3/24 (accounting for the last month or so)

So,

The other day I went to McDonalds and got a large French fry (or is it fries?).

I then had to use the men’s room, so I followed the indicating signs and reached the door. Upon entering there was a woman sitting at a table with a metal bin next to her. I started to walk to the urinal, and she pointed to the compartment, then pointed to a sign underneath that said “15 crowns” (which is the equivalent of 7 and a half cents U.S.) Apparently I was supposed to pay to use the bathroom. What is this? I asked the woman (who couldn’t speak English) if this service also included wiping. She told me she didn’t speak English. Whatever. I definitely didn’t feel good about it though. And no, the payment only included the receptacle… no added benefits. Needless to say, I was pissed off.

…pun, yerp.

Umm, I don’t believe I’ve posted since I was in Vienna, Austria. Let’s go one at a time.

We took a $20 bus trip to Vienna and it was actually pretty fun. They played departed on the first leg of the trip. Additionally I was joking around with a really cute Czech waitress who worked on the bus (the joke was playing off of her limited English… if I wrote it here it’d be lost and I’d look very corny). It was based on chocolate tea…. Ignore it. Anyway, after the ride I asked her for her number and she gave it to me. We’ve been texting each other. We’ll see what happens… although if something does happen it won’t be on here. Sorry.

In Vienna we went out to a club and Austrian’s were less then friendly to us. Upon walking up to a girl I had a hand shoved in my face as a form of rejection. I simply walked up and said hi. Through her hand I asked if she knew where the bathroom was. Her open hand (still 2 inches from my face) then changed into a pointer finger, showing me where the restroom was). That’ll humble you. I eventually, after a few Austrian rejections realized (much like American girls) I had to be more subtle with my approach. Despite this, I consider Austrian’s (at least the ones I encountered with the exception of the few I hit it off with) to be unfriendly. In their defense though, I will say that while I was talking to a few girls, some Austrian guys kept coming up dancing to the girls with absolutely no regard for their reaction. I suppose this would make any girl well guarded.

The following day we went sight-seeing. We first went to the Parliament, but the tour didn’t start for an hour and a half. As a result, we went ice skating. Videos are up on facebook. I pulled out my back. My athleticism definitely is demonstrated here. Lots of fun though.

We then went to the Parliament and got a tour. The tour given by a bilingual guide who first spoke in German, then English. In one part of the tour as she spoke in German, I wandered into the other room and got a picture sitting in an official looking chair. She later took us into the room and told us that the chair I had sat in (which she clearly didn’t know) was where the president of the provinces sat and was strictly prohibited for anyone else to sit in.

After our tour, we went on a wine tasting with girls we had met during the tour (who also study abroad in Prague). Videos of that are up on Facebook too. The best wine I had tried tasted literally just like Honey. Mad good.

After this we went to “Haus Der Muzik” or House of Music. This was cool because Vienna is an extremely musically rich city and I was able to learn about those famous composers born there (namely Mozart and Strauss). My favorite quote of Mozart’s was (this is me paraphrasing) “It is a great misconception to this that I do not work hard on each of my musical creations. I put in great time and effort into every piece of music I touch.” Gotta love that.

That night for dinner we went out with my roommate Jesse’s family friend. He is a mid 20’s? jew born in Austria. Besides taking us out for a very generous Austrian meal (I ate weiner schnitzel and altweiner erdaepfelsuppe) and drank a beer that was literally black in color (very heavy but very good). Most notably though, he shared with us probably the most interesting and horrific stories I have heard since I have been in Europe. He told us the story of his family (who experienced the Holocaust) and told us some of the most horrible things I have ever heard. He also told us how anti-Semitism still runs rampant in Europe (especially Austria). To be honest, to this point while I know the story of the Holocaust, it was never really real to me (if that makes sense). Hearing his stories that directly affected him hurt me inside and enraged me. One thing he told us though, that I thought I’d share, was that the custom of hitting alcoholic drink cups (or shot glasses) down on the table (or bar) before drinking was initially started by Nazis. They did this to make other Nazi’s aware of their presence in their environment. I’ve been knocking my shots down on the table for the last few years habitually… I’m now done with this.

I also got a Ciggarette burn in Vienna walking through a crowd some random kid’s cigg burnt my forearm. He nonchalantly apologized. I think there should be different degrees of apologies. His apology would’ve been appropriate for accidently stepping on my shoe. Pretty weak.

That same night I met two Austrian girls. They both had a punk rock feel to them, I guess you could call it. One of em points to my dog tags that I always wear and asks if she can try them on. I then pointed to her mouth (where she had a lip ring) and told her she could only wear my dog tags if I could try her lip ring on. This girl didn’t have the best grasp on English, so I think when I was pointing to her mouth she thought I was attempting to leverage my dogtags with a kiss. She then turned to her friend standing next to her and proceeded to make out with her. Like… it wasn’t at all what I was trying to accomplish, but I definitely wasn’t disappointed. When she finished hooking up with her friend she then pointed to my dog tags again. She probably earned them by the aforementioned act, but I held out and still said I wanted to try on her piercing. Her friend, who spoke better English then she did, then came over and explained to her what I was asking to do. She then raised her shirt and took her ring out of her belly button.

The last night in Austria we wandered around the Bermuda Triangle (which is a strip of bars in Vienna). While here we befriended midget (or maybe he was just really short) and two other business types. Somehow a congo line got started in the middle of the bar. Everyone joined in (the midget’s arms could barely reach the dudes shoulders in front of him). After partying with the midget and the two businessmen, I spoke to them and they told me that they were all from Istanbul and if we got a chance we should visit them there. One of the men gave me his business card. Nice guys, but I don’t know about that.

Upon getting home from Austria, I decided I needed some T.G.I.Fridays in my life (more specifically I needed their chicken tenders). Two of my roommates and I went after class one night and I was pumped. We sit down, order, I request ranch dressing on the side, the server says they don’t carry it. This probably isn’t a big deal to other people, but for me the ranch dressing is just as important as the tenders in my meal. They also didn’t do free refills (which I was sure they would because they do at home). Free-refills are definitely taken for granted in the States. Another thing taken for granted in the states is being able to get all of the packets of ketchup that you desire at McDonalds for free. They charge you for that here also.

The following weekend I went to Dublin, Ireland to meet up with Josh, Zack, and Conor. Though they flew in on Friday, it made more sense for me to fly in on Thursday night then meet up with them the following day. Although I was planning on having a nice, peaceful, and quiet night at the sick hotel I got for a night, it ended up not turning out like that because I met a girl in the Prague airport who was also traveling alone. She and I hit it off and went and got Dinner in Dublin together. She and I got lost at one point and were standing on the corner looking at our maps. An irish guy walked up and offered assistance. This may sound trivial, but in Europe, outgoing helpful people are hard to come by. I had many more of these friendly encounters throughout the weekend which made me like Ireland a lot. After walking around the city a little with her, I said goodnight and went back to my hotel (the Royal Marine Hotel). It was unbelievable, not only because of how nice it was, but also just being able to sleep in a room alone was fantastic. They also had a great internet connection, so I was able to get all of the music I’d been wanting to download (the best was definitely Jadakiss’s Kiss My Ass Mixtape… Fiiiiire).

The following day I met up with the boys at our hostel, we dropped off our bags, and did some exploring. We went to the Guinness Factory. I’m not a big Guinness guy, but it was still interesting walking around their factory and stuff. At the very top of the Guinness factory, there is a bar overlooking Dublin where you can receive your complementary beer (which was clearly not complementary because you pay for the tour… just wanted to clarify).

Weird/funny/gross story:

I asked a man standing at the bar if he’d mind taking a picture of all of us. He obliged and took it. He then turned to his friend and pointed my camera at his friend’s crotch region. We all gave him a courtesy laugh because he’d just taken the picture for us. Ha ha, we got it, funny. But what happened next completely surprised us. His friend unzipped his pants and actually removed his penis from his pants. Keep in mind this was in the middle of the bar area so there were plenty of people standing around. The “photographer” then snapped a photo of his friends junk and with a smirk handed me back my camera. Quite shocking. The worst part though was that I then had to go in my camera and delete the picture (which meant I had to look again). Wasn’t a very big fan of this. Pretty funny though.

The following day we went to get lunch. I haven’t really explained this yet, so before my Emergency Room story, I figure I’ll get everyone caught up. I have a life threatening allergy to any kind of peanuts or nuts. As a result of this, I had little cards written up in most of the countries’ languages I thought I’d be traveling to (Czech, Spanish, French, German, Greek, and Italian). Luckily, Irish people speak a lot of English so I didn’t think I needed a card written up in Irish. I was mistaken. At lunch I explained to our server my allergy, she said she understood. After eating my meal, I started to get one of the symptoms (itching in the back of my throat). I immediately approached the manager and wanted to make sure there were no nuts in my food. He replied, “I don’t know why your server didn’t tell you, but everything in our kitchen is surrounded by nuts. You had no business eating here at all.” Awesome. Josh and I then went to the E.R. for two hours. My symptoms stopped altogether and we were eventually able to leave and meet up with Conor and Zack at the Parliament.

After the parliament (which was awesome because we had a very well informed and interesting tour guide), we stopped at a shop and to my surprise they were selling Cadburry eggs. I bought 5 and a jug of milk and was on my way. Fuckin love those things.

We then went to a pub and watched the Dublin vs. Wales game on TV. The irish people were screaming at the top of their lungs in the bar. Men probably 3 times my age were drinking me under the table (we noticed this one old dude run through Guinness beers like they were nothing).

Our last night we went out to a club in Dun Laogerie… unbelievable night. Literally, you wouldn’t believe it.

Coming home was nice… I got all caught up in Lost before I had to catch my plane to go home.

That week was a really fun one in Prague.

Tuesday night went to all you can eat place for my birthday dinner with all of my roommates… it was unbelievable. I don’t remember ever being that full in my entire life.

Wednesday night (my 21st birthday) we pre-gamed at my apartment (and I took a shot with my mom through Skype), then went to beer factory, then mecca… I was done.

Thursday morning I woke up and threw up two times in my apartment… once in the cab… once right outside of the gate in the trashcan. The people sitting in the gate 5 feet from me didn’t really seem to appreciate it. I simply couldn’t help it.

Got into Barcelona safely and took the bus then the metro to Josh Zack and Conors apartment.

Later that night Josh and I went to my Miami friends, Lauren and Dayna, apartment. Hung out with them for a little.

We didn’t go out that night because I was still so hungover from the night before… instead we watched the new lost epp. Sick one.

Friday Conor gave us a tour of Barcelona, saw a lot of Gaudi Architecture (he showed me his first commissioned work and we ended at his last one). We saw crazy street performers and I had fun attempting to communicate with people who didn’t understand anything I was saying. Silly Spaniards.

In Spain, they speak both Spanish and Catalon … no need for English. Not many people speak it there. Little by little my Spanish came back to me though. I know people think that going to school in Miami automatically makes you a pro in Spanish…. Not true, you can get indignant if they don’t speak English and demand their manager (I’ve never done this, but you can).

That night for dinner we got tapas which was really good with a bottle of house wine. Afterwards we then went to a bar to pregame for Razzmatazz. At the bar we met some funny foreigners (Austria, Spain, Portugal, and somewhere else I don’t remember). The Spaniard insisted we speak Spanish to him while he spoke English to us. It was actually pretty cool, my Spanish isn’t as bad as I’d remembered. We then went to Razzmatazz and went crazy. It’s like a huge rave. We walk in and there’s a full band on stage and everyone’s dancing wild. We then explored and there were a ridiculous amount of rooms all completely packed out with people. Some rooms were playing hardcore house while some were playing 80’s hits. We counted 7 rooms while there, but I’m convinced there were more. It was set up like a warehouse. We lost conor early on in the night (losing someone was pretty easy to do considering how crowded it was). We then left and went back. Great night.

The next day Josh and I met up with Lauren and her friend from home to go to Tibadabu, an amusement park in Barcelona. It was great. We rode a roller coaster, went on the swings, did bumper cars, and rode a ferris wheel.

Later we went shopping and I got some sick new Nikes and a hat from Foot Locker (good thing I got something that I wouldn’t be able to get back in the States, haha).

That night we went out again and had a great night again.

When walking home from the club I noticed across the street a cute little puppy standing next to a man and a woman. I started making baby sounds at the dog and the dog started to run across the street. As this happened a car screeched to a stop right in front of the dog. I yelled “Lo Siento” (which means sorry), but the owner was furious. He started rambling in Spanish. Only phrase I made out was “NO LO SIENTO!!” I thought it was really mature of him to hold me responsible for almost killing his dog when his dog wasn’t on a leash. What a douche.

Barcelona was a lot of fun though. Great birthday weekend. Once again, it was nice to be back in Prague, though.

That week the only standout unique thing I did was I went to the Salvador Dali exhibit. It was actually perfect timing, because in the exhibit I read that Dali was inspired by Gaudi’s work (which I’d just seen in Barcelona).

That weekend I was sick, though, which was bound to happen soon enough considering how frequently I’d been going out. It worked out though because we didn’t have a trip planned that weekend, so I was able to take it easy. One cool thing I did, though, was walked through the Jewish Quarter in Prague and then found this pathway which lead up to the tallest point I’d ever been to in Prague. It overlooks the entire city. It’s a little park where there are lots of skateboarders and people with dogs. Very cool spot… I’m gonna go back there at some point to hang out.

Also that weekend my friend from school, Brett, was in town visiting his girlfriend Anna (who lives next door to us). It was nice to see him.

That week I gave a presentation on Bernie Maddoff in my Business Ethics class and I think I did very well.

Thursday morning we had a 6 oclock flight to go to Amsterdam (which meant we had to wake up at 4 o’clock). This was pretty wack, but it was a small sacrifice for the trip.

We got into Amsterdam (which is in the Netherlands) and found our Hostile (shittiest hostile ever).

Our first night we shared our 3 bunk-bed room with a South African guy named “Hank.” He was nice enough, but sharing a room with someone you don’t know is very sketchy. The 2nd night we didn’t share our room with anyone, luckily. The last night one of our friends had already left so it was just us four… or so we thought. We were woken up at 3 AM to four people entering our room. They said they had a reservation. Despite there being 2 open beds, we had paid for one of them and they clearly didn’t reserve the room for four people. I was too tired to protest, and I guess my roommates were also, so our last night there we slept with 4 random people in our room. This will be the last time I ever do anything like that again.

Back to my weekend in chronological order… after putting our stuff down at the hostile, we then found a coffee shop. Below I will list all of the coffee shops we went to throughout the weekend.

Paradise, Kadinsky, Rookies, Bulldog, Green Place, Dampkring (where scenes from Oceans 12 were shot), Abraxas, Doors Café (themed all around the band), and Grey Area.

In Amsterdam, marijuana is decriminalized. Below is the dialogue from Pulp Fiction to clear up any misconceptions you might have.

Vincent: I break it down like this: it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it, and if you're the proprietor of a hash bar, it's legal to sell it. It's legal to carry it, but that doesn't really matter 'cause get a load of this, all right? If you get stopped by the cops in Amsterdam, it's illegal for them to search you. I mean, that's a right the cops in Amsterdam don't have.

Yup, so you walk into any coffee bar and they have laminated menus with the different kinds of weed they have to sell. They sell hash. They also sell pre-rolled joints. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. In the doors Café, I started talking to a guy who works there and he spoke to me for about five minutes on the dangers of cigarettes. He was preaching to the choir because I’ve never tried a cigarette in my life, but it was still amusing to hear such a laid back Dutch person speak so viciously about cigarettes. I agree with him though.

After our first coffee bar we walked around and watched a street performers comedy/escape from chains inside of a stray jacket routine for an hour. Afterwards he invited us to get a beer with him at a coffee bar he knew of. We hung out with him for a little bit, but then left to go to the Van Gogh Museum.

It was very impressive. The exhibition is so relevant because Van Gogh was from Amsterdam. The coolest thing we saw was the original “Starry Night” painting. This year was the first time in 20 years that Starry Night had been on display back in Amsterdam. Also on display was Van Gogh’s portrait of Eugene Boch and The Potato Eaters. It was really cool seeing all of that.

That night we went to an improve comedy show which was actually pretty funny. It was interactive so they appreciated suggestions from the audience. I was obnoxious and made at least two suggestions while there.

For dinner I got all you can eat ribs which were amazing. We ate at a restaurant that put the March Madness games on the big screen… on a side tangent this kid on our program organized a huge 10 dollar tournament. There are like 40 guys in it. As of right now I’m tied in second place.

The following day we did a walking tour of Prague which was interesting. Our guide told us not only about the city but also interesting facts about the Red Light District. The Red Light District is a strip where girls stand in glass rooms with beds for people willing to buy sex with them. Our guide told us that the average going rate is 15 minutes for 50 Euro (roughly $65 U.S.). He told us that the girls pay 150 Euro to rent their cube for 8 hours. After having sex for 45 minutes these girls have already made back their initial costs. I guess they also have overhead such as sheets, lubrication, toys, etc… but cmon, they’re probably making bank. Hoes is smart.

We also went to the Roor shop, which was crazy. They have some of the coolest glass I’ve ever seen. I took a picture of some of their bongs.

On Our last day, we went to the Anne Frank House. It was a very sad. That’s all I want to say on that.

After Anne Frank we went to the Heinekin Factory which, comparatively, shits on the Guinness Factory. They gave us 3 free beers and the tour itself was actually interesting.

To describe my Amsterdam trip in one word, I’d have to say, “Gluttony.” I overindulged myself in all possible ways. I ate more than I’ve ever eaten and drank more coffee then I’d ever drunk. All in all it was great, but I doubt I’ll be going back there anytime soon. When I got back to prague I passed out hard.

Following day I had a midterm so I studied all day… I do have a story though that I think represents the difference between Prague and the U.S: While I was studying in Bohemia Bagel (Prague’s premiere bagel spot), I ordered and paid for a bagel and cream cheese on an Onion Bagel and a Turkey Club on a plain Bagel. After waiting for 5 minutes I walk over to where they place the food when it’s ready and saw a bagel and cream cheese on a bagel that appeared to be onion and a turkey-like sandwich on a plain bagel. I took both, sat down, and took a bite out of the turkey-like sandwich. Within a minute or so one of the Czech workers approached me and said “That’s a turkey with swiss, and that’s a spinach bagel with cream cheese.” I first was curious who likes spinach bagels, but that was beside the point. I indicated to her that I’d already taken a bite out of the turkey with swiss. We then walked back up to the counter and I exchanged the spinach bagel with cream cheese for my Onion Bagel. The person working their then spoke in Czech to her worker for a little bit, then said “since you already took a bite from turkey with swiss, you can have that and you can have the turkey club for no charge because otherwise we’ll throw away the turkey club.” I suppose this was the most honorable thing for them to do, but it was still suprising to me. I basically got rewarded for my poor bagel identification skills. Not a great story, but I could totally see people in America taking the Turkey with Swiss back and then throwing it out simply because I didn’t pay for it. While I’d understand the logic there also, I still respect the way the Czech people handled it more.

I think my Advertising Midterm Exam went okay (my professor told me after class that he doesn’t like giving standardized tests but the curriculum makes him so as a result he’ll basically “help” the kids out at the end by modifying the midterm if it’s needed that bad). Really nice guy. He’s from Macedonia (it’s by Greece). Fun Fact about Macedonia… it’s where Mother Teresa’s from.

Sorry it took so long for me to post this, but at least I didn’t give up on it, right?

Much Love and at some point I’ll update all of my blog postings with pictures (probably no time soon).

Stay in touch… PEAAACe.


~FINK