Prague to Kynsperk: the Czech equivalent of Sydney to Cygnet.

Alright…so we left off in our final night in Prague. Next stop on our European adventure was North-Western Czech Republic. My grandma comes from a small town  called Kynšperk which is very close to the German border. When I say ‘small’, I don’t mean Hobart small, I mean one-shop small. Essentially the town equivalent of me. I’d been communicating with my cousin, Little Liba, so my family were expecting me at some point, but they are not the easiest people with whom to make contact. At least, I thought they were expecting me. (Also, I should clarify that Little Liba is the name we use to differentiate between my cousin Liba, and her mother, Big Liba; likewise my uncle Big Mirek and my cousin, Little Mirek.)

I was very sad to be leaving Prague, but also excited to be seeing my family again, and more of Europe. What I was not excited about was getting from Prague to Kynšperk (or even from our room to the lobby) without my apparition licence. My bag is kind of big.When I say ‘big’, I don’t mean "big" like a serve of Gold Class wedges, I mean big like Greece’s economical and political problems. Let me put this into perspective: I weigh 40 kilos and my bag weighs 20 kilos. Kaitlyn says I look like a turtle. If I stand with my back to her, she can't see my head; I am literally just a bag with legs. Pretty rank, muscly legs too, thanks to the endless cobblestone-trekking thus far undertaken.

Somehow, we made it to the train station and made our way to purchase tickets for our 10.20am train. As we patiently waited and moved to the front of the queue, two (separate) people literally shoved us out of the way and pushed in front of us. Advice From an Objective Foreigner: Speaking on behalf of all tourists, we are aware that we are tourists in your country. However, although we do not pay taxes, our visit – in particular our predilection for drinking - has injected enough money into your economy to warrant our position in a queue to be acknowledged. In other words, I don’t give a shit that you live here, I was waiting first.

As cynical as I am, I have a tendency to take everything I read on the Internet as Gospel (including my Facebook relationship status which hints at a slightly less-depressing love-life). Just because the online time-table says the train leaves at 10.20am, doesn’t mean it does; it was one hell of a waddle to reach the 9.38am train on-time. As I was attempting to navigate the steps without rocking backwards and landing on my shell, I heard a whistle blow and, next thing I know, the train was pulling out of the station. We eventually found a carriage which only had one other person in it. And what a person she was – a really sunny, winning personality. Now I am aware that I am somewhat notorious for my derisive and sarcastic nature, but comparatively, I’m goddamn Sandra Dee. I have no idea what her name was, but she was from Finland and had recently moved to the Czech Republic. When we expressed positive sentiments about Finland, she looked at us like we were insane. ‘It’s horrible. The most depressing place in the world. Don’t ever go.’

‘Oh…okay…’ Awkward.

Her delivery wasn’t even sarcastic, but miserable and monotone. ‘It’s just f$!@ing awful. If I’d stayed there any longer I would have died. I would have killed myself. Talking about it makes me want to kill myself.’ Okay, then let’s stop talking about it. Turns out

"F$!@ing Finland" wasn’t the only thing that made her depressed. In fact, I don’t think anything didn’t.

The twenty cent coffee she brought on the train: ‘This coffee is horrible. I think drinking it might kill me.’

The nice Czech lady who sold her the allegedly horrifying coffee: ‘Why is she so

f$!@ing happy?’

The temperature on the train: ‘It is so hot in here. I just want to kill myself so I am not hot anymore.’

When we were approaching her stop, I offered to help her carry her stuff off the train. (I promise it was because I believe in "paying it forward", and not because I wanted to push her off and make all her dreams come true.) As we pulled into the station, I mentioned to her that this town was the only town in the Czech Republic to suffer any extensive damage during the War. ‘Oh good. It looks f$!@ing ugly. All the ugly buildings will remind me of being in Finland. I won’t get homesick.’ I guess one could consider this a glass-half-full view of the situation.

It was nice to have the carriage to ourselves so we could openly discuss all the good which exists in the world and not fear assassination. However, all too soon our train trip was over and we arrived in Kynšperk . My family – the Wolfs – run the solitary shop in the town, so when I’ve been there in the past, I’ve just arrived at the shop because there is always

someone there. Despite having not been able to get in contact with Little Liba that morning, I said to Kailtyn we’d be fine to rock up to the shop. It was one of the very few times in my life I was wrong. Because of my cousin’s wedding, there was a big sign in the window declaring the shop closed until Monday. And it wasn’t as if I could duck into Macca’s and use the free Wifi to Facebook her. (This town is yet to even experience the wonder that is dial-up Internet.) Hoping there would be someone in the building (they live above the shop), I knocked on the door…but there was nada. So we lumbered across the road to a park bench and sat. And waited. Keep in mind it was a 39 degree day, and this was right about lunch time.

Looking back, the whole situation was kind of funny. At the time, it was not. Sitting there in this tiny town (in the country where Hostel was filmed), having nowhere to go, having no phone, no food, no alcohol…then, suddenly, we weren’t alone. We heard this low, humming

sound. Kaitlyn looked at me. ‘What the [hell] is that?’

‘I have no idea….’ I didn’t share these thoughts with her at the time, but it did momentarily flash through my mind: Eastern European country, on the German border… The humming sound began to get louder and louder, but we still couldn’t see anything. Even I was starting to get a little concerned.

‘Seriously – what the [HELL] is that?’ Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the wall opposite us. Then about 100 metres away, this man on a motorised wheelchair emerged from around the corner. As he progressed towards us, it was one of those inappropriately amusing moments when we looked at each other and tried not to laugh. Then it stopped being inappropriately amusing and became quite scary. As he neared us, he slowed right down for the last ten metres, before coming to a complete stop in front of us. And then he just stared. And it wasn’t a friendly who-are-these-new-people-in-town kind of a stare, it was a would-it-be-worth-the-bother-transporting-these-girls-back-to-my-rape-dungeon kind of stare. I thought I’d try and break the ice. ‘Ahoj’ (hello). Nothing. Just more staring and silence. And that was the best I had as, in recent years, my Czech has fallen by the wayside.Not that it mattered - what else could I have possibly said to him? ‘My family live here and we are just visiting, so please don’t go Jack-The-Ripper on us’? ‘These earrings aren’t at all valuable – they were $5.95 from Diva…but you can have them if you really want.’? He continued to look from Kaitlyn to me; I continued to look from him to Kailtyn; Kaitlyn continued to look from me to him. And then he put his chair back into gear and slowly continued his way up the road.

And he was the only sign of life we saw for a half hour. Kaitlyn even said to me at one point, ‘I keep expecting a tumbleweed to come rolling down the street past us.’ Either that or John Wayne on a horse to save the day. Then I had an epiphany – aka employed some common sense. And I went and rang the doorbell on the front door. Instant reaction…only not the one I was looking for. Jacob, my cousin, opened the window above and bellowed down what I believe was a terse message of ‘The shop is closed for the day’. I yelled back in really simplified English – ‘Jacob! It’s Claire. From Australia.’ He just stared at me. Clearly he did not recognise me…which made sense seeing as last time he saw me he was running around in the back garden naked. He shut the window and for a few moments I thought we might be top-and-tailing the night on the park bench…or trying to track down Jack to see if we could sleep in his torture chamber. Then my aunt appeared. She too appeared to not recognise me for a moment – probably because I haven’t grown at all since she last time saw me. Whether or not Little Liba had told anyone we were coming, I will never know, but I guess it is entirely possible my general vagueness is genetic.

Big Liba ushered us inside and simultaneously phoned Little Liba and rustled together an enormous plate of food for us. Then she sat down at the table with us and we embarked on a series of crazy hand gestures as a form of communication. When I said my Czech has "fallen by the wayside" in recent years, my current skill-level is probably best defined as "virtually non-existent" or, even more accurately, "shit-house". So when Big Liba’s friend turned up to do her washing (the few words I could understand, coupled with the fact this lady arrived armed with a basketful of clothes and placed them in the washing machine allowed me to ascertain this), it was a welcome relief…at least initially. It was good to begin with as we were able to use broken Czech, beyond-broken English, and an iPhone dictionary to have some meaningless conversation, the highlight of which went a little something like this:

BLF (Big Liba’s Friend): ‘You are very brave travelling all this way from Australia.’

Claire: ‘Ummm….yes and no…’

BLF: ‘How old are you?’

Claire: ‘24’

BLF: Jaw hitting floor and eyebrows hitting ceiling.

'24? No?!’

Claire: Ano (confusingly this means ‘yes’ in Czech)

BLF: ‘I thought you were maybe 15.’

Claire: (Internally: You and everyone else.)

With the pleasantries over, our party of silence continued. Any observer would have been forgiven for mistaking our shindig for a Quaker Gathering. Then finally, after what seemed like hours, but was realistically only about a half hour, Little Liba arrived. Problem: although better than my Czech, the break between visits had caused a slight rusting of her bilingual skills. It didn’t take me long to realise our visit had all the makings of a terrible sitcom. More awkward, broken conversation ensued, and for the third time we had the same fragmented conversation about where we had been, where we were going, how long for, where we met, how I look like a child, what we studied at uni.

Then it was time to visit my uncle, Fester. Shockingly, Uncle Fester’s name isn’t actually Uncle Fester, but Slavek. When my aunt (ahodge, Brownie, if you’re reading this) first visited the fam', she noticed the striking resemblance Slavek has to Uncle Fester from The Addams Family. Even grandma now calls him Uncle Fester. Uncle Fester and his wife Christa live on the other side of the village which, whilst no more urbanised, certainly appears to be more heavily populated. Populated with persons who are as stuck in the 90’s as I am stuck in a one-sided love affair with Isaac Brock. I’m not sure from where one would buy a diamante-laden Halle Berry t-shirt these days (or, arguably, ever), but apparently they are possible to source in this area of the world. I must say they do nicely compliment the tight, flared, hipster white lycra pants to which Eastern European women are so partial. Advice From an Objective Foreigner: If you insist on wearing such constrictive, translucent pants, make sure the g-string you’re wearing underneath isn’t black.

By the time we started walking back, it must have reached - if not exceeded - the predicted maximum of 39 degrees. It was freaking hot. Another thing about male Czechs – particularly those in this village – is that they are as fond of going shirtless as their female counterparts are of ill-fitting, tight white lycra pants. And I’m totes down with this when a guy looks like Christian Bale or Mark Salling…but let’s just say my predisposition for a protruding ribcage does not come from this side of my gene pool. My fondness for beer, on the other hand, clearly does, which brings us nicely back to the quaint, rural scene in which we were all sitting in the sun around a wooden table, drinking beer and using the alcohol to break down the barriers of our language differences. Except for poor Kaitlyn, who does not enjoy beer in the slightest. After politely declining their offer of some local pivo, she asked if she could have some water. They were more than happy to oblige. I too had some water, only mine came courtesy of Kaitlyn’s oral cavity, as she sprayed my face and upper body with a mouthful. Turns out the water she had was "Czech Water" – an entire glass of pure, home-brewed vodka. One might think this is a nasty trick but, in reality, it is simply completely incomprehensible for my family that someone would not want to drink.

Now, according to the gentleman who took my Responsible Service of Alcohol course, the only thing that can sober a person up is time; not coffee, not water, not a cold shower – just time. I, however, beg to differ. After a couple of nice, cold beers in the sun, I was on that magnificent precipice of buzzed and tipsy. Then my little cousins, Adelka and Lucka, brought over some rabbits for us to pat. After playing with them for a couple of minutes, and learning that their names were Susie and Ferdinand, I asked whose pet was whose. Turns out Susie and Ferdinand were dinner, and with that, two of the shirtless men took them around the back of the shed, whilst a third followed with some tools. I can assure Mr RSA that this sobered me up better than any 4.00am kebab and a twelve -our sleep-in ever could.

Next time on ‘Culture Shock: Two Urban Aussies In Rural Czech Republic’, we avoid eating Susie and Ferdinand, spend a day in a spa town, attempt to cope without the Internet, watch Big Liba’s Friend become Big Leaching Friend, and celebrate as Kaitlyn and her liver embrace living like an Eastern European wog.

Prague Take Two: TGIF’s, Tarzan and (a lack of) Tantrums.

I apologise for the delay between blogs. As you will learn, free-time has been scant at best in the last week. I believe we last parted ways the morning after our first Drunken Money Pub Crawl in Prague. (‘First’ being the operative word of that sentence…but we'll get to that in due course). Right after posting my previous blog entry, Kaitlyn awoke. 'I'm trying to work out how I can get food without moving.' I offered to go and get some for her, an offer she very quickly dismissed with, 'I am not letting you wander around Czech streets on your own.' Continuing after a sight pause, 'But if you want to...'. After this, we spent a little bit of time LOLing over our vague recollections of events from the night before. You’ve already read essentially everything we remember from the night: Thor, Thor2, Beer Pong, drinking, dancing, strip clubs. There are also other things which you won’t (ever) be reading about…nor will you (ever) be seeing the photographic evidence of. I’m a tease.

So Prague is stunning – bias aside. And we have seen A LOT of it: monasteries, synagogues, cemeteries. But I am pretty sure no one is reading this to learn about the specifics of each and every stained-glass window we saw.

So…as I mentioned before, we may have partaken in the Drunken Monkey Pub Crawl a second time. The story goes a little something like this: I am Czech, therefore I like Absinth; I am human, therefore I like slushies. When I see the two combined for an all-inclusive price of $1.90, it would be sacrilegious to walk past without sampling. Where this turned into a bad idea, was when the question was posed, 'You vant strong?' Had I known then what I know now (that “strong” means adding five shots of Absinth to a slushie already laced with copious amounts of Absinth), I would have said 'no'. Isn’t hindsight a marvellous thing?

The following admission will do serious damage to my reputation as a first-class drinker: I couldn’t finish it. Honestly, it was so strong that the first sip caused my blood-alcohol level to spike to a dangerous high. It was also so strong that it caused me to say yes to Drunken Monkeying again. Long story short, whilst searching for a nice little watering hole to base ourselves for the evening, we ran into Ash, one of the guides from the pub crawl. When I say “ran into", it was more a case of hearing her from right across the Old Town Square as she drunkenly accosted people and “suggested” the tour to them. Given that we had such an amazing night, we thought we would go over and say thanks. It’s a simple equation really: Absinth slushie + half-price tickets + being described for all of Prague to hear as ‘The Most F$@%ING AMAZING CHICKS I HAVE EVER MET’ = an easy sell.

Upon our arrival, Kaitlyn and I were literally the ONLY girls in the entire bar. This probably sounds like it would have been an amazing thing – a testosterone smorgasbord from which we could leisurely feast without interruption. In reality, it was more like being a slab of beef in a meat market full of hungry men who have just decided to dispense with their vegan-ways. Fortunately, not long after we sat down, we were approached by an Irish contingent. Kaitlyn was pretty stoked about this because one of her (numerous) fantasies is to recreate a scene from PS I Love You with Gerard Butler. (I'm not clear on the specifics, but I am under the impression it involves her, Butler, and a legal-only-in-Canberra classification.) All in all, we were a lot better behaved the second time around and, thus, I have few stories with which to regale you. It turns out that Kailtyn and I share a mutual affection for twins – me in that I want to have twins of my own one day (in the FAR away future), and her in that she seems to gravitate towards them in bars, even if only by accident. This time there were not one, but TWO sets of twins with whom we socialised. Fortunately they were less exasperating than the Thors, and came without the shadowing expertise of highly-skilled ninjas.

Apparently when people drink in Prague, there is a certain section of the brain which is temporarily obliterated. This is the part of the brain that registers one ever having seen short people before. People who have partied with me in the past will be aware that when people drink, they like to pick me up. Prague, however, has taken this to a whole new level. Not one, not two, not three, but SIX different people asked to have their photo taken with me that night. And not because of my arresting beauty, or even because I had so-entertained them with my razor-sharp wit that they wanted a happy snap by which to forever remember my pleasurable company. No, these people all wanted photos with me because I am so small. I felt like a circus freak, and not like the time they did a circus-freak photo-shoot on America’s Next Top Model and they all looked hot, but more like the chubby-bearded-lady-with-stubby-deformed-hands-and-giant-cankles kind of circus freak. The first request (which was made in good-nature) was kind of amusing, by the third I was bored, and by the sixth I was slightly embarrassed. I consoled myself by considering these men must have been insecure about their size in some respect and, although I am small, at least I am in proportion. *Wink wink*.

The only other thing worth noting about the crawl was the final destination. In fact, one of the selling-points for us was when Ash let slip the crawl was going to a rooftop Latin party in the middle of the city. Whilst I consider Justin Bieber to be as Latin as I am Inuit, I was willing to overlook this propaganda as the place was AMAZING! It was literally on a rooftop, ten stories up in the middle of the Old Town. I could practically touch the clock-face of the Town Hall and stroke the spires around me. It was so amazing that I even danced to Bieber and Britney Spears in a completely non-ironic way. Whatevs.

Apart from that, we spent our remaining days being tourists, doing touristy things: bridges, castles, churches, pubs, McDonaldses. I won’t bore you with those details. You’re probably anticipating a salacious story involving TGIF’s given that it is in the blog title. Honestly, it’s there primarily because I’ve exhausted my stock of Prague-related happenings beginning with "T". We did go to TGIF’s for dinner. And for us it is memorable not so much because it was amazing, but because we both got about one eighth of the way through our meals and had to leave because we thought we were going to be sick. It was weird and disappointing because my fried mozzarella was amazing. Perhaps all our pub crawling finally caught up with us.

On our final night, we decided to walk across the Charles Bridge one last time. As we embarked on our twilight stroll along the river, we saw a group of very attractive men up ahead, the most attractive of which was dressed like Tarzan – and I’m talking full-on leopard print outfit, carrying around a club (and, inexplicably, sporting a ridiculous mullet wig). As we walked up close to them we could hear them speaking French. I think Kaitlyn put it best, ‘Me Jane. Me like the French.’ We passed them without incident, but a few minutes later they approached us. Tarzan tapped one of us on the shoulder. ‘Excoose me gurls. I have a fevour to ask yeww..’ The answer was always going to be yes. ‘I em from Belgium. We ahh ‘ere for me as I get married tomorrow.’ Sad faces. ‘I would like you please to guess the size of my sex.’ Saywhat?!

‘What?’

‘My sex.’

He used his club to draw our attention to his leopard-skin shielded crotch. ‘I would like you to tell me how beeeg you tink it is.You can terch it if you like.’ He actually said that. As good looking as this guy was, I had no desire whatsoever to terch his sex. Especially as his friends were videoing the whole thing. I asked the obvious question, ‘Do you think your future wife would like that very much?’

‘She vill never find out.’ Ummmm…you’re in the future now, Tarzan. You’re friends aren’t just filming this, they’re probably streaming it online. ‘Even if this is the case, we’re good. But thanks.’

‘You are viry….errr…aggressif. But you are also viry smahll, so I am not vorried.’ I was struggling to see the relevance of this statement, but he ploughed on. ‘Smahll tings, they are viry nice, viry good.’

‘Thanks…’

At this point he turned his attention to Kaitlyn, mistakenly thinking she might be up for some terching of his sex. ‘Vat about choo? You terch and tell me vat you tink.’

‘Ummm…no.’

‘Okay. You not terch, but you guess?’ A lot of awkward conversation ensued, where we both eventually relented in the hopes of getting rid of him. Kaitlyn went first. ‘I dunno…fifteen.’ (BTW – we are using the metric system here). Tarzan was pretty freaking happy at this response and pointed theatrically at Kaitlyn, ‘Ahhhh! I like dis one.’ Then he looked expectantly at me.‘Well you’re not going to like me then. I say ten.’ I didn’t actually consider his sex, but instead tried to pick a number which was enough to knock him off his pedestal of egotism, but not so much that he would use his club to butcher me. ‘Ahhhh! But dis is still good!’ And it was in this moment that I understood the references to my height. Turns out I was not the only ‘smahll ting’ standing by the river.

No doubt the entire tête-à-tête can be viewed on Facebook, Twitter, and various other social networking sites. That is going to be a marriage for the ages.

And so Prague was complete. And without another (blog-worthy) tantrum from Kaitlyn. However, I am considering the creation of a third blog, this one entitled ‘Advice From an Objective Foreigner’. Should this ever come to fruition, the first entry will be regarding the Hotel Crematorium. Here, I will point out that "Hotel Crematorium" is not an appealing name for a guesthouse. Especially when the movie Hostel was filmed in your country.

Next stop, Kynšperk , to chillax with my kinfolk.

Praha – Pub Crawls, Pivo, Panoramas and Pacifying Kaitlyn

Foreword: This is not the full Prague story as, due to a consistently hectic schedule of sight-seeing and bar-viewing, I have limited time for writing.

Prague – the city of 100 spires. It really is just as beautiful as I remember it. Almost as beautiful as I look this morning after three hours sleep and a marathon pub crawl where the word ‘crawl’ became quite literal. But I’ll pull a Julie Andrews and start at the very beginning.

Thanks to the aforementioned "air traffic congestion over China" and our subsequent flight delay, we arrived in Prague quite late. Our wanky boutique hotel is about a ten minute walk to the museum – which is probably best explained to those who don’t know Prague as the start of the city centre; the Liverpool Link of Praha. We had plans to venture out for a celebratory beverage to commemorate our first night together in Europe, but on account of a sleepless flight (thanks to the concerto of catarrh to my right), we settled for a quick walk into the main drags and ice-cream – we’re pretty hard-core like that. 

The next morning we awoke early and hit the streets of Prague. In brief, we did the essential touristy things: Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, Old Town Square and the Astronomical Clock (or, as Kaitlyn referred to it, Gastronomical Clock). Prague is still bursting at the seams with tacky souvenirs; Kafka posters, ‘Czech Me Out’ t-shirts (and condoms) and a lot of Absinth paraphernalia. There is also a plethora of amber jewellery, Czech glass, ceramics and horribly tawdry Babushka Dolls. Although I was somewhat intrigued by the Silvio Berlusconi doll...I can only assume there are girls inside and each one gets younger and younger. 

Despite being tired, we were pretty keen to go out for a few drinks and meet some people. In brief, it didn’t happen. We did go out for a few drinks, but all they did was exacerbate the fatigue. So we gave up and decided to have another early night and save the partying for the next evening.

So the next morning we again started early, and did much of the same thing: a lot of walking and enjoying the city. Obviously it’s all amazing and interesting to us, but I’m not going to bore you guys with intimate details about every church and every old building façade. But I will tell you about the Hotel U Prince. It’s a hotel for rich people smack-bang in the middle of the Old Town Square. However, it has a beautiful rooftop bar with the most amazing views of the city and, whilst comparatively expensive with the rest of Prague, drinks are cheaper here than the Welcome Stranger (and you won’t run into people shooting up in the bathrooms). So we went up there for a cocktail and, on the way down, shared the lift with three Australians who were going on a pub crawl that night. Given our geriatric behaviour the evening before, we decided this would be the way to go as it would force us not to bail at 8.30pm. And one of the guys was kind of cute. So, after hotting-up and lining our stomachs, we became those Prague tourists and hit the crawl.

Four words: Drunken Monkey Pub Crawl. Four more words: free beer and shots. I’m not really sure where to start –firstly, because so much happened, secondly, because there are several blank spots, and thirdly, because I’m not entirely sure of the chronological order of the events I do remember. What I do know came first was several shots and a few games of Beer Pong. I teamed up with a guy called Alex, and Kaitlyn teamed up with a Swedish guy named Thor. I’m not making that up – his name was actually Thor. Kaitlyn, who had imbibed in as many shots as I had, was somewhat excited about knowing a guy called Thor. ‘CLAIRE! HIS NAME IS THOR!’

‘I know.’

‘THOR LIKE THE MOVIE. I NEED YOUR PHONE NUMBER SO I CAN TELL EVERYONE I HAVE THOR IN MY PHONE!’ 

About halfway through our first game, I looked across the table and saw a guy identical to Thor approaching. When I say 'identical’, I don’t mean identically dressed, but I mean an actual identical person. Realising Kaitlyn was going to kind of LOVE this, I called out to her, ‘Kaitlyn! Look to your left.’ She turned around and looked to her right. ‘Your LEFT.’ By the time she made ‘L’ shapes with her hands to determine which was her left, he had disappeared. About ten minutes later, Thor2 came back over and stood next to her. She turned and looked at him, and then did a sort of double-take. She then asked Thor, ‘Do you know this guy?! You look alike.’ After dominating at Beer Pong for a while and subsequently getting Thor very drunk as Kaitlyn doesn’t drink beer, we went to sit down for a bit. By this stage, Thor had taken a bit of a shining to Kaitlyn, and he was proving quite hard to escape. Thor2, whose name wasn’t Thor and therefore I didn’t commit to memory, seemed to be under the same delusions as his brother, only in regards to me. It turns out Swedish people are incredibly stealth, and twins can cover twice as much ground in the same amount of time as an individual. Fortunately, we had Alex, Glasses (he wore glasses) and British (he was British) assisting us and running interference and, by the time we left the bar, they had busied themselves with two children who’d forgotten to put on pants with their tops before going out. 

The next few hours are a blur of beverages, random political conversations, and a lot of cutting sick on the dancefloor. Seriously – Beyoncé better hope that baby comes quick, because my hips are more truthful than Shakira’s. I can’t even describe the clubs in much detail as smoking in bars is still legal here (and, from what I observed, this extends to the smoking of greener substances), and coupled with smoke machines, my mad dance skillz, and handsome dance partners, there was limited opportunity to study the architecture. There are, however, two things I can tell you about the last club of the crawl: it was a very long way away (on a tram), and it had strippers. Apparently they were "dancers" and not "strippers", but if you’re wearing a white leotard which was made for a small child, and have industrial lights shining on you, you’re essentially not wearing anything. Tomatoes/tomatoes. Whether it was the naked, gyrating women, or a good break from alcohol, we started to sober up. Kaitlyn, Alex, British and I decided it would be a good time to bounce. Only problem was, we had no idea where we were. The people who took us there didn’t seem to know either, but gave us vague directions about how to get back to the city. Cue Kaitlyn melt-down.

I am toying with the idea of creating a separate blog called ‘Kaitlyn’s Tantrums’. For those of you who haven’t met her, Kaitlyn is somewhat renowned for her "cracking of the shits", and histrionic reactions to the most routine of situations. (Prior to this trip, examples of scenarios in my "Top Ten Tantrums" are the mid-restaurant breakdown in Bali where, upon thinking – and I stress the word thinking – she had Bali Belly, she broke down and furiously ranted that she’d ‘RATHER JUST GET BOWEL CANCER AND DIE’ and ‘MAY AS WELL STAY IN BED FOR THE REST OF THIS [EXPLETIVE] TRIP UNTIL WE FLY HOME OTHERWISE [SHE] WILL DIE’; and, after failing to be served in a prompt manner at a café, she stormed out while loudly describing the red-headed barman as a ‘RED-HEADED RANGA [C-WORD EXPLETIVE] – AND I DON’T USE THAT WORD,’.

So far there have been some absolute doozies, and it’s only day three. Her habitual reaction to the presence of a wasp within a three metre radius is a little bit of shrieking and a whole lot of arm flapping; if the wasp moves to within a two metre radius – even if only in passing – the shrieking is replaced by phrases such as ‘PISS OFF YOU LITTLE [F-WORD EXPLETIVE]’ and ‘IF THESE MOTHER [F-WORD EXPLETIVE] WASPS DON’T [F-WORD EXPLETIVE] OFF I’M GOING BACK HOME’. But the best outburst thus far brings us back to our departing the strip club on the pub crawl. Upon reflection, I can’t help but wonder if Roald Dahl travelled to the future to this very night and based Veruca Salt on what he saw. It went a little something like this: 

A gentleman at the club (who possibly had been smoking something which wasn’t tobacco) told us to turn left and then left again to catch the tram to go home. We left the club and turned left and then went to turn left again, but Kaitlyn thought we had to turn right. We tried to explain to her that we had to turn left again, but her GPS system was apparently saying something different  (and we hadn't forgotten the brilliant direction skills she displayed early on in the evening during beer pong). British insisted that we turn left, to which she replied, ‘Fine. But we’re going the wrong (f-word expletive) way. And we’re going to get lost, but whatever.’

British tried again to explain, ‘We’re not going the wrong way. The city is in that direction and the tram stop is just down the road.’ I’m not sure if the fact he was correct was the catalyst, but that was when she lost it. ‘FINE THEN. I DON’T F@%$ING CARE ANYMORE. WE’LL GO THAT  F@%$ING WAY THEN. AND WE’LL GET LOST DOWN SOME DARK F@%$ING ALLEY WHERE THOSE STRIPPERS ARE F@%$ING FL ASHING US THEIR F@%$ING [LADY PARTS] AND WE’LL ALL JUST DIE.’ Poor Alex and British had only experienced, happy, tipsy Kaitlyn who liked vodka and dancing, and they weren’t really sure how to react. Alex tried with a bit of placating. ‘It’s okay, Kaitlyn. We’re going to get home.’

‘I DON’T WANT TO GO HOME TO THE HOTEL. I WANT TO GO HOME TO AUSTRALIA.’

Tears started streaming down her face, and there may have been a foot stamped on cobblestone. ‘I F@%$ING HATE THIS PLACE. I WANT TO GO F@%$ING HOME TO F@%$ING AUSTRALIA. I’M F@%$ING HOMESICK. I WISH I’D NEVER COME HERE.’ At this point she dropped down to the ground, hugged her knees, and rocked back and forth like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man when Tom Cruise tried to make him board a plane. After a bit of encouragement and the promise of a lollypop when we got home, Kaitlyn agreed to get up and come with us. Soon after, we found an American man at the tram stop who assured us that (surprise, surprise) we were going in the right direction.

It was a long walk from the city back to our place. Long enough for Kaitlyn to find the whole situation funny and laugh about it, but also long enough for her feet to hurt and for her to rip her shoes off in the middle of the footpath because 'THEY F@%$ING HURT BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE ONLY USE F@%$ING COBBLESTONE. WHY CAN’T THEY USE F@%$ING CONCRETE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. F@%$’. But we made it home without any more Rain Man.

And that was only three hours ago. The Czech in my blood seemingly allows me to recover from binge-drinking quite well. Today we will battle some more wasps and get our culture on.