And Now, on with the Praga Saga...
After mastering the Czech language, I had a shower and returned to the dormitory room to find a girl munching on a snack and staring out the window.
"Where you from?" I asked after putting on a shirt.
"Texas," she replied with a breathy laugh like she had just remembered something hilarious, long ago forgotten. I was convinced she was stoned.
"What are you eating? I asked, eyeing the little plastic bag in her hand.
"It's like this weird thing they have in Spain. It's like bread...well stale bread I guess." Another breathy laugh. I tried a piece.
"Yeah that tastes exactly how you described it." Another breathy laugh followed by a long exhale and "whoo" sound. After she recovered she informed me that she was also waiting for a friend who would arriving tonight.
I went to the kitchen for a glass of water and when I returned there was another American wearing a sweater and a knitted hat. Naveem made me completely nervous by bopping around the hostel and probing everyone with questions. Apparently he had graduated from MIT pre-med and was currently working on a masters of public health at Cambridge. He made sure I understood Cambridge, England, not Massachusetts. He carried a Lonely Planet: Prague around like a bible.
"The book was talking about the Charles Bridge and the castle and shit so I checked all that out today."
"Yeah the book recommends a lot of different pubs so I want to check those out."
"The book mentions microbrews, what do you think of microbrews."
"Noah I started circling all the places we need to go to night. While I'm in the shower, find some more sick pubs and shit and circle them with this pen." He placed the travel guide and writing utensil on a table, ripped off his shirt like he was allergic to it and then sprinted off toward the shower. I left the book exactly where it was.
"You didn't look at the book did you?" He asked after emerging from the bathroom.
"No sorry I-"
"What have you got against the book?" He said like I had just insulted his pet cat.
"I don't know I'm just not really a travel guide kind of guy."
"Dude it says everything we need to know. How else would you find out about this shit."
"You could walk around, or ask someone who lives here."
"Good point, the book does say they speak good English in Prague for the most part."
I headed with Naveem and Izor for a frantic bar hop. The book would end up taking a beating from the relentless cold rain that poured down on us. Despite my anti-travel guide attitude, the book did lead us to my favorite bar, so far, in all of Europe.
Vinárna U Sudu looks like a cramped bar for elderly people upon first glance. Thin enough for only one lane of human traffic, a few old Czechers, wise beyond their years, sipped beer and smoked constantly. The parasitic Lonely Planet through its host, Naveem, insisted that we make our way toward the door in the back and I reluctantly followed.
A set of narrow wooden stairs led us to a crowded basement bar. Alternative artwork adorned the walls and students milled about with giant Pilsners with hats of foam on top (this is how beer is purposely poured in Prague). We continued through a brick archway into a small hallway that led to another bar. Through another brick archway and another small hallway, a third bar greeted us. The fourth bar was in a room full of fooseball tables, the fifth was down another set of stairs and seemed to be reserved only for kissing couples, while frequenters to the sixth bar all brought their family dogs along. The seventh bar smelled distinctly like Marijuana, and the eighth played rock music so we settled there for a drink.
"Told you man," said Naveem, closing the book for the first time all night to clink his mug with mine.
We enjoyed a couple of cheap delicious Pilsners, and then switched to shots of Becherovka, a liquor native to the Czech Republic (Lonely Planet recommended of course), that can only be described as spicy. Before long, Naveem became restless and moved us along.
"We gotta' find a place with microbrews." I followed through the continuous rain into Prague's Old Town Square, a beautifully cobble-stoned piazza full of lit-up Christmas trees and empty market tents and stalls. The skyline was dominated by the spired Gothic Church of Our Lady Before Tyn, an intricate and intimidating structure that looks like it belongs in Tolkein's Mordor.
I followed Naveem into a trendy bar where they asked for my I.D. before entering (first time occurance in Europe) and drinks cost as much as they might in the middle of Manhatten. We met an overly-friendly Dutch girl who claimed she could not only guess where each one of us was from, but also where we were studying. She pointed at Naveem,
"You. You are from India."
"My parents are from India."
"I knew it." She continued,
"You are studying in England." Naveem tapped his nose with a finger.
"I knew it." She moved toward me to study my face.
"You are from the United States." I touched my nose like Naveem.
"You are studying in Europe."
"How did you guess?" I asked.
"I am very good." I excused myself from the Dutch psychic, who insisted I come to Amsterdam and stay in her apartment, to get a better look at the scene going on behind me.
A group of forty something Czech woman seemed to think it was a good idea to wear plaid miniskirts and dance erotically together. Men circled around to watch without embarrassment. Naveem urged me to talk to some Indian looking girls with him, but I declined as they looked neither attractive nor over the age of eighteen.
We returned to the hostel briefly to grab Izur's friend Shane from Missouri, also studying for a semester in Seville. I followed Naveem and his printed master to a small bar advertising microbrews, which were dark and delicious and served by two enormous gentlemen with shaved heads and black butchers' aprons. They made me uneasy to say the least.
"Becherovka?" asked Naveem to the group. Izor was suffering from a bit of a cough (maybe from too much pot smoking) and had stopped drinking, but Shane and I nodded, and Naveem approached the bar. We watched him begin a conversation with the older and more menacing looking bald Czech man, and then proceed to order five shots of Becherovka instead of the necessary three.
"Nastrovya," said the butchers in unison as we all downed our spicy shots.
"The guy told me he hadn't slept in three days, so I bought him a drink," explained Naveem, "plus they only cost sixteen Crowns, that's like less than a dollar."
We continued rounds of shots with the bartenders, including a special peach flavored vodka that may have been mixed in a bathtub behind the bar. When the older butcher left to deliver a round to another group, the younger one pulled us in close for a huddle.
"My name is Milan. You have been very nice to me. When my boss is not watching, I will bring you free drinks." We thanked Milan and agreed to play it cool, continuing to order more and more sixteen Crown shots until my head was spinning.
Naveem asked Milan when the free drinks would arrive as he wanted to hit one more, book-recommended bar down the street. Milan assured us that the other place would be closed, but if we insisted, he told us that when we returned the endless free drinks would begin. He handed Naveem the bill and I heard a loud F-word.
"What's up?" I asked.
"Sixty."
"What?"
"He was saying sixty. Sixty Crown shots, not sixteen." About three dollars per shot. The bill was quite lofty and Naveem did not have enough Czech Crowns on him to pay for it. Unfortunately I did, and out of fear of being butchered, I paid Milan and we made our way to the other bar, which was in fact closed.
We returned to Milan's bar and inquired about the free drinks, the place appeared to be empty. "The boss is watching," whispered the younger butcher as he stacked a barstool. "Next time. Come back tomorrow. Free drinks."
It seemed Milan the Butcher had gotten the better of us.
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