Portuguese Night

What a lovely evening I had.

Beliza invited me to her house for dinner because she and her friend Pedro made feijoada (Portugal style, not Brazilian) the day before. After work we went to Tesco to pick out a bottle of wine (I wanted to contribute SOMETHING), and picked a nice shiraz from Argentina. We got to her apartment, she gave me the grand tour (very cute) and we sat around BSing awhile.

Pedro arrived shortly after and began to cook the rice and heat the feijoada, and then her Polish friend Iza arrived, then her roommate Cristiana (sorry if that's misspelled), and finally a Czech friend named Martin.

By the time everyone arrived, dinner was ready and we all gathered around the table to eat. The feijoada was amazing, her friends are delightful, and while I was a little nervous (I know, I know, but it's always hard to be the new one in a big group of people who are already friends), I was sooooo glad I went. Thank you Beli for a lovely night!!


Around 9:15pm or so, after we killed 3.5 bottles of red wine, I headed with Pedro and Iza to the tram stop. They got on one, and I continued to wait for the number 9. It came just a minute later, and as I was walking up to get on, a cute guy I'd noticed waiting a bit further down came to me and asked, "Are you taking the number 9?"
"Yes."
"Me too..."
"Ok..." (not knowing what to say here)

He sat by me and from the second I saw his face in the light I knew he was Arab. I asked where he was from, and he said, "Where do you think I'm from?"
"I think you're Arab."
"Really, why?"
"Well, are you Arab?"
"No."
"I am. I'm Palestinian."
"You're Palestinian??!?! I'm from Iraq!! I saw you and I knew you must be Arab too but I didn't want to say it!"

Turns out he's faced some issues with being Arab/muslim in this city so far, so he doesn't like to come out and say where he's from. He's 33, owns an Arabic restaurant (that also makes pizza, like every other restaurant in this city), which is there in Zizkov where I was waiting for the tram. We rode together and he started to get off. I noticed we were in Mustek and got up to go as well, since the metro makes it way easier for me to get home.

We ended up walking around a bit and chatting, finally stopping at Narodni Trida where we said good night. We exchanged numbers, so here's hoping that he's not 1. married (he said he wasn't but you never know in this city), 2. a jerk, or 3. skeezy.

We shall see, but he seemed as happy to make a new friend as I was.


All in all, a very good night.

On a final and most important note, I want to wish a happy 27th birthday to my bestestest friend Tara (a.k.a. Tarita, T, T-boz, T-bone, T-whiz, Gigi, Tarasius, Pinche Tara, Chichona, and many other things I've called her over the years). May you have the happiest birthday ever, even though I can't be with you. I love you x10000, and I'm sending you big hugs from across the sea.