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For those individuals out there who have never played a Wii before, I strongly suggest it.  Better yet, convince your employer that a logical team building event consists of a Wii, booze, Pringles, crepe making materials, and a scattered mix of American, French, and Spanish people crammed into an apartment.

Sadly, whatever small amount of natural ability I may possess does not apply to the Wii.  My attempts at the home run derby were pathetic, my boxing talents equally non-existant.  Apparently the Wii mirrors reality very well.  Just take a look at the below, which is the tally that we used to determine the seeding for the eventual tournament.  That’s the total on the far right:

Embarassing, simply embarassing.  The very last seed.  I was tempted to give myself the nickname “Bucknell” for the night, assuming that I would come through in the actual tournament, but ultimately decided against it.  My sum total of 8 may have been impressive had I not the use of my eyes, or if one of my arms had been amputated, but I possess all the qualities that – in theory – should make someone at least an average Wii player.

Also sad was the beat down that I endured in what I thought to be my best event, tennis.  Although I did make a valiant comeback to win the second game, it was not enough to save me from a quick exit.  This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it gave me a head start displaying my ineptitude within the realm of crepe creation.  That’s right, I made crepes tonight.  Poorly.

Since it was a winner take all event, a gentleman named Constantino is now the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii, while I am left with the sting of defeat, some burned Nutella, and an expense report.  There is the equally terrible memory of forgetting my apartment code at 3 am and pounding on the front door until a poor old woman in a robe mercifully rescued me, but perhaps I’ve divulged too many shortcomings for one day.

CREPE COUNT = 16

Sunday, or Brunchday as it is apparently known here in Paris, has been a quality day.  It has been quite some time since I made the long trek through the Louvre, filled with thousands of people from (assuming here) dozens of countries all going to look at the same four or so exhibits.  After approximately 3 months of living within several miles of the world’s second most visited museum (guesses on the first?) I decided today was the day. 

As anyone who has visited a museum knows, there is a certain quantity of time one has before they want to punch a hole through the next painting hanging on the wall.  This is what we call museum fatigue, and it is exactly why visiting a museum with a group of people is the most complicated, heinous activity one could partake in.  MF, as we will call it, operates on a sliding scale.  For some, MF refuses to set in until every clay pot has been analyzed, every placard read, and all audio tours sampled.  For others, MF is an immediate affliction, triggered by a friend or loved one simply saying the word “museum.”  It has been through painstaking scientific experimentation that I have pegged my MF point between 90 and 120 minutes.

This is where the Louvre – brunch combo comes in so brilliantly.  The Louvre is a massive building (its uses have fluctuated from defensive structure to royal residences, and finally to a museum – so the fact that it’s huge and ornate should not be a surprise) and as is such the curators have jammed it full with as much stuff possible.  Now, this creates a double-edged sword.  Actually, let’s just consider it a double-edged dagger, and maybe this dagger even needs a sharpening.  You see, while the Louvre has space for countless beautiful things I also get the feeling that some 19th century museum guys were running around the IKEA equivalent of the 1800s looking for extra plates to fill a display case or two.  Regardless – the strategy today was Louvre – brunch – return to Louvre, and it worked like a charm.  Zero MF.  I’d highly recommend this plan.

My only annoyance today…look at the wall of people posing and snapping pictures of the Venus de Milo.  Notice many people actually admiring the statue?  I was actually shoved out of the way by people wanting a better spot so they could get their photo taken in front of it.

On the subsequent journey back to Rue des Ecoles I accidentally discovered a new favorite place in Paris.  This is somewhat similar to having a favorite song, in that it may change frequently…but for now it’s splendid, and surely will remain so for the remainder of my time here.

Sleeping in, a successful Louvre visit, brunch, a new favorite location…perhaps it was for this reason that www.kiva.org popped into my head this evening.  I had heard about Kiva on NPR months ago, and had always meant to check it out.  It’s a microlending type dealio, in that you do not donate but lend a small amount of cash to entrepreneurs in South America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and so forth…pretty cool idea, methinks.  You can search through business propositions, the amount requested, the loan repayment period, and all those other entertaining bureaucratic bits of information.

As a small way to pass my good day on to the next person I chose the two borrowers listed below.  If all goes well, my paltry loans will be repaid within 12 months and there will be some additional chickens and more shampoo in Africa!
 
 
Katogo A(i) Group http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=33647
Regina is a 48 year old widow with seven children. Only one child goes to school. Her current business is chicken roasting. Regina sees a business opportunity of starting up her own poultry farm to reduce the costs of buying chicken. She wants to use the extra profits to buy a plot of land and construct as house for orphans. Irene and Jalia sell second hand clothes and want to use the loan to increase stock. Margret has a grocery store while Teo sells raw foods in the market.
 

Aina Izedomen http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=32871
Aina Izedomen is 38 years old, married with five children and lives in Ajamgbadi town in Lagos State, Nigeria. She is a stylist who sells beauty supplies, and also runs a grinding machine used to process farm items such as pepper and beans. Aina has been a LAPO client for the last three years, and has applied for a new loan of $450 to buy supplies for her salon.

For those of you who carelessly toss your clothes hangers around like they are worthless pennies, who look in a closet and sigh “What am I to do with the surplus of all these useful hangers,” I hate you.  My apartment has a severe hanger shortage, and for the last several months my ironing board and half my bed have become hanger surrogates - and performing quite admirably, thank you.  However…much like when you realize that drinking the “only one day past the expiration date milk” just isn’t worth the hassle, so was this same conclusion finally reached in regards to my hanger situation.  Today was monumental - let’s call it H-Day – and will be remembered as the day when I successfully purchased 24 hangers.  All for a mere 15 Euros.  Think about how much a pack of 50 hangers costs in Wal-Mart, and this is why I despise you hanger barons in the United States.

On another note – why is it that back in the USA if someone offered up a baguette, an assortment of cheese, wine, and some various meats as an after work event it would be a reason to shun that person for weeks, but in France it is a cause for celebration?  Ask yourself…which country really has it wrong here?  If you have experienced one, just one, well organized event that includes all the above, I think you already know the answer.

One of the phenomenal offerings of Paris, as I may have mentioned before, is the absolutely stunning array of places you can purchase breakfast, lunch of dinner.  For not only do you have the café, brasserie, and bistro, but you also have a slew of ethnic choices.  Middle eastern, Indian, Western and Eastern Europe, Cuban, even good old American food – in fact, I reside directly above a restaurant with the name ‘Breakfast In America,’ the proprietors of which have neglected to offer even the tinest bowl of gravy to complement the authentic bacon and coffee that is served here.  Maybe one day they will learn.

But let’s take a step back for a second.  Upon further analysis I have realized that you can find most of the above food in any sizable city.  Maybe it won’t be mind blowing cuisine, but if you want a shank of lamb speared upon a kabob or even some goulash served from a Hungarian bread bowl I bet you could track it down.  No – let’s be honest.  I am convinced that my recently improved appreciation can be traced back to the complete lack of Taco Bells in Paris.

You may not know how emotionally painful it was to write that last sentence.  Putting it in writing merely confirms, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what I have known now for three months.  No longer can I rely on my old friend the Cheesy Gordita Crunch.  I cannot sit in the back of a car anymore, wondering how the hell anyone is driving at this time of the morning, and spend quality time with a Grilled Stuft Burrito.  Gone are my blissful afternoons of picking up a Gordita (or a Chalupa – who could ever choose?  the only option was one of each!) and reveling in the pure joy that is a Taco Bell lunch. 

 But the silver lining – and there typically is a silver lining to just about everything – is that I now know that my life move in a positive direction without sampling Taco Bell’s latest menu offerings.  I was skeptical myself, but then I made this graph and was convinced.  That being said, if anyone can figure out how to ship a Crunchwrap Supreme to France, I would be forever in your debt.

Science doesn’t lie.

Sunday was the final day for Prague.  It was a classic whirlwind adventure, packed with all the foolishness one has come to expect from such a thing, such as an educational moonwalk session in an underground bar and the triumphant viewing of the ridiculous Prage Astronomical clock three days in a row.  Prague was a good time – my first foray into Eastern Europe, although I suppose that one could make the argument for Berlin. 

  There was one thing that neither Jeff or I were able to figure out about Prague.  Rumor has it that Prague is one of Europe’s most beautiful cities, a claim assisted by the fact that it was one of the few big cities not bombed silly during WWII.  However, we weren’t able to see it.  Don’t get me wrong – all the sites and scenes that you may have heard about Prague are there, and they are worth going to check out.  But one of the most beautiful cities?  For example – a huge majority of the buildings and statues were black, literally black, with dirt and pollution.  It was difficult to discern the features of the statues on the Charles Bridge (mostly copies, by the way – originals are locked up inside museums now), so filthy they were.  I stumbled across an article online confirming that Prague does actually clean the monuments, so it’s possible that January 2008 was just an unfortunate time to view historical sites. 

Statues from Charles bridge are going to go under repairs and cleaning this year. The repair of Prague essential Charles Bridge wait until it gets less cold. The restorers are going to clean some of the statues, especially those at the Lesser Quarter.  Reconstruction is prepared for other well-known Czech sights too. The Prague City Hall plans to spend more than 80 million CZK* for sights repairs in 2008.

Calculated out, this is about $4.5 million.  Surprisingly small number, given the amount of restorations I’m sure Prague has! 

There are definitely some nice features to the city of Prague.  It has more cobblestone streets than I have ever seen before, and let’s be honest – who doesn’t appreciate nicely cobbled streets?  The red roof views of the city from Prague Castle, and of St. Vitus cathedral contained within the castle walls, are also quite nice.

Based on the weekend Prague experience, I feel qualified to offer several pieces of advice for those potential travelers to Praha, as the locals call it.

• If you choose a guidebook, keep in mind that it may be woefully out of date.  To guide us around Prague we were counting on Jeff’s  Prague Top Ten 2007 guidebook, and this is how we found ourselves wandering darkened streets looking for restuarants and bars that had mysteriously vanished.  Despite being published in 2007, we learned over a Sunday pint that one of the bars listed in the book had been closed for six years.  Not helpful…
• It doesn’t always snow in Prague - Even though every picture ever taken of the Charles Brige shows it covered in a fine white powder, it is not perpetually covered in the stuff.  Although that would have helped with the color of the statues.
• Don’t bring an American Express ATM card.  If you do, you will be forced to try your card in every single ATM machine in Prague and still end up borrowing money from your friend.
• Panera has lied to all of us all with their claim that they invented the bread bowl.  In fact, the Czechs serve goulash out of it.  At least the restaurant we went to did.  And Prague has been around for a bit longer than Panera.
• English is all you need.  Literally every person spoke English, even the incredibly friendly old taxi driver that picked us up from the airport.  Despite the fact about 12 million people speak Czech, apparently they all speak English too.  (Let me stress, I still encourage the attempt to speak at least a bit of the native language!)
• Try the sausage.  Forgo the bun and use the single piece of bread.
• If you ever run into Aussies and want to fit in, just add an “-ie” at the end of most words.  For example – school becomes “schoolie,” television becomes “tellie,” and so on.  Also, swear a lot.
• Walk, and don’t bother with trams or trains.  Prague has a small city center and is easy to navigate if you know which way is east and west.  Plus, if you ride the public transportation than you have to get paranoid about thievery and you miss the ministrels that are scattered about (seriously, ministrels – they’re playing medieval music, after all!).
• Shoot a crossbow if you have the opportunity.  Although you may embarrass yourself in front of strangers (and even incur the good natured mockery of some Czechs who happen to be watching) it’s your one time chance!

Want to hear some Czech medieval music?  Here’s a track from the CD that I purchased from a duo of ministrels on the Charles Bridge.  Enjoy! http://windowdrop.com/Blog_Post_Directory/Cantiga353.mp3

Absinthe is a cruel mistress.  My impression of the beverage, which really is quite foul tasting, is that it’s similar to having a mistress who (whom?) does nothing but yell at you.  Nothing, except hurl insults in your direction.  And at the end of the relationship you are but a shell of a man who feels like trash.

Let us enter into the world of theory for a second, the reason being – and let me stress this – that I have never had a mistress before.  My assumption regarding mistresses is that one obtains a mistress for the benefits – namely, for an individual that will not ask you to clean the garage, mow the lawn, who will make you sandwiches at all times of the day, won’t care if you watch ESPN for 24 hours straight, among other things.  If you are a fan of the movie Goodfellas, maybe you even expect your mistress to help with the cocaine distribution in your burgeoning drug empire.  The bottom line is that I cannot imagine one desiring a mistress that does the opposite of the above.

Absinthe is that opposite mistress - meaning that it sucks.  It offers none of the properties so promised in the movie EuroTrip, and everyone claims that it gives you only a massive headache.  Well, I can confirm the massive headache part.

I awoke on this Saturday morning in a hostel in Prague, wishing, hoping, that I did not leave my Target brand Excedrin in my apartment in Paris.  Of course, I did.  But at least I had the gypsy memories to comfort / horrify me, which served admirably to divert my attention.

What Jeff and I were able to determine about Prague, besides that it really is quite a confusing city to navigate, is that it is also small.  Those two things may sound at odds with one another, but remember the Kerplunk! picture from Friday….we traveled on foot across the main parts parts of Prague; Old Town, New Town, Red Town, Blue Town.  Ok, really only the first two are real, but we did walk across pretty much all of central Prague.  We traversed the Charles Bridge, gazed / laughed at the Prague Clock, got lost in Prague Castle, shot a crossbow, saw the magesty of St. Vitus Cathedral, wondered how a Little Ceasar’s Pizza survived in Eastern Europe, drank some beer in some sketchy sketchy bars, and got lost numerous times trying to find restaurants / bars in Jeff’s Prague Top Ten 2007 guidebook.     

After all the wandering we made it back to the hostel…where I promptly went to sleep.  Please keep in mind that I was still recovering from my sickness in Denia (yes, still) and that we had some back to back late nights in Paris.  Jeff, on the other hand – at least, from the shouting that I could hear through the wall – was engaged in some intense card playing / political discussion with the Aussies that had been hanging out in the hostel lounge.  I actually heard the name “Obama” yelled by Jeff – quite unexpected from the guy that I assumed would just Slap Jack the Aussies into oblivion and then get bored.

It was after a couple hours of bad napping that Jeff and I attempted to club it up in Prague.  This turned out about as well as it sounds, which is to say terribly.  The club, chosen from the trusty Prague Top Ten 2007 guidebook, was more like a 22 and under smoking party.  Now, for the gentlemen, if you heard “Eastern European” and “22″ you would probably think that Jeff and I were living the dream.  After all, Eastern European girls are supposed to be incredibly beautiful!  Well, let me tell you – if that claim has any bit of mertit, then the ladies whom that stereotype is based off of know better than to frequent The Roxy.

Jeff and I eventually reached the point where a drinking game was absolutely necessary to maintain sanity in The Roxy.  To the best of my recollection, it went something along these lines…

> Guy in a black t-shirt = 1 Drink
> Stupid stereotypical douchebag European shirt = 2 Drinks
> Sweet sweet muffin top = 3 Drinks
> Bar patron wearing unfortunate trucker hat = 4 Drinks
> Someone gropes the polar bear statue = 5 Drinks

Needless to say, after about an hour we were relatively lit up and lamenting our creation of a drinking game in the first place.  It got to the point where it was frightening to to venture off to the bathroom, knowing full well that upon the return there would be about 32 drinks waiting (plus the condition of the bathrooms were hideous).

The end of the night was fairly calm, except for the heated argument that Jeff and I got into while walking into the hostel at 4 am.  For some reason we had taken up a debate in regards to Pro Bowlers on the Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl team and the year that the team had actually won the trophy.  Typical, right?  A weekend in Prague debating the NFL post season.  This became quite a loud and spirited discussion, and while attempting to verify our facts on the hostel computer we were told to shut the hell up by the front desk clerk.  That is a bit much to take from a guy that was slovenly eating yougurt out of an enormous container about six hours earlier, but what are you going to do??

The answers to the argument…

Super Bowl XXXV 
Jan. 28, 2001
Raymond James Stadium
Tampa, Florida
MVP: Ray Lewis, LB, Baltimore

Baltimore Ravens  34 
New York Giants  7 
 

Full Name: Edward Earl Reed
Height: 5-11
Weight: 200 lbs. Age: 29
Pos: S
Experience: 6 years
College: Miami (FL)
Drafted: Year: 2002 Round: 1 Pick: 24, Ravens

Monopoly money and getting accosted by a gypsy.  These are the memories of my first night in Prague. 

No matter what one thinks about the Euro, it seems much less like play money than the Czech Crown.  The Czech Crown is the currency that Prague currently uses (although the Czech Republic expects to make the jump over to the Euro in 2012), and the quantities of these that you will need to withdraw from an ATM is astounding.  The cab ride to the hostel cost about 600 Crowns, and the hostel was 1500.  If I was spending this many Euros I’d be unable to withdraw a single one out of my accounts within the day.  The thing about the Crown is that you soon find yourself flinging them about with reckless abandon:  “120 Crown for two beers?  Let’s do it!”  “A 70 Crown tip for the cab?  Sure, why not!”  I’m not sure if this is due to the inability to debate prices in another language or just due to the confusion / laziness that comes with having to do numerous currency conversions in one’s head, but you really end up not caring.  They simply don’t seem real.

Now the good thing about all this, according to my cell phone calculator, is that 1000 crowns is about $60.  So that really makes it easy to throw around hundreds of crowns, and honestly – it’s a bit more fun to order a round of beers that costs 100 of something.  It makes it seem like your drink will be served in a solid gold chalice.

After slightly mastering the conversion rates Jeff decided that the ideal thing to do after two Parisian bar crawl-type night was (of course) to do a Prague bar crawl.  But a bit more high class, with a professional guide (I think every hostel has flyers for bar crawls…it’s one of the requirements).  What we got was a 28 year old Jewish-American guy named Isaac, who – despite the ability to speak approximately five languages – used the word “fuck” more in six hours than I have heard most people say in a lifetime.  He also kept talking about IKEA and used the term “O.C.” to reference Orange County, where he is orginally from.  An interesting gentleman, to say the least…

This night in Prague took us all over the city…or so we think.  In all actuality, the bars may have all been within one block of one another.  The streets in Prague are the most confusing streets that I have ever seen.  City planners, both old and new, must abhor ninety degree angles and anything resembling a straight road, so you have streets colliding into one another at odd angles and in unexpected places.  If you remember the game Kerplunk! (first introduced in 1967), the roads were very similar in design to all the sticks that poked out of the cylinder that players had to withdraw.

All in all, it was a solid Prague bar crawl.  There was a Power Hour included, a Beam-Sambuca shot, lies about Boston, mayhem at a gyro restaurant, a karma inspired tumble on the street, and, of course – bragging rights.  We were the last ones in the group out and about, finding ourselves drinking a Pilsner Urquell at 3 am in some underground dive despite the fatigue from Paris! 

Bragging rights, while nice, do nothing to get you back to a hostel before four am.  And they cannot stop rain, or read maps.  And, worst of all, bragging rights are not enough to avert traumatizing gypsy experiences on the streets of Prague.  This was discovered firsthand, and even several days later it is impossible to tell if this particular little gypsy creature wanted to get busy in an alleyway for the hell of or if she was looking to make a little money out of the deal.  All I do know is that she was persistent, quite grabby, and made some very terrible looking hip gyrations…which was enough to send both of us running away down the street.

The above note was found under my apartment door in the early morning hours upon returning from the Wednesday night bar crawl.  My initial impression was that I was being blamed for the recent appearance of what looked to be a giant spill of white paint on the stairs of my building.  However, as I stood there pathetically attempting to read this letter in my altered state, I was thrown off by the presence of the “Bonne Année” at the end of the letter – or, “Happy New Year.”  Surely if I was being accused of moonlighting as a rogue stairway painter I would not be receiving a letter with pleasantries…or would I?  The French, after all, are a wily bunch.

Nope, after having a French friend translate the note, it turns out the explanation was much simpler.  For those who have had the (mis) fortune of living in close proximity to me they know that I turn my music up to a louder decibel than may be necessary.  The above note is actually requesting that I close the bathroom door, because the apartment next to mine is tired of hearing this type of thing.  The fact that they want this door closed should give you some idea of A) how small my apartment is, that closing the bathroom door would actually help the loud music problem, and B) the lack of French appreciation for my evening musical stylings.

In the bar crawl of life, one mustn’t let mysterious notes about your door dictate your actions.  So Thursday night once again found Jeff and I out wandering the streets of Paris, and this time all over the city map.  Consulting my my trusty map, it looks like we walked, trained, and beered in the 17th, 8th, 4th, 5th, and 6th arrondissements.  If one travels through that many neighborhoods in one night, it is a foregone conclusion that one will see something unexpected / interesting, or talk to someone that fits those same labels.  Or both.  During the ramblings (beginning around 7 pm) we made it to the Panoramic Bar, sampled Pimms No. 1, found an odd shaped cookie poking out of a dessert, got impressed by the Champs-Elysees (it really is quite nice at night), beheaded some shrimp, saw the magnificent Hotel de Ville all lit up, went to a bar that had a tapdancer, drank Heineken in literally the warmest bar ever, and had some random conversations about Canada, the number seven, and the correct pronunciation of the word “crepe.”  Needless to say it was about five in the morning upon arrival back to the little apartment at Rue des Ecoles.  There was no time for exhaustion, though – lurking just a few hours away, a flight to Prague awaited!

Innocent cookie?

Posted in January 2008 | No Comments »