one was cute, and thinking he was Arabic, at one point when he was standing near me, I asked him in Arabic if he's Arab. He looked confused and just smiled. We ended up dancing together, though, and then hanging out the rest of the night until about 4 a.m. when I got too sleepy to survive any longer. Katy talked to him to find out where he was from, and as it turned out, he is an actual GYPSY! He looks totally Arab (or something like that - enough that I thought he was one) but only speaks Czech except for a few phrases of English. So, because of that, we couldn't really communicate but we could look at each other and smile, which in a dance club is enough, really. He gave me his number at the end of all this and said, "Call me," though I'm not sure I will since I only know about five words in Czech, and he only knows how to say, "Call me," and "You're beautiful." :)
Katy DID find out for me, though, that he's not the typical gypsy.. he has a job, and enough money that he bought us drinks a few times, and a cell phone, and lives with his brother in an apartment. So he's a nice guy, we just can't talk to each other.
I figure we can go see a movie with Czech subtitles, though.. at least we'll both understand it. :)
Ciao for now...
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