When we had time because we were young and stupid

Yes, before children there was a period of time where we had huge amounts of time and we did essentially nothing with it, which seems pretty inconceivable now - although my friends with more than one kid tell me that when that happens the time I spend writing this blog (which lets be honest has not been all that much recently) will also seem like time I was wasting since I will really have no time at that point.

Anyway, to illustrate my point about doing nothing, I will return to one of my friends who makes periodic (yet memorable appearances) ....

Here is Neal, 15 or 16 years ago, with enough time on his hands to badly imitate Jesus .... I mean can you imagine having enough time and energy to create pontoon shoes out of old water bottles ...

Blast from the Past: Ethnic Drum Night

Continuing my Blast from the Past series, here is another story I emailed back to friends while I lived in the Czech Republic from 1999 - 2000. This was what would become a typical night out in the Czech Republic when I lived there ... this one was only unique because it was the first one, and as would become usual the night started with an interesting idea and evolved into something else awesome I could not imagine ... as I recall this particular night started with the idea that we should go to a bar downtown, and ended up as a crazy dance jam in a gigantic underground auditorium.

Last night I went clubbing for the first time since I got here. Awesome evening. We went to a club called the Roxy, the cover charge was a bit steep (about 3 dollars) and the beers were almost a dollar [back then, that was quite expensive, although on the trip we just took beers were around 3 dollars. Big change for just eight years.] But it was ethnic drum night, so it was all worth it.First off, the place is 3 stories underground, with this huge dance floor in the front of a massive stone stage. A few old wooden tables and rickety chairs were are scattered about, mostly occupied by drunk Czech men and gorgeous, curvaceous women. Some people at a couple of tables are smoking fat splifs and there is a hot English speaking waitress at the bar. As we arrived, we were greeted by a bizarre combination of scratchy sticks, bongos and bagpipes, , but they left the stage soon after we arrived.

So we drank beer, gawked at girls and generally shot the shit, and soon the entertainment returned. They were wearing kaffiyahs (these rad head dresses) and white robes and DAMN GINA!!!! they were fucking cool. They played basically from 2200 straight through until about 0030. They played what can only be described as a ragtag band of instruments, this crazy bongo, a bagpipe, a didgeridoo, some scratchy sticks, a bead-coverd gourd, some rainsticks and a kazoo. It was SOOOOOOO PHAT!!!!!!!! Look, I know that I am white (and more than a little drunk - free beer tonight at the globe, I had 2 liters) and shouldn't say that, but damn I could listen to Jimmy. It was fresh. Against my better judgement I had soon left my fleece and scarf off to the side and begun to groove hardcore to the music. It was awesome, I was soooo bummed when they stopped, even after a 2 1/2 hour jam and 2 encores.

Afterwards, Scott bugged out and me, Billy (this 27 year old from New Zealand) and Jeff (a 23 year old from Chicago) hung out for about 45 minutes drinking and watching the ladies dance, then we headed off to Wenceslas Square for some fried cheese (smazeny syr) - the best drunk food in the world (just thick patties of cheese covered with bread crumbs and deep fried in oil, served on a bun with mayonaise) - yum. I am getting hungry now just writing about it. Then I showed some chumpy traveler a hostel, got home around 0230, read for about an hour and slept until noon. Altogether a successful evening ...

Wow, things have really changed in 8 years ... I often tell people that I don't see myself at 31 all that much different than I was at 22 or 23, but reading this and remembering how I felt at the time, I see that both the Czech Republic and myself have really changed quite a bit ...

Blast from the Past: Meat Night

So eight years ago at this time, life was quite different for me. Instead of working 60 hours a week and running around looking for a place to get married next year, I was living in the Czech Republic, having moved there after college to decide whether I even wanted to go to graduate school. I was living with Scott, one of my best friends and seriously dating a Czech girl named Pavla, who was a student in Scott's English class. I was 23, working barely ten hours a week, filling my time with drinking huge amounts of fantastic Czech beer, reading a lot of classics and working out at the gym around the corner. Looking back at this time has certainly shown me how much I have changed, if nothing else ...

It is of particular note that at this point in my life, I was not as careful about my diet as I am now ...

One night in February, Scooter, myself and our friend Jeff (who is now the driving force behind Prague 360), revived a tradition I began in Israel, thanks to my discovery of a unique contraption and Scotts discovery of a great market. Because I have been insane for the last few years and not eating meat in the states (this kosher thing - again, like the veganism, I do not kow what was wrong with me). Since I have been back here I have been eating tremendous quantities of all kinds of meat. And its fabulous. So now a little history ...

Last weekend me, Jeff, Scott and Christina went to Karlstejn and spent the day exploring a beautiful castle. This was great, but unfortunatly it cost more than we had intended and Scott and I were running very low on money. After lunch near the castle I was broke until I got paid on Wednesday. This was Sunday - and we had no food in the house. No worries says Jeff, I have a chicken at my house. A deal was struck, Jeff would provide the chicken and I would provide the cooking and vegetables. Thus meat night began. I cooked a phat bird (the chicken was about 1 kilo), in chili powder with potatoes and onions, yum. But it took 3 hours to cook because Jeffs oven is communist and we could not figure out the timer. In any case, by the time the chicken came out we were starving - we got it on the table and stripped it to the bones in 7 minutes. WE forgot about utensils and just ripped the flesh of the bones. There was point in the meal where all you could here was slurping sounds. It was fabulous.

So this week, in order to continue the tradition, we decided to have meat night at our house. Early in the week I discovered a rotating spit in our pantry (like a sideways gyro thing) and with this in mind we went out and bought a 2.2 kilogram goose. We also had a 1.2 kilo chicken, that Jeff brought before he knew we had the goose. We covered the chicken with curry and butter and filled it will chopped onions and potatoes and stuck it in our less communist oven (but our oven turns off spontaneously, which presents some difficulties). Then we basted the goose with garlic, butter and onions, stuck it on the spit with some whole onions inside and let 'er rip.

At first we were all sitting in the living room while the birds cooked, but then we smelled them and had to return to the kitchen. I have never watched a goose rotate before, seeing the fat and butter drip around the animal. It was better than TV. We caught all the fat in a pan to use for gravy later.

The chicken finished before the goose and we took it out and were going to hold off, but then Chay started eating and the poor thing was bones in 4 minutes. Four people, two knives, eight hands, four mouths = chicken bones. And the chicken was just the appetizer - but it filled us enough to hold off the goose and make gravy. Unfortunately we added to much flour to the gravy and it became oatmeal like, but stickier and thicker. You could stand a fork up in the gravy - but damn it was fabulous. Once we got the gravy ready we sat down to the goose. It started okay, Scott carved off the first breast in orderly fashion, but I coud not hold off and I reach over and tore the bird in half and started chewing on the other breast. 20 minutes later there wasonly skeleton and four men cover with grease, gravy, bread crumbs and potato bits. I wore an apron and my clothes were still filthy. I was unable to hold on to my glass, my hands were so greasy. Wow - what a meal.

We decided that girls could never come to meat night unless they were topless - an expedient designed to keep them away (honestly, I would not even notice the toplessness at a meal like this). After the meal we all went into food comma on the couch and watched Con Air in Czech. A good evening altogether. Next week we are deciding between a Turducken (Turkey stuffed with a duck that has been stuffed with a chicken) or ribs. But you cannot cook those on the spit so I am actually pulling for a 4 kilo leg of lamb I saw in the market. Life is good, eat well.

The total cost of the meal was nine dollars. God, I love this country.

See, 8 years ... quite a difference ....

Blast from the Past: Oktoberfest

So when I was 23, just after college, I moved to the Czech Republic and lived there for a year teaching English and generally screwing around. This was before I went to graduate school, moved to New York or met Aviva. I lived with one of my best friends, Scooter, in fact this year was the crucible that really forged our friendship, and dated a wonderful Czech girl named Pavla. It was maybe the most fun I have ever had in my life and I would send out long emails to my friends and family in the states (clearly this was before blogging became popular) explaining all the strange customs, humorous misunderstandings and crazy adventures I was having. Looking over some of these emails, I realized that as tremendous as the drinking has been here at the beer garden in Astoria, its nothing compared to my year in Prague, as one of the first things I did when I reached the Czech Republic in October 1999 is jet over to Munich for Oktoberfest ... and here's how it went down, described in an email I wrote about it after getting back to Prague ...

"Last Thursday was my birthday (my 23rd) and so despite my jet lag I dutifully went out with Scott and got fairly intoxicated, to the tune of 4 liters of Czech Beer. I know it is difficult to imagine drinking a gallon of beer over four hours but I managed quite handily, and was even able to walk home. The place we drank, the Globe is a wonderful English used book store here. And it has free beer every Thursday from 6 to 8. I met quite a few Americans, English and South Africans, got some numbers and had a generally fabulous time. I did not make it to club Viagra - I will have to do that another time.

Friday evening Scott and I got our tickets to Munich and left for Oktoberfest at 10:30pm - I had to walk downtown because the tram was too bumpy and my stomach still couldn't take it. We kind of slept on the train - I lay on the floor for about 8 hours without really sleeping - got kicked in the head by the passport control, and got to Munich at around 6:30 am, amid a mass of other backpackers and year-abroad kids, all eager to start the festivities. checking only 17 hostels and pensions and were off to the beer tents. Due to Scott's incredible luck we found a place to stay for the night after those of you who are unfamiliar with Oktoberfest, it is an 15 day celebration of beer held in Munich every year. Although Americans know it as a drinking festival, it is actually like a huge fair. There are roller coasters and water slides and all kinds of rides that spin you around, this turned out to be a particularly bad idea later, as well as twelve gigantic beer tents.

These tents are each run by a different brewery and each serve their own particular kind of beer, along with their food specialty. The tents are basically covered football fields - complete with wooden floors and ceilings about 60 feet high, hundreds of benches, several kitchens, and a stage for the Oom-Pah band. We got to the fair about ten and when we entered the Spaten tent around 1030 am it was already packed. Scott, myself and these three American girls we picked up sat down at a table with several Italians and ordered a round of beers. The waitresses are all wearing traditional German outfits with corsets and long spread skirts, and they walk around carrying massive amounts of beer all day. The German beers come in one liter glass steins, and we saw a waitress carrying as many as fourteen of them at once. We got our beers and started drinking and toasting with everyone around us. My favorite person was the 75 year old woman at the table behind me who drank 2 full steins in the time I drank one.

It is difficult to describe the next 8 hours, although I can say it was possibly the most fun I have ever had. People everywhere are drinking and toasting each other, standing on benches and cheering with the table next to them and just yelling and singing national drinking songs. By noon I had finished my second stein, gotten to know my Italian and German neighbors and I asked Helmut (an enormous, hairy German sitting across from me) to get me what he was having for lunch. Thus the huge plate of ox and mashed potatoes. Delicious. We also started on our third liter. Just around one the band came out and began to play and although the tent was loud before the band - wow, afterward it was almost a riot. The band is a whole bunch of old drunk guys on horns and tubas, playing to the drunken antics of guest conductors from the tent (a new conductor for each song). They play a lot of German drinking songs and a lot of the new American song Mambo #5.

At around 3 pm the American girls left to go sightseeing and a couple other American girls, as well as a bunch of traditionally dressed German girls sat down at the table. I think that Scott and I were popular because we were such a contrast to the drunken Italians, who were wonderful to us and were constantly trying to grope all the women. The girls put up with it and everyone was happy when the Italians bought the whole table another round. So I spent time from 3 to about 6 dancing with the German girls and toasting and getting free beers from the Italians.

I got to know some of the Germans, all of 18 and very cute - they had the princess Leia curls going and got their addresses if I am every in Munich again. By the time we got up from the table at 6 we had polished off 6.5 liters of beer, could barely speak and had difficulty walking. I deposited Scott on the ground at the front gate and went to meet some of the American girls. I did not find them, and when I got back to Scott he was asleep and being video taped as part of a Danish travelers video about the excesses of Oktoberfest. He actually woke up half-way through the taping and gave an interview.

We went back to the hostel for dinner, then back to another drinking tent, this time the Hofbrau house - the international tent. This place was nuts, we had to finesse our way in the side door past the guards and the scene inside is indescribable. Like a frat party gone way out of control. People were throwing steins, dancing around topless, hanging from and falling off balconies, you could not hear the band over the yelling. I saw twelve people carried out by emergency medical services the first half hour I was there.

So we found a table to stand at, started drinking and met some Finns, some more Italians and some girls from Seattle and a bunch of guys from the US army (scary guys). We drank two more rounds and then left when the tent closed at eleven, and we tried to steal the steins but the stein patrol stopped us. The cops there are nuts - they do not care if you throw glass steins or jump of buildings or drink till you are unconscious - they are only there to stop theft of steins and to keep people out of crowded tents. Unable to get steins or to really hear, see or communicate at all, we stumbled back to the hostel.

We woke up Sunday feeling exhausted, ate at the hostel and went back to the tents, solely for the purpose of stealing the steins we had been unable to get the night before. We had one beer each and then got up and walked out with the steins - which now sit proudly in our apartment. Then we went back to the train station, got and the train and crashed - woke up in Prague six hours later ... a grand start to the year."

Ah, good times.