Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a beautiful city, ain't no denying that. The civic planners and architects who designed this place thought hard about scale and building lasting and meaningful structures. Too bad it all caught up. The last few days of drinking, the last few weeks of nonstopgettingonatrainandbus and moving and traveling and going and going, the last few months of exploring the world, and the last few years of change. I am pooped... and that makes me a bit sad since this is a city I have longed to experience.

I still did try my best. The first night I was there I went out to this 5 level club (top to bottom: booty hip-hop, retro, euro house, hard house, and chill house) that is advertised as the biggest club in central Europe. Yes, there were lots of tourist there. Fun, but while this city is beautiful, it is also dirty.

The streets are clean and the trams run on time, but the dirt here is the type that soap doesn't easily wash away. In the course of the night people I met had their wallet stolen, was ripped off and sexually propositioned by cabbies and a very unattractive prostitute touched me in ways that they told me in elementary school strangers shouldn't touch me in an effort to drum up business. I even had half of pack of cigarettes stolen... talk about pretty crime. Hands over pockets and watch who is watching you when you go out here.

The next day I spent chilling and went to see a local reggae show at avenue I passed earlier on a walk. The place had Africans running the door, a friendly drunk Brazilian who was the greeter, Czech bartenders and a Jamaican MC backed by a Czech high school band and a multinational audience. Too bad the band and the sound wasn't all that.

Slept in and then took a walk the next day running into an auto show. When I ever am in the market for a car I think I will go to one of these to get an idea of what I want. The Czech tuners were in effect in the back and while some of the rides were clean, most would get laughed off the streets in Houston. Went out later that night to see the Plastic People of the Universe with a friend from the hostel. They prove that art can be a force to bring down unjust power as they did with their rock and roll against communism. But this night they were just a bunch of old folks getting drunk and rocking out. Funny how things change...