Being the extremely worldly individual that I am, I decided I’d visit some museums while I’m in Europe. It was Valentine’s day so I thought I’d go somewhere relevant to the Holiday. My first stop? The Sex Museum. A few new friends I’d met the day before and I took a trip there and WOW was I impressed. I saw some contraptions that I swear I’ve seen in Brookstone or Sharper Image before… just maybe for different uses. Remember the full leather body suit in the end of Pulp Fiction? They had a few similar ones… but also had them in the assless variety. The funniest thing though, I thought, was they had a huge sheet with a hole around the crotch region. I couldn’t help but think of the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry David, upon receiving approval from his wife as an anniversary present, found a foreign woman who would have sex with him (don’t recall her nationality right now). He was informed that he had to cut a hole in a sheet and bring it with him to the room if he wanted to have sex with her because of her unique belief system. This was clearly untrue and lead to an awkward exchange (as it usually does in this show).
I digress.
Anyway, that was funny… I took pictures and might post a few of them here.
On a related topic, another interesting fact I found out is that Jewish humor isn’t thought to be as funny abroad as it is in the U.S. I went to lunch with my family friend (who lives here) and his Czech girlfriend Saturday (the 14th) and the topic of Curb Your Enthusiasm came up. My family friend told me that he watched an episode with a European once and they didn’t laugh at all and after the episode simply said “that show makes me feel uncomfortable.” It’s interesting because I think that uncomfortable situations are probably my favorite source of laughter.
Quick Story.
I’m walking down Charles Bridge with a few of my friends (it’s on my way to class) and I was feeling especially obnoxious that day. On the bridge there are a considerable amount of “free lance workers” earning their living (such as artists selling their paintings, caricature artists, trip informants, and my favorite: an older man standing in a carnival uniform with a stuffed animal monkey resting on top of a huge box that he cranks to make music come out). You must understand, the rest of the categories I mentioned at least involve some degree of skill. Even the trip informants must, at the very least, be knowledgeable about the vacations they are trying to sell. But here’s this guy standing there cranking a wheel making music come out of it. It wasn’t even like he had a real monkey to motivate people; just a fake one. Anyway, I found this to be hilarious because I’d already seen him a few times at the same spot, so clearly this was a career choice. So we’re walking on the bridge towards the end of the day and I see the man leaving his designated spot (apparently this was when his work day came to a close), and I start screaming and pointing at him “OH MY GOD MUSTVE BEEN A HARD DAY AT THE OFFICE!!! WOW, GOOD THING THAT MONKEYS THERE, THAT WAS DEFINITELY THE DEAL BREAKER!!” … then the old man starts screaming at me in Czech and shaking his fist. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but this unassuming old man totally turned threatening. The conclusion to this story was that I felt guilty about it because even though it was kinda funny… it just didn’t sit well with me. So a few days later I walked up while he was in his “cubicle” and gave him a nice little tip. He definitely earned it. Picture of the guy is below.
Back to my lunch with the family friends… we went to an Afghani restaurant and it was actually really good. Our family friend asked our server where in Afghanistan he was from and the server told us (I don’t remember where). My family friend then replied, “oh, I’d like to visit there sometime… is it nice?” And the server stone faced replies “No... we are at war” and just stares at my family friend. After about a 3 second silence the servers like “so what can I get you to eat?”
Soooooo awkward.
I told our family friend and his girlfriend about my encounter (that I described in my last post) at the night club with the Czech Girl. This couple is young by the way… mid 20’s? Anyway, I was more curious in finding out how Czech and European women in general react to Americans hitting on them in night clubs. She said that there definitely are stereotypes about Americans (like they’re fat, stupid, and materialistic) but if I approach nicely and respectably they’d be receptive.
Tangential funny joke about the American stereotypes and how I fit into them…
My roommates asked me if I wanted to join a gym with them.
That was the punch line.
Back to the lunch.
So I was very relieved to hear that I could start hitting on European women… that night I went out and was 3-0 (nothing notable happened with them, but everyone I walked up to were very nice and we spoke and danced a bit).
This weekend my roommates and I are traveling to Vienna Austria, which should be sick. We also booked our spring break trip, which is just going to be in Italy. I also booked a trip to meet up with Josh, Zack, and Conor in Dublin and I booked a trip for my birthday weekend to go to Barcelona (should be wild). My roommates and I put together a tentative schedule for where we will be every weekend and because I don’t know whose reading this… I’ll list where I’m visiting but not their designated time slots.
Italy (a few different cities), Dublin, Barcelona, Krakau, Berlin (maybe Munich?), London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Greece.
I might be missing one or two because the list is not right in front of me… but I’m pretty excited. There were a few trips I wanted to make that I don’t think I’ll be able to fit in (like Interlocken, South of France, Turkey, and Budapest), but it is what it is.
We now have internet in our room which is awesome (but videos – like lost – keep buffering). I’ll catch up eventually.
Something else that’s cool… the guy I spoke about in my first post from Prague who is from Cape Town and Nigeria listened to my CD (“Days of Reason”). If you don’t have it, go cop it. And by cop It I mean I’ll give you one when I return to the States or I’ll upload it on a mixtape website or something. Anyway, the dude liked my cd a lot and he and his friend who supposedly raps also want to record some tracks over my CD. I don’t know how good they are, but I just think it’d be cool to have some dudes not from America hop on and see what happens.
Since I’ve been here I’ve only stayed in on Sunday nights. Gonna keep pushin.
Oh, and Sunday morning I went with a few friends to the illest brunch ever. I had French toast, a bagel and cream cheese, eggs, coffee, and an orange juice. I know it sounds standard but over here it’s hard to come by.
I think I’m going to Post this now then upload my pictures. Since I can edit my blog posts, I figure I’ll attach relevant photos (and irrelevant ones) to my posts after the fact. Stay in touch.
Much Love to everyone,
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