Praha-hahaha

Whatcha gonna do when it's Christmastime in Europe and your family is in North America, getting together, singing carols, opening presents, and in general, hopelessly embarrassing each other? Well, I still had some family in Belgium (see "Un Souper de Famille") and of course, the friends I had made on exchange (who shall remain nameless unless they have sufficiently interesting stories in their own right to be posted) however, why spend Christmas with friends and family when you can spend it with complete strangers? OK, so it doesn't sound that great when put like that. However, I had wanderlust in my veins, and sufficient money in my account, so I bought a third class bus ticket to Prague (Praha to locals) and spent the 11 hours on the bus to get to the Czech Republic.

According to the Czech Museum of Communism, the Czech republic is a country that has come to grips with its Communist past and completed its transformation to a capitalist economy as the way of the future. As a general rule, I am skeptical as to what museums tell me, but the fact remains that the Czech Museum of Communism was inside a casino, with doormen and valet parking, so I guess I can trust this. As a matter of fact, Prague had about as many casinos as Seattle has Starbucks, which made me kind of leery about entering any of them. Who knows how regulated they were? I wouldn't want to lose my hard-earned money on a crooked blackjack game.

As usual, I was staying at the youth hostel. There were quite an eclectic bunch there over Christmas: Aussies (of course), Americans (one or two), Chileans, Argentinians, Brazilians, French and even a couple of Canadians. Consequently, most conversation took place in English, French or Spanish, and my services as a translator were in great demand. On the other hand, while I was a party to most conversations, I didn't participate in most, since I was too busy trying to remember what catarrho meant in English.

In short, I had a great time. A bunch of us went out to a bar on Christmas Eve. It was kind of depressing to see how many locals didn't have anywhere else to go on Christmas, but we made the most of it. To be precise, we made the most of the fact that beer retails at 1 euro a pint. I lasted until about 1, at which point the haze of smoke was far too much for my eyes, and returned to the hostel with two girls from Normandy.

We went out a couple of times all together. I organised a foray to the largest nightclub in Eastern Europe that was a smashing success. It was five floors of rockin' on with 3 separate nightclubs inside. One specialised in pop, the second in techno and the third in oldies. I was surprised how full the nightclub that specialised in oldies was, but I danced the night away to "Rockin' Robin" and "Rock around the Clock". Lest my reputation as a hipster suffer, I also spent quite some time on the techno level, but that was mostly because there was a cute Australian. I danced with her until her rather large, evil-looking boyfriend threatened to pound me, and then I beat a hasty retreat.

Prague was incredible. I did all the regular touristy things, the art gallery, the castle, the historic squares, the Christmas market, the Jewish ghetto tour. Overall, I have to signal a couple of things: most people spoke English, ATMs were plentiful (unlike in Belgium), food and gifts were extremely cheap (3 course meals at good restaurants for 5 euros) and everyone was extremely nice. It was a wonderful Christmas.