Le Week-end

Friday was fun. I ended up at Bombay, which wasn't that fun, but then went to M1 which was a blast. It was a good crowd, there were shots of Becherovka involved, and after all that I ended up at Rincon Latino for about an hour where I met a guy who is half-Bolivian half-Mexican. I like his nose. He is a singer, I saw him play at a restaurant once... we hugged a lot because we were both a bit drunk and I told him how much I miss my Mexican friends back home. Hopefully I'll see him again, we didn't exchange any info. Plus, last time I saw him, he had a girlfriend :)

Speaking of girlfriends, I think I spurred a fight by accident. A cuban guy came up and started talking to me. He was older, I really had no interest, but it was just nice to have someone to chat with, especially in Spanish. We talked for a while... and then his Czech wife came over (who speaks Spanish, ironically). She got mad at him but I tried to diffuse the situation by kindly explaining that I'm new here and he was just giving me some general Prague advice, which he was. She started talking about where to look for a job, and he interrupted with, "She already has a job, she doesn't need your help." Uh oh. They started yelling at each other, he stormed off, the girl and I made friends, and then she went off to find him. Later on he came back without her and said to me in Spanish, "You're my new girlfriend, I can't stand her. We can get married, you're so pretty, and I just married her for papers anyway." Yikes. He was drunk, and stumbled away after that.

I walked home to spend my last night in my temporary apartment. I got to bed around 5:30am. On Saturday I woke up around noon, ate some quick lunch and packed up like a fiend. Katy and Derrick met me around 3:30 to help me move into my new place (there are 3 flights of steps to walk and I had three heavy suitcases and some other misc. bags). We took a cab over for only 79Kc, and the driver was super nice. He only spoke Czech, but Katy told me how he was saying that my neighborhood is THE nicest neighborhood to live in in all of Prague. He said the little pub down the street from me has the best beer in the entire city, and I'm super close to Andel that has lots of good restaurants and shopping, connection to the whole city by public transport, and also the most beautiful park in Prague practically right next to my house (Bertramka, where Mozart lived). It made me feel even better than I already did about my choice of apartment :)

We got my stuff inside without a problem, and promptly went to have dinner at a restaurant in Andel. I went to Tesco afterward and bought some necessities for the new place: a general kitchen/bathroom cleaner, a pot (since I don't have anything to cook in until my stuff arrives), two bottles of handsoap (kitchen and bathroom), dishwashing liquid, a towel, a potato masher (I know, but I have four small potatoes in my fridge and don't know what else to do with them), and a collander. All of this unfortunately came to about 1600Kc, which is more than I wanted to spend, but I didn't buy one thing that I didn't really need. Well maybe the potato masher, but that was only 59Kc, so shush.

I then took the bus home, because all that stuff was HEAVY. I felt really proud that I found the correct bus info (the stop, which bus to take, etc.) all by myself - usually someoen shows me once and then I'm fine, but this one was all me :) Hooray for small victories!

I was tired after all this. After unpacking, I went to sleep on my little corner of the floor for about 2 hours. Got up around 10 to get ready to go out to Radost, which I was dreading. I had a horrible time last week and didn't want to go back, but my friends begged and I gave in.

While I was waiting for the tram, a too-skinny trippy girl was standing in the street looking like she was going to fall over and pass out. Her boyfriend, a very tall Czech guy, kept having to fix her to be standing up straight and holding her up. What a treat that they were on my tram on my way to I.P. Pavlova!! She was shivering the whole way, and couldn't keep her eyes open. They got off just after we crossed the river. They took a long time to get up and get off the tram, so the doors were closing as they were just getting there. The guy started flipping out and screaming in Czech, and the doors opened again. They still took a long time so the doors closed again as they were moving through them. The guy got outside, started screaming some more, and kicked the side of the tram twice before we started moving again, and again AS we were moving. What a city...

I met the crew in front of Radost and we got in before having to pay the cover. I had a surprisingly good time. I ended up seeing my old friend Blaise from Tulip, the bar that sells more marijuana than beer, and we chatted in French (my horrible broken French:) for a good hour. I ended up dancing with some guy from the Bahamas for a while at the end, who lives in Vienna. Then we sat in the cold and ate KFC from the walk-up window until the trams started running again. We caved and got taxis instead, because we couldn't wait and it was so freezing. All in all it was a good night.

I slept my full first night in the apartment, and spent today there. I discovered that the shower sprayer has no pressure at all, the stove doesn't work, but the washing machine is great and easy to figure out - and only takes about 30 mins, not 3 hours like all the others I've seen here so far. All in all, it's okay, at least I'm ailve and happy.

I'm going now to meet Katy and Derrick for dinner, then Brazilian Carnaval party at Smichov Beach. We'll see how THAT turns out!

Hugs to you, Pittsburgh.