Man on the Moon

The weekend has been productive and fun, a success for sure. :)

Friday I was exhausted from the craziness of Thursday, so the first thing I did when I got home from work was take a nap. I met up around midnight with the guy from Ecuador that I'd met the night before, but he went from nice guy friend to creeper overnight, apparently - he thought we were on some super-exclusive date and kept annoying me, so I just kindly declined to dance or talk to him unless he asked me something directly until he got bored and went home. Rincon wasn't so great that night anyway, so I went home around 2, watched the new episode of The Office, and talked to Maira online until around 3.

Saturday I met up with Jose, his wife Jolana, and their son Toby to go to IKEA. The trip was insanely exhausting (especially considering my lack of sleep), but man oh man was it productive. I got EVERYTHING I need, and in one fell swoop spent my entire referral bonus (thank you again, Miss Valerie).

I bought:
a couch
a chair (select "sivik tm.zelena" from the drop-down menu to see the color)
a mattress (140x200cm)
the thing to go under the mattress (I got the most expensive one for half the price!)
this thing to go on top of the mattress to make it firmer/more comfy
a bed
a wardrobe (the middle door is a mirror)
a chest of drawers
some shelves for the bathroom
a clothes-drying rack

Some other little things as well that I won't bother to find links for, like a mop and a cleaning brush and a pillow. It's all very exciting :) I can't wait to have everything set up and put pictures up for everyone to see. Thank you again, Jose and Jolana - I couldn't have figured all of that out without you!

They delivered the stuff yesterday around 6pm, carried everything upstairs, etc. The only thing I opened was the couch - the rest of it is still in boxes (even the chair) - no point, since they won't clear out the old furniture until Wednesday, so I don't want it to be too cramped in here.

During all this time, the Turkish guy I met on Wednesday, who lives in the US and left Prague as of this morning (Sunday), texted me to ask if I'd like to hang out. So I did - we agreed to meet at 10pm at Bombay. All of a sudden, just as we made that plan, Petr, the Czech guy I met walking home one night, called me to ask if I'd like to join him and his friend at the pub at the end of our street.

Now, Petr and I haven't talked much since we met, but I did like him and figured hey, why not. I didn't know what I'd walk into - would it be a big group of Czech guys? Girls? Would they speak English? Would I feel out of place? But I keep telling myself, 1. they wouldn't have invited me if they didn't want me to come, and 2. I can't be a chicken in these types of "unconventional" social situations. I have to get out there and be brave, so that's what I did. I got dressed for the night since it was about 7:30pm and I'd have to meet the Turk right after, and walked down to the corner.

It turned out to just be Petr and his very very very very drunk Czech friend named Aleš. They were hilarious - well, Petr was drunk but acting pretty normal, the other guy was just a riot. He did speak English and I could tell was just having a blast getting to speak to a native speaker. We'll see if I hang with them again, who knows how comfortable/uncomfortable they felt (they were both pretty self-conscious about speaking English) but either way it was fun. I had two drinks with them and left at 9:30 to go meet Emre (the Turkish guy).

I got lost trying to find Bombay but a street-Nigerian helped me get there. It's very close to another club where tons of Africans hang out, so when I saw him I knew he'd be the one to ask. Sure enough when I asked if he knew where Bombay was, he said, "I'm on my way to M1 and it's very close, I'll walk you there." Soooo predictable. :)

Emre was there waiting, due to my getting lost, I was pretty late. We had a few drinks, danced a bit, had a nice time. We went to a few other places then before we called it a night (well, morning). We ended up hanging out all night (Prague never sleeps), so due to heading home at such a strange hour, I decided to take a cab.

The driver was really nice, quoted me 200Kc for the ride which was definitely fair. I sat up front with him and he didn't speak much English, but when REM's "Man on the Moon" came on, I said, "Ohh, good song" and gave a thumbs-up. He laughed and said, "Yes, nice!"

At the end of the ride I handed him the money and got out of the car, and he yelled, "MOMENT!" I looked back inside and he said, "My mix. For you," and handed me the CD we'd been listening to.

Once I got inside I looked at it and noticed it was labeled, "My party".

I love Czech people. I can't believe I didn't like them at first. You really find some gems here.

I guess that's it - today I plan to be very lazy and not leave my apartment at all. :) MAYBE a walk to the park, but it looks chilly so probably not.. :)

Here's wishing a long, peaceful sleep to Petr and Aleš, a safe trip home to Emre, and a lifelong party to my taxi driver :)

Ciao, all.