Jedno pivo prosim
I'm in Prague! Hooray! It's the last day of my travels! Damn!
Since I last checked in. . .
Italy won the world cup! Courtney and I were in Sorrento for the finale, watching a massive screen in the town square. As the world all knows by now, Italy won on penalty kicks, an incredibly anti-climactic finish. Zindane is a head-butting neanderthal!
The aftermath of the finale was insane. As in Rome for the semi-final, all of Sorrento took to the streets, honking horns, singing songs (a curious rendition of a Smashing Pumpkins song which I can't quite remember the name of), waving flags, lighting fire crackers, and experiencing a city-wide euphoria.
Courtney and I ducked into a wine bar for a little vino rosso and a break from the madness, where we were met with a nice bar tender and what seemed to be a bar regular. They both said the Italian team didn't play well at all and didn't deserve to win, and that Zidane showed his true colors, and that overall they were happy with the outcome.
An hour later we went back to our hotel which overlooked the main street in Sorrento. Two hours after the match there seemed to be zero noise abatement and therefore zero sleep for the American travelers. Thankfully I had some night-time cold medicine which knocked both me and Courtney right out (thanks for the supply Molly!).
The other highlight from our southern Italy adventure was Pompeii. The whole world knows the story of Pompeii, the city that was buried by a Volcanic explosion of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. But what I didn't know was how well preserved the city is. It feels like a ghost-town; a 2000 year-old ghost-town. The streets, frescos, art, buildings, brothels, theaters, villas and forums are so well in-tact that it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see what the place looked like. You don't get the smells and sounds of ancient Rome, but you definitely get the sights. Highly reccommended for anyone that likes to do things that are interesting and fun. If you don't like interesting and fun activities, I know a good psychologist named Adam that can help you out with this terrible state-of-mind.
Since Sorrento I went back to Rome, ate some pizza, bought some organic olive oil, and went to my present destination, Prague.
Prague is awesome. Land of 1000 spires, a crazy jewish cemetery (mom and dad, after the 100s of churches I've seen on this trip, I actually went to some synogogues. Not one but three! Don't worry, it wasn't for services but instead for sight-seeing), great beer, bread dumplings (which seems like a boiled cylindars of dough to me), and winding streets that have incredible buildings around every corner.
Of note so far:
1) There was the Bohemia Jazz Festival in the old town square. Pretty good music from folks I haven't heard of, and interesting stuff from guitarist Bill Frisell. Curiously, the festival ended with the "Punk Funk All-Stars" who were neither Punk nor Funk and really just shit. One of the worst bands I've ever seen headline a music festival.
2) After the Jazz Festival I went to a cool Jazz club in Old-Town Prague. A fantastic club, great band, great experience all around.
3) Much of the core tourist destinations are nice (Prague Castle, St. Nick's church, etc.) but pale in comparison to the overall city atmosphere.
4) My hosts Eva and Petr have been incredibly gracious. Thanks to them!
5) The beer. Oh my the beer. You get a ton of it for about $1. And the best part is you can go for another. Pilsner Urquell, the only Czech beer I had heard of before coming here is, surprisingly, the beer of choice for greater the Czech Republic. There are micro brews of course, but Pilsner Urquell gets a lot of respect here. And for good reason. It is delicious. In fact, I had two before sitting down to write this update. Which may explain my rambling. But anyway.
Tomorrow I will be flying back to the United States and jumping in a car for a cross country trip from New York to San Francisco (okay, really just Berkeley). If I can update the blog with some of these mis-adventures I will, but otherwise I will have a post-mortem, and then probably post-post-mortem within the next few weeks. But since this is the last "real" day of my travels, for those of you on my email update list, this will be the last blog post I will alert you to. If I can figure it out I may send out a link to a picture site (like ofoto or something) to show some of the finer points of our travels. But henceforth just check back to the ol' blog if you are curious if I've come up with more bull shit to put down here.
So, a quick little Harpers style list:
This trip saw
8 Train rides (not counting metros and air port shuttles)
9 Flights
30 Cities
49 Days
1 Car Accident (literally 5 minutes after Courtney drove out of the rental car lot)
Actually, this deserves its own story. . .
So Courtney and I rent a car in Florence to drive around Tuscany. For reasons unkown, Courtney was the only registered driver for the car, so I was (thankfully) relegated to navigator.
Five minutes after we pull out of the lot we merge into the wrong lane, try to go back into the correct lane and BAM! We smash into the side of a small Italian car. The Italian man inside did NOT look happy. It was definitely Courtney's--um, I mean our--fault, and while we had a little scratch on our rental, this guy had some damage to the length of his car.
He comes out of the car, looks at us, shakes his head and walks toward us. Courtney rolls down the window and the following exchange takes place:
Courtney: Mi scusi! Mi scusi! Sono Americano!
Italian Man: (says nothing, turns on his heel, runs back to his car and speeds away)
Courtney and her ethcial nature thought the guy wanted to handle this off of the busy street so she started following him. He clearly didn't want to be followed. So that was our car accident in Florence. We later buffed the scratch out at a gas station and the rental company didn't notice anything and has yet to say a word about it. So there you go. Now back to the list:
14 Tiramisus (a rough estimate)
30 Scoops of gelato (another rough estimate)
10 Pounds Gained (yet one more rough estimate)
3 Loads of laundry done
6 Languages Spoken (English, French, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Czech)
641 Photos Taken (despite what you may see on this here blog)
Of course in addition to all of this there are countless memories and experiences that are impossible to list, which is why I went on the "holiday" to begin with. Now off to business school.
Since I last checked in. . .
Italy won the world cup! Courtney and I were in Sorrento for the finale, watching a massive screen in the town square. As the world all knows by now, Italy won on penalty kicks, an incredibly anti-climactic finish. Zindane is a head-butting neanderthal!
The aftermath of the finale was insane. As in Rome for the semi-final, all of Sorrento took to the streets, honking horns, singing songs (a curious rendition of a Smashing Pumpkins song which I can't quite remember the name of), waving flags, lighting fire crackers, and experiencing a city-wide euphoria.
Courtney and I ducked into a wine bar for a little vino rosso and a break from the madness, where we were met with a nice bar tender and what seemed to be a bar regular. They both said the Italian team didn't play well at all and didn't deserve to win, and that Zidane showed his true colors, and that overall they were happy with the outcome.
An hour later we went back to our hotel which overlooked the main street in Sorrento. Two hours after the match there seemed to be zero noise abatement and therefore zero sleep for the American travelers. Thankfully I had some night-time cold medicine which knocked both me and Courtney right out (thanks for the supply Molly!).
The other highlight from our southern Italy adventure was Pompeii. The whole world knows the story of Pompeii, the city that was buried by a Volcanic explosion of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. But what I didn't know was how well preserved the city is. It feels like a ghost-town; a 2000 year-old ghost-town. The streets, frescos, art, buildings, brothels, theaters, villas and forums are so well in-tact that it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see what the place looked like. You don't get the smells and sounds of ancient Rome, but you definitely get the sights. Highly reccommended for anyone that likes to do things that are interesting and fun. If you don't like interesting and fun activities, I know a good psychologist named Adam that can help you out with this terrible state-of-mind.
Since Sorrento I went back to Rome, ate some pizza, bought some organic olive oil, and went to my present destination, Prague.
Prague is awesome. Land of 1000 spires, a crazy jewish cemetery (mom and dad, after the 100s of churches I've seen on this trip, I actually went to some synogogues. Not one but three! Don't worry, it wasn't for services but instead for sight-seeing), great beer, bread dumplings (which seems like a boiled cylindars of dough to me), and winding streets that have incredible buildings around every corner.
Of note so far:
1) There was the Bohemia Jazz Festival in the old town square. Pretty good music from folks I haven't heard of, and interesting stuff from guitarist Bill Frisell. Curiously, the festival ended with the "Punk Funk All-Stars" who were neither Punk nor Funk and really just shit. One of the worst bands I've ever seen headline a music festival.
2) After the Jazz Festival I went to a cool Jazz club in Old-Town Prague. A fantastic club, great band, great experience all around.
3) Much of the core tourist destinations are nice (Prague Castle, St. Nick's church, etc.) but pale in comparison to the overall city atmosphere.
4) My hosts Eva and Petr have been incredibly gracious. Thanks to them!
5) The beer. Oh my the beer. You get a ton of it for about $1. And the best part is you can go for another. Pilsner Urquell, the only Czech beer I had heard of before coming here is, surprisingly, the beer of choice for greater the Czech Republic. There are micro brews of course, but Pilsner Urquell gets a lot of respect here. And for good reason. It is delicious. In fact, I had two before sitting down to write this update. Which may explain my rambling. But anyway.
Tomorrow I will be flying back to the United States and jumping in a car for a cross country trip from New York to San Francisco (okay, really just Berkeley). If I can update the blog with some of these mis-adventures I will, but otherwise I will have a post-mortem, and then probably post-post-mortem within the next few weeks. But since this is the last "real" day of my travels, for those of you on my email update list, this will be the last blog post I will alert you to. If I can figure it out I may send out a link to a picture site (like ofoto or something) to show some of the finer points of our travels. But henceforth just check back to the ol' blog if you are curious if I've come up with more bull shit to put down here.
So, a quick little Harpers style list:
This trip saw
8 Train rides (not counting metros and air port shuttles)
9 Flights
30 Cities
49 Days
1 Car Accident (literally 5 minutes after Courtney drove out of the rental car lot)
Actually, this deserves its own story. . .
So Courtney and I rent a car in Florence to drive around Tuscany. For reasons unkown, Courtney was the only registered driver for the car, so I was (thankfully) relegated to navigator.
Five minutes after we pull out of the lot we merge into the wrong lane, try to go back into the correct lane and BAM! We smash into the side of a small Italian car. The Italian man inside did NOT look happy. It was definitely Courtney's--um, I mean our--fault, and while we had a little scratch on our rental, this guy had some damage to the length of his car.
He comes out of the car, looks at us, shakes his head and walks toward us. Courtney rolls down the window and the following exchange takes place:
Courtney: Mi scusi! Mi scusi! Sono Americano!
Italian Man: (says nothing, turns on his heel, runs back to his car and speeds away)
Courtney and her ethcial nature thought the guy wanted to handle this off of the busy street so she started following him. He clearly didn't want to be followed. So that was our car accident in Florence. We later buffed the scratch out at a gas station and the rental company didn't notice anything and has yet to say a word about it. So there you go. Now back to the list:
14 Tiramisus (a rough estimate)
30 Scoops of gelato (another rough estimate)
10 Pounds Gained (yet one more rough estimate)
3 Loads of laundry done
6 Languages Spoken (English, French, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Czech)
641 Photos Taken (despite what you may see on this here blog)
Of course in addition to all of this there are countless memories and experiences that are impossible to list, which is why I went on the "holiday" to begin with. Now off to business school.
posted by LoJazar at 9:04 AM
1 Comments:
Wow. My favorite post yet. Sounds like you did it right. Welcome back...come on up to Mendo when you can!
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