Minor updates

Not much new, really. I've been sick the last 3 or 4 days, some sort of flu-ish thing. Tidbits:

- I was walking by a church enclosed by a large stone wall. Graffiti on the wall read "Dream of white Cabbage".

- It's really amazingly hard to find a bottle of aspirin in Prague on Sunday. I spent 3 hours today and failed.

- While looking for aspirin at Tesco's, I noticed that the deodorant aisle is enourmous. I mean really, really, big. Lots of deodarant. This is somewhat ironic, as many Czechs don't seem to bother. For the overly self-conscious (read: me), this involves a lot of sniffing yourself as you walk down to street.

- I've discovered that the brewery on the corner makes a sour cherry beer that's excellent.

- Question: when you have to answer a question that you don't understand, is "yes" or "no" a better bet? "I don't understand" gets very tiring, and most of the time these days I just wing it and say yes or no. Thank god, Czech lessons start Wednesday.

Propaganda

I had my first taste of absynthe the other night, at a small corner joint near the river called the Propaganda Cafe. Absynthe turns out to be green, heavy and suprisingly good-tasting for a drink that's 70% alcohol. The traditional method of drinking it involves dipping some sugar in the absynthe, lighting the sugar on fire, and stirring it into the drink. Then consume the drink, but carefully. Walking will not be your forte soon.

Weaving my way out of the Propaganda cafe, I realized I had left my cigarettes behind. I have already left my pack in a bar once. As I was turning to return, the cute, likely adolescent bartender ran out after me with my pack.

I believe I've found my bar.

Also, my newfound joy in life is the extreme sports channel, where you can watch skateboarders doing their thing 24/7. Tommorow I'll be heading back to the park on the hill where I last saw legions of skaters. Who are an absolute joy to watch; I've always enjoyed watching kids skate, but could never find a place in San Francisco where they congregated.

Olympic badminton is actually pretty facsinating, too.

Sure, come on in

The christians here in Prague are really agressive.

Yesterday I was flagged down on the street, in a arms-waving-we-really-need-to-talk fashion, by a German girl who dodged around the point before inviting me to her bible study group.

Today a couple of folks buzzed at the door, dodged around the point, and then asked if I had read the bible. I said I had (it's a half-truth - only the naughty bits), but no, I would not like to speak with them about the bible.

Again, a half-truth, and a minorly ironic one: I'd love to have a conversation with someone about the bible -"What's with all the blood on the alter roundabout?" - "Could maybe, just maybe God have needed a really good editor?" - but who talks with door-to-door God salesmen?

Language problems

When travelling in a country where you don't know the language, one has 3 options.

Option A: go to the tourist zones. They speak english, and deal with the likes of you, day in, day out.

Option B: Go where the locals go. This will usually involve lots of helpless shrugging, pointing, and eating weird food. Yesterday I asked for the English menu, and they gave me one in German - which was still more compreshensible than the menu in Czech.

(footnote a:) you will feel like an ass.

Option C: Subsist on coffee and cigarettes for as long as you can. When your hunger overpowers your fear of ineviatable humiliation, proceed to option a or b, depending on geographic proximity, but not before making a long detour at footnote a.

I'm an option C man, myself.

Journal Entry, August 16th.

The furniture is replaceable. This lamp? It doesn't mean much to me. I own one thing - a zippo cigarette lighter, with an alfo-romeo emblem that appears to be welded on. My uncle, who died last October, carried it in this tight blue jeans. He offered it when smoking - I'd have my bic lighter in hand, and he'd hold out this ligther, as if to say "no, this is better. Try this."

The value of attachment to specifics. Try not to believe that you could be replaced. That every lover, friend, memory and pair of shoes has its place. You are not the man who fell next into her arms. You are not the first-born. Of course, you're not Ghandi either, but it's assumed you knew this already.

Pregnant Pick-Pockets

In Czech, the title is "Důležitý Kapsář". At least so says the internet. Not quite the alliterative ring of english.

I've been seriously jet-lagged. My travel here to Prague lasted about 30 hours, including 6 hours at the San Francisco airport, and another 6 of forced-waking in Prague, waiting for my lost luggage to be delivered to me. I woke up the other night at about 3am, and went out wandering.

At about 5 in the morning, I was walking back home, eating a stange-but-delicious potato pancake that someone had managed to stuff a pork chop into. Coming down the street, a pregnant lady and her assumed husband. She said something in Czech, and motioned for me to light her cigarette for her (smokers seem to be able to communicate their needs, the language barrier be damned) I whipped out my prize zippo (more on this lighter later), thinking "how cool am I, I have this Alfa Romeo lighter." She then proceeded to lean in close to me, and say something to me that, while incomprehensible, I could only guess was a come-on. I was fairly disgusted, thinking "oh gross, a pregnant prostitute." Then I felt her hand in my right pocket - she was grabbing at a 200 crown (about 8 bucks, for the curious) note there. I knocked her hand out of my pocket, and couldn't think of anything to say in Czech to express my displeasure, so what came out was this vaguely animal noise - something like a high-pitched growl. I'm going to have to sign up for language courses, if only to learn how to tell possibly pregnant pickpockets how to fuck off.

In retrospect, she probably wasn't pregnant, but who would simply hand their lighter to a pregnant lady? You're fairly obligated to do the right thing and light the smoke for her, which I suppose is a big part of her hook. Because she was a really lousy pick-pocket.