Sunrise

What better way to end our time here than to go to 80s and 90s night at Lucerna? There was a different feeling in the air this time. In a way, it's the first night we've hung out together by choice and not because we're studying here together. After our graduation, all of us are just some people who know each other in Prague.

I was getting cabin fever staying at the house so long, so I decided to head towards our first bar a bit early and just wander around the city at night a bit. I walked back up to Vyšehrad for the last time and looked out over the city, lit up in all different shades of orange and yellow. I really can't get enough of it.

About thirty of us packed into this neighborhood bar near the dorms, claustrophobically clutching drinks and attempting to have conversations with our friends while standing less than six inches from their faces. With the night trams already functioning, we knew we had to get to our final destination soon enough.

We made a fantastic choice. Lucerna was as sketchy as it's ever been, and we did nothing but bask in it. Which do you like better: the fat guy on the stage drenched in sweat lip-syncing to every song while rubbing himself suggestively, or the old guy with white hair trying to dance with all the girls in our program? I like the fat guy myself. Oh, and don't worry, the tears that I said didn't happen earlier in the day? Yeah, they started, in full force. You just can't stop girls from turning on the waterworks.

The place closes down at 3:30, and as the music turned off and the lights came on, someone had a brilliant idea: let's sing the national anthem! Picture this: a hundred Americans singing the Star-Spangled Banner as people from what seemed like nearly every other country on Earth yelled obscenities at them and gave them the finger. It rained beer, we were all drenched in it.

I'm not really sure when the brawl started.

Behind me, one particularly vocal guy started tussling physically with a girl. And just as I heard "and the hoooooome ooooooff theeeeee braaaaaaavvvveee!" I see the blur of Dave Turner's body leap off the stage and deck some guy. By the time he had made contact, the pile had already formed, punches were being thrown, and in general, America was defending her pride. (Don't worry mom, I kept my distance. America doesn't need me to defend her.)

In typical fashion, the US prevailed. Outside, cooling off in the night air, our sole casualty, a huge guy from Madison named Jason who had a bloody lip ("you should've seen the other guy"), broke out the victory cigars. We loitered there for a few minutes, in the middle of Wenceslas Square, when somebody noticed it was getting light out toward the East. There was only one place we all wanted to be.

The walk began. North, through Wenceslas Sqaure, past the street where we found club Meloun, and into Old Town square, where the dawn gave an incredible backdrop to the Tyn church. There, we hung a left and trekked West, down the coronation path where new kings walked centuries ago, until we finally reached the Charles Bridge.

I couldn't help but say it. For seven hundred years, people have been standing on that bridge and watching sunrises. And you can see why (well, no you can't since I didn't have my damn camera).

Woke up this afternoon and joined some folks at Radost F/X for brunch, then followed them back to Wenceslas for some shopping. I didn't need anything, I just needed to be out in this city again. When my exhaustion overtook me, I retired back to the house and finished preparations for my trip.

Tomorrow morning I'm gone for my last five days of RnR. But it's not over yet, so I won't even pretend this is the last post. If I find internet anywhere, I can assure you you'll hear from me next week. If not, I'll be writing in the journal Sally gave me four months ago, and I'll post some thoughts in retrospect. I'll miss you all.

Krakow: Day 2-3

NOTE: This is part 2 of 2. You should read them in order! The first one is the post before this.

We woke up at 10. And went back to bed. We woke up at 11. I checked my mail to see how the Trojan Men had fared at Absolut, and took some Tylenol for my RAGING headache (damn you, vodka...). I went back to bed. At noon, we finally did get up and started to execute our plan for the day: check out the city, then a tour of the legendary salt mine.

We began where every day should begin, with a bagel at Bagelmama, a restaurant that allegedly sits on the site of the birth place of the bagel (literally 10 feet from a massive synagogue). Awesome bagels, and for cheap! From there, it was a short walk (as everything is in Krakow, seriously the place is tiny) to the magnificent Wawa Castle. The place is such a cool mixture of different types of architectures, and it's all open to the public, just like Prague Castle. We toured the armory...cuz you know, we're guys and all.

The city itself, as we found on our walk back, is magnificent, but you can check out more of that on flickr. And the salt mines are salty and really neat as well, but that'll be on the flickr as well. Suffice it to say we had a big day.

Which of course, could only be matched by a bigger night (after all, it was my birthday). And oh, what a night it was...first, dinner at an outstanding restaurant (Martin's recommendation again. That guy rocks), which included two 5L towers of beer (awesome beer). It was then time to hit the club, along with the other CIEE people who had visited Krakow this weekend (we didn't really see anyone we knew for the majority of the time we were there. Which, for the most part, was actually really nice). I'll spare you the details of the evening and give the highlights:

-Towards the end of the evening, I found Dave in a corner of the club near the exit, asleep and almost completely unresponsive. As I was sitting there, Evan walked up and joined him, in a similar state. I walked away for a moment, trying to see if anyone else was left to hang out with, and when I returned they had mysteriously disappeared....I found out later: Dave had vomited...everywhere...and had been kicked out, and Evan went with him. On the way home, in a drunken stupor, they passed some Brits, to whom Dave said something (he can't remember what it was, but it was probably something about the US bailing them out of WWII. He's a history major.) The Brit passed Dave, turned around and ran at him at full speed. With a huge leap into the air, the guy performed a Bruce Lee-style roundhouse kick and jacked my 6'4" friend in the face. Dave, slightly shocked (mostly at the fact that the guy just kicked him IN THE FACE, as opposed to something, anything lower), paused a moment, but Evan charged at the guy. Dave held him back, realizing there were eight of them and fighting would be a very lost cause. They returned home.

-!!HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP ALERT!! So, not finding anyone to go home with, I decided to walk back to the hostel on my own (in the freezing cold). I found Evan and Dave in the lobby of the hostel on the internet, where I heard the aforementioned roundhouse-kick-to-the-face story. I checked my email again, and retired to the room, where Evan and Dave had already passed out. On the bed next to me, I discovered Danny G under his blanket. Oh wait. There are 4 legs there...I walked out to brush my teeth, came back in for a towel, and saw the same lump, but with Danny's ass sticking out of one end. I left. Came back. Danny is sitting up at the head of his bed, but still there's this lump in the middle under the covers and now it's pulsing. I stare at him a moment in disbelief, wondering if he can see me. He gives a small wave.

The next morning we had a very unwelcome wake up call at 9am. At 10, we had to catch a bus to tour Auschwitz. Not many words to describe this one...everyone should get a chance to see it. The weather was exactly what you'd expect to tour a place like that: freezing and foggy. It looked like there were ghosts hanging in the air everywhere. After our tour, we were given some time to walk around on our own, and me, Dave, and Jon set out to find the pond in the north side of the camp that, to this day, is gray with ashes. Quite dramatic. Unfortunately, Auschwitz is a very big place, and we were 20 minutes late getting back to the bus, which had almost left without us. So I almost got stuck in Auschwitz...

We lounged the rest of the day (it was a 6 hour tour, and we had to recover), then had a fantastic dinner of authentic Polish food - tons upon tons of pierogi (AMAZING) and of course, some beer to help us sleep on the train.

Which would have helped, had the train not been so small that we got stuck in a smoking car with two Polish guys who were hilarious. After asking if Evan W was in al-Qaeda, one of them tried to bargain with Dave (in Polish, remember...we think he was bargaining) to get rid of some zlutys (Polish currency) and exchange it for Korunas. At least we think that's what he was trying to say...

So I didn't sleep much, and woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose that has since matured into a full-on sinus infection. Oh well. At this point, I'm done writing, so you'll have to hear about the first day of rehearsal some other time!