I Can't Dance

What a weekend! And I proved once again, once and for all, that I can't dance (though I certainly did give it my best try!)

Well, it actually wasn't a wild weekend, but Saturday night was pretty cool. I had to work Friday afternoon in Pardubice, and then again Saturday morning/afternoon at my school, as an interlocutor for oral testing. It's supposedly a pretty important test for these students, so they need a native speaker to perform conversation with them...the conversation is recorded and mailed off to England for marking. They usually pass.

And then Saturday afternoon, Allan, the visiting son of Pat (the other Canadian teacher here), and I took off to Prague. There we met Alicia, a girl I used to work with last year at Barrie Hydro, and her friend Anne -- both from Barrie. Believe it or not, Allan also used to live in Barrie; so there we were, four of us, all at one point having lived in Barrie, never having met one another, hanging out in Prague. Good random fun.

So in the late afternoon I took them to an Irish pub that serves traditional Czech dishes right in the heart of Wenceslas Square. We all had the same dish: Gulas. And Pilsner, of course. Then we went out for the night; Jess, I took them to those two music bars that we both went to when you were here. They're both cellar pubs which play decent music, not techno. Well, as you can imagine, after a few 'pivos' I started getting that itch to dance, so I dragged the girls out with me, and Anne proceeded to give me some dancing lessons that I just couldn't quite figure out. I was holding my own pretty well out there, but I'm just not cut out for the world of professional dancing. I still think I did better than last month though, when there was an impromptu salsa dancing lesson at the concert I went to with my friend Hedvika.

So after we decided to leave, Allan and the girls were craving McDonalds (I don't eat that shit anymore). In McDonalds there was a pretty funny situation. Two Americans were behind us in line, and after the girls and Allan got their food, the Americans were up to order. When they came and sat down a few tables away from us, they were arguing about something...one guy was very visibly upset at the other guy about something, and the other guy was yelling at him to calm down. So Alicia and I decide we're going to go find out what it's all about--it's causing a bit of a scene in McDonalds. So we walk up and say "hey what's going on? Let's calm down a bit here." The upset guy says "Excuse me, do you know my name? Do you know my first name?" or something like that. I said "No, we don't, I'm Jeff" and hold my hand out for the introductory handshake. No dice. Shafted. Guy wouldn't even shake my hand. Then he says "We don't need your group therapy okay!" and Alicia and I kind of start to laugh and turn to the other guy and say "Hey, we're from Canada, where are you from?" I think they said Connecticut, but after that many beers it's tough to remember. So the other guy was kind of cool and talked to us...his name was Imad or something, and he told us the other guy (angry guy) was Mike. Turns out the whole problem, the whole reason Mike was freaking out, was because they wouldn't sell him Chicken McNuggets because it was after 2:15 or something like that. Well we lose it...I'm laughing my ass off. By this time Anne and Allan have joined us. Alicia says, "dude, relax man, you're in Prague. It's Chicken McNuggets!" But Angry Mike wasn't biting...he was seriously pissed off about this whole situation. So we talk to Imad for a bit and convince the two of them to come out with us for another drink. They eventually left with us, we tried a few bars that were already closing, and then we ended up ditching them as we decided not to go out afterall. Maybe you had to be there, but the situation was seriously funny.

Allan and I got back to our hostel, where we were met by our hostelmates, more Americans, and possibly the two most annoying girls I have ever met in my entire life. "There's nothing to dooo in this city." "Prague's, like, nowhere near as good as Madrid." "The service is soooo bad in this country." "The subway is, like, terrible here." "All the signs are, like, in Czech." Guess how long we stayed up talking with them that night? Too long, that's the correct answer.

And before you start thinking I'm anti-American, hold your tongue: I have an American cousin, and I'd like to point out that last month Olga and Dave were both from NYC.

Sunday morning we met Alicia and Anne and I showed them where Mission: Impossible was filmed. Then we had some food, and let them go off to the Museum of Communism. Slept almost the whole train ride back.

So, tomorrow (Wednesday) is my last day of work this week. We have the next six days off because of Easter, so I won't be returning to work until Wednesday next week. Sweet, eh? So on Thursday I'm grabbing a train to Vienna, staying two nights, and then moving on to Budapest, staying two nights, and then coming back to the Czech Republic. Don't know if I'll stay in Prague on the Monday night, but probably not. I just hope there's, like, something to dooo in Vienna.

That's enough for now. I'll put up some photos tomorrow of Saturday night with Alicia, Anne, and Allan.

Till next post...