I feel much better today. I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon, and then I got a good night’s sleep.

Also, Zak texted me. He asked how the last-minute conference organizing is going, and he updated me on his trip to Slovakia, which is where he is now and where he’ll be until Friday He had already told me this, and that, along with my trip to Copenhagen, made it obvious that we would not meet again for a while.

But I guess he’s still interested in me. The question now is whether I’m interested in someone who is so busy. But I needn’t worry about that now.

I talked to Chris last night. He was down in the dumps, because he’s in trouble at work. I think he must’ve been really dickish to someone in an effort to get “more power” and that person formally complained. Now Chris might be facing disciplinary action; he’ll know in a week, which suggests it’s serious, because there must be a meeting scheduled about it. I have no idea, really, what he did, but I have trouble imagining his getting fired over one instance. Especially when said instance happened at least a week ago, meaning it wasn’t such a big deal that it needed to be handled immediately.

Anyway, he said some things that I found irritating—his usual pickup/seduction crap—but he was open and sad enough that he revealed that he’s not been on a date since we broke up nor has he slept with anyone. He’s having trouble staying in a “set,” which basically means that he’s approaching women and being quickly shot down. He blames his weight gain (although, honestly, I’ve looked at the photos of us from when we first met and he was not that much thinner) and his losing his game. He hopes to get laid by the end of the year.

He seemed really pathetic. It’s this or his cocky bullshit. He used to be so fun. He’s destroying himself.

And he’s started drinking again. He made it a couple of months; at least that’s something. But he’s an alcoholic who needs help, and that is not for me to deal with. I tried to help him, and we all see where that got me.

Not! My! Problem!

Tonight I run my very last errands and then pack my bag for Copenhagen, because I’m going to try to leave my apartment by 5:30 am. I wish I were already back.

Friday night, I met Jan, Sophia, Lindsey, Caroline, and Jirka for Mexican dinner. The food was worse than I remember but I had a lot of fun. They were having a 50% off special so we ordered a lot, including an entire page of desserts. That may have something to do with my lack of weight loss this week, or perhaps it’s the full English breakfast I ate with Sophia and Lindsey on Saturday. No matter. It hasn’t gone up yet either.

When I got home around midnight Friday, I was surprised that Chris was online and not out doing pickup. We chatted until 4 am. Pleasant.

Saturday, I got my hair cut, met the girls for the English breakfast, which was actually at 2 pm so we decided to stick around until 4:30 for happy hour. After that, we walked around, bought tickets for Bruno, bought a couple bottles of wine to sneak into Bruno, and then went to the movie.

I got home around midnight, and I was again surprised that Chris was online. We chatted until 5 am. Mostly pleasant until the very end when he said something that prompted me to ask him if he loved me. That turned him into his old self, saying that he wouldn’t go there, that I want everything at once, and why can’t I just enjoy what we have? His wooing went down the drain, I’d say.

On Sunday, I spent 8 hours at a hash. I don’t even feel like I got that much exercise as it was mostly a flat trail. It was 11 kilometers, but I think we cut it down considerably by taking a bus for the last leg of it. Caroline, who set the trail, determined that it was too dangerous to do again—a windy, country road with no sidewalk. Good call.

I talked to Chris again on Monday and he issued an ultimatum that either I see him in the next two weeks or he will never speak to me again. I don’t want that to actually work, and I doubt he’d go through with it. But I’m considering letting him come to Prague next weekend when Sophia is throwing a party. At least then it’s his time on the train, his money for a ticket. But I’m enjoying just talking to him. His pickup tells him that he can’t wait any longer or else he’s lost his chance with me so he has to pressure me. And he has been.

Kev emailed me on Monday to ask that I not date anyone for a while. I’m going to take his challenge, except…

I had already scheduled a date. But that is it. That’s the last guy to get a chance for a while, because I really didn’t feel like going and had already sort of moved and rescheduled it. I don’t know what it is but I can’t get excited about dating. It feels a bit like a chore—like a job interview. Selling yourself and building a rapport with someone. It’s not fun.

But I had the date last night with an American guy. It’s the first American I’ve been on a date with since Leon. He’s turning 40 in December, has two MBAs and is getting a third. He’s from Indiana. His background is in finance. He’s very into fitness and described going to gym as his kind of religion. He was raised Jewish and went to Hebrew school until the 5th grade. He’s been in Prague for two years and speaks pretty good Czech. He wants to buy a flat here and settle down. He must make very good money because his monthly rent for a two bedroom penthouse in a nice part of Prague is almost as much as my salary. And he paid for everything, including my cab ride home.

I thought he was very nice. I think he was trying to get me drunk, although it was sweet that he ordered drinks that he already knew I liked—burcak (unfermented wine that’s in season now) and then we did a few shots of tequila. We didn’t laugh, though. He used the word “marketization.” And we probably talked way too much about said marketization, fitness, and Czech people.

When he put me in the cab, he suggested meeting on Saturday. And he texted me this morning.

I went home and talked to Kev for a bit and told him that I didn’t feel the “wowie zowie.” The spark. The chemistry. I never really put much thought into it before, although I did have it with David (he made me float on a cloud) and with Chris. But I’ve also had a couple of relationships that lacked that initial attraction and I thought that was ok, because it always grew. But I”ve been talking to online dater extraordinaire Dan about this lately, and he won’t even bother returning messages from women he doesn’t find attractive.

I mean, that makes sense. But I thought you should give everyone a chance. You might find a treasure that way.

If anything, I decided that this American guy, spark or not, gets the second date because he seems like a nice guy. I may not spark with a nice guy. Or rarely. But I’d like to be finished playing with fire.

I just flaked out of my plans for tonight, but I haven’t had a night in since last Thursday, and I definitely need some Kate time. Last Friday, Chris arrived in Prague and we had a great evening out—drinking and eating delicious food, of course. On Saturday, I took him to see a movie at a documentary film festival, and then we met Caroline, Jirka, and Leslie for drinks and a concert (I invited David to join us but he declined).

On Sunday, Chris and I stayed in all day until he had to catch his 5:30 pm train. I went immediately from the train station to the cinema where I saw Doubt with a new male friend named Honza. To be clear, he is just a friend, and not some converted ex-boyfriend or some guy who wanted to date me but I declined his advances. Just a friend, and, afterward, he and I went for beers. It was a lot of fun; he was really great conversation.

On Monday, I met up with David and we finally celebrated his job offer in Canada, although he said he’s not so sure that he’s going to take it. That it’s good to have options. I’m beginning to wonder if he might stick it out in Prague. I also broke his movie projector by knocking it off of the table it was balanced on (not sure that was entirely my fault), taking with it a glass of red wine that broke and splattered all over the white wall. I’m trying to find a place that can repair his projector, although he didn’t seem at all upset with me. It was a bit strange.

Last night, I went out with Leslie, Caroline, and Jirka for St. Patrick’s Day and we drank a ton and all earned free Jameson t-shirts for the amount of whiskey we consumed. Which is why I’m cancelling my plans for tonight—another movie and possible drink with Honza. Or, rather, I already cancelled. I feel guilty about it but I want to stay in and Skype with Chris. Tomorrow is our six month anniversary and we’ll stay in and Skype that evening too.

Friday, I’ll probably hang out with David again, and Saturday Leslie and I will go costume shopping for the party we’re attending in the Netherlands the first weekend in May, and then she and I are supposed to go dancing with Caroline that night but I wonder if it’ll actually happen.

Anyway, no real introspection to share. I’m just floating from one thing to the next, and feeling pretty good, mostly. I hope it lasts.

Good: Even though the winter in the Czech Republic stretches on far longer than I would like (and it’s only November), one thing that I love about living here is the Christmas markets. The markets in the Old Town Square will not be up until Saturday, but there’s one set up in a square a few blocks from my work.

Today, after lunch with a few of my coworkers, we walked through that market and stopped for some hot, spiced wine. I did not have a cup, but I did appreciate the idea of it. There we were, toddling back to work 30 minutes later than our allotted hour and running a bit late because we decided to have a glass of alcohol. And that’s perfectly normal. Some days I really appreciate living somewhere so incredibly laid back.

Bad: I woke up this morning barely able to open my eyes because they were so swollen and puffy from crying last night. Chris and I had a terrible argument, and I sobbed. I think that he may have been extremely irritable because he is having a LOT of problems with his computers and network, but he said some things to me that were really quite hurtful.

At the heart of everything we discussed seems to be the issue that he really does not like that I am depressed. He thinks that I have a great life and should be happy with everything that I have—including him. He has stressed on more than one occasion that he is extremely picky so I should feel lucky that he chose me. Evidently, I don’t seem thrilled enough that he, who could have any woman he wanted, has his heart set on me. Point taken, I guess, that he doesn’t feel appreciated.

But still there’s the depression issue. He told me that he doesn’t believe in depression. He eventually amended this to say that he does believe in its existence but he thinks it’s over diagnosed and lazily treated with medication. I somewhat agree with that, but he spent a large amount of time telling me that I should just be happy. As though, I can just smile and the sickness will magically go away.

I was lying in bed while he was saying this and feeling a dull pain in my stomach from trying to suppress the crying. It reminded me of what Dirk said to me a couple of months ago. Or what my parents used to say to me ten years ago—my mom not understanding how someone can just feel empty and my dad wishing desperately for me to be normal.

In fact, Chris even said that last night. “Be normal,” he said. “Be a normal human being.” And he told me that people like him because he’s a happy person and they would like me too if I were happy.

This argument began because we were talking on the phone and I wasn’t answering him fast enough. I also wasn’t talkative enough. I keep trying to tell him that I am a quiet person and, yes, sometimes I get sad. If he finds that frustrating or boring or some other unpleasant thing, then it doesn’t bode well for us but he insists that he likes me so much and he thinks that being critical towards me is treating me like an adult and that it might also inspire me to improve myself. He doesn’t think that anyone deserves to be loved for what they are. He thinks that people should always be working on themselves.

I have mixed feelings about a lot of this. I think it’s great to aspire to be a better person and to work towards a goal, but I don’t understand what he’s trying to accomplish with me. Does he think he can bully me into being a better person? Does he look at my weak personality and think I could be easily molded?

Also, I don’t like that he thinks my depression could be so easily remedied and that he seems to have no tolerance for it. The only saving grace here may be that he was really damn irritated by his computer and network problems and not by me and that he was saying a lot of things that he regrets. Otherwise, it seems an unwise decision to enter into a long-term relationship with someone who doesn’t understand some of the most integral parts of me. I feel blindsided by his thoughts on depression. I wonder what else he hasn’t told me.

I have just had a fucking great day. Everything at work has gone smoothly, and we went out for lunch, which is always a big event with my company. Today's lunch lasted 3.5 hours and included many delicious dishes and alcoholic beverages. This is something I love about my company/living in Europe.

Also, I think I'm getting my furniture delivered tomorrow. I'm not entirely clear on that, but I think it will be in my apartment when I get home from work. What's unclear is that this was my landlord's original idea but there was some confusion concerning the keys to my building, so I might not get the furniture for another week or two. I would obviously like the furniture sooner rather than later but it's not a huge deal.

The meeting with the landlord went very well. Mostly, it was just a lot of nodding and smiling. I showed him where I want the sofa when he delivers it, and I also showed him some water damage in my, uh, toilet room (I have separate rooms for my toilet and my bathtub).

Things with Chris are going super. I'm not quite bold enough to burst out with an "I love you" so I'm saying things that test the waters and let him know that it's coming, possibly when I'm in Vienna this weekend.

Yesterday, he was sharing a song that reminds him of me (it's a gothic rock song by Cradle of Filth, which is not my style of music at all), and he said that he doesn't like traditional, cheesy love songs, because he finds them pathetic and lame. I, on the other hand, adore cheesy love songs, because when I'm in love, I basically turn into a block of cheddar.

So we talked about this for a while and then the conversation moved on to something about snobby Americans, and he told me that I'm not a snobby American. "You're the exact opposite of a snobby American," he said. "You are very friendly and that's one of the things that I like about you very much."

"Well, good," I said. "Then perhaps you can write a love song about how friendly I am."

"My song of appreciation about you would be about a lot more than your friendliness," he said. And then he paused. "Oh, fuck it, fine. My love song about you."

So when I'm in Vienna this weekend, I plan to look him in the eye and say something like, "I know you think it's cheesy, unnecessary, and possibly even pathetic, but I love you, and I don't mind saying it." Because I totally don't.

I just might need to have a few drinks in me first.

On Saturday, I had dinner with my friend Manuel. I was a little worried about it seeming like a date, so I asked Caroline along but she declined. I think she is starting to hibernate—it’s cold and dreary here, which isn’t the kind of weather that makes you want to go out and do things. And this is basically what happened last year. Often, if I wanted to hang out with her, I’d meet her at her apartment where she’d usually be in her pajamas and ready for bed.

So it was just me and Manuel, who is a bit of a character. I think he’s trying to revive some ideal of a gentleman, and so he fences, rides horses, and smokes a pipe. Although I’m not a smoker, I determined that I would try his pipe, and so I did. I found it only slightly more pleasant than a cigarette. I also smoked one of his miniature cigars, for which I had about the same affinity as the pipe, except that I felt really cool holding it. Smoking is cool? Apparently!

But, of course, I would hate to pick up smoking and, so, when he offered me that second cigar, I declined. One is more than enough.

Manuel also occasionally sports a monocle, which is fantastic, obviously. And, so, on Saturday, I asked if I could try it on. It didn’t fit me right, though, and it fell to the floor as soon as I withdrew my hand. I felt pretty terrible, but at least it didn’t break.

Anyway, I had a good time and it was not a date! We went out for drinks after dinner, and then he asked me if I wanted to go back to his apartment to hear him play the violin but I declined. You would think that I could go back to a friend’s apartment after a friendly dinner, but you just never know, I suppose. I’d like to think I am capable of having male friends who don’t want to sleep with me and who, likewise, don’t assume that I want to sleep with them. But the wee hours of the morning, after massive alcohol consumption, are not the time to make that kind of assumption. He may seem like a gentleman, but that just isn’t enough.

Dirk can be such a self-centered, whiny baby manchild asshole poopyhead.

He called this morning and we chatted for a few hours about our respective lives, and he is apparently so jealous of my new relationship with Chris that he rescinded his offer to have me visit him in November. He's now pushed it back to January, February, or spring. And while I know those will come about rather quickly, I would not be surprised if another 2+ years elapsed before I saw him again.

Ugh, whatever. He's been a shitty friend in the last month. Hopefully by January, February, or spring, he will have improved upon that.

Anyway, last nights I drank massive amounts of burcak (the unfermented wine) with Caroline, Amy, and later Jirka. I'm recovering from that still, and chatting with Chris.

I've asked my boss for the week of the 13th off and I will spend the week in Austria, visiting Chris's hometown, meeting his parents, and hanging out in Vienna. I hope it goes smoothly.

This weekend is the borcak festival, which I wrote about last year. Borcak is unfermented wine and I think it is rather tasty. I’m meeting Caroline (and possibly others?) after work to down a glass. And then I am going home to beautify myself for a date. This guy is 29 and Austrian, and he unfortunately shares his name with one of my exes—the Scottish may-or-may-not-have-had-a-brain-tumor guy.

Tomorrow, I’m planning to visit Amy in the hospital again as well as attend the piano concert of my former coworker’s mother. She is Austrian. I guess that’s the theme of the weekend. Hopefully I will also drink more borcak. I hope it’s as delicious as I remember.

I may talk to Dirk on the phone on Sunday, but I don’t think so. He and I spoke on Wednesday, and he seems to have completely overlooked my declaration of how I want to be treated. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. On the one hand, I want to stand up to him; on the other, he can frequently tell when I’m being too self-righteous. That may have been the case earlier this week.

At any rate, I’m going to price flights so that I can visit him again around the second week of November. It would be nice if we could fall into a schedule like this, seeing each other every few months. But I don’t know that his work schedule will allow and I really don’t know how many more months I’m going to live here. At the moment, I’m thinking 15—move back to the US in 2010. But I don’t know; I’m still working it out.

Also, mentally and emotionally, I feel absolutely normal, possibly even better than normal. I’m not sure where to put the mark on my chart, but I am content. I’m pretty sure that my emotional breakdown last week was largely hormones with the final, un-ignorable fact that I was being used by that dashing Frenchman as the last straw or however you wish me to mix my metaphors.

letmeburyem’s recent advice to me has not fallen on deaf ears. I’ve actually been devising some plans to make my life better, although I don’t have that one goal in focus. At the moment, I’m feeling rather small (or big, but in a negative, fat way) so I really don’t want to think about these things. In my current mental state, I’ve taken her good intentions and refashioned them into an insult. Something about needing to work on myself and not being good enough. But I know that she only wants to help—that she sees how unsettled I am and is reaching out. I understand that, and I’m going to try harder. Just not right now; right now, I don’t really feel it.

I have to be very careful when I set aside time to work on me, because I am so prone to feeling unworthy. Last night, I got so into my head that I spent a very involved half an hour focused on why people don’t like me. I came up with some good theories too, and none of them was even remotely self-righteous. Nothing like, “They’re OBVIOUSLY jealous of me” or “They’re intimidated by me.” It also wasn’t self-deprecating—not a damn thing about my weight.

Instead, the reasons that I imagined were more like, “I am bitchy” and “I am boring.” These are both true and perfectly understandable reasons for disliking someone.

Anyway, I left this mental exercise at some point to meet some friends for drinks. And I have to say that the drinking was much more enjoyable than the soul searching. Sometimes I forget how being around other people can really lift my spirits, and I really do need human interaction to feel whole.

And that, my online friends, is why I have a date tonight. (New guy; I think he might be Lithuanian.) Although I crave a relationship and that feeling of being in love, tonight’s date is more about socializing. Dating: for when you want to be around other people and you don’t have that many friends. (Of course he might turn out to be a winner, but my reason for going tonight is entirely about enjoying someone else’s company.)

Earlier I was telling myself that I had a choice between an evening of either obsessing about people not liking me or going on a date. This is one of those unfair either/ors that I sometimes come up with to excuse bad decision making. It’s like saying that I can either go on holiday in Europe or kill myself. Obviously, nothing is so black and white. But I do know myself well enough to know when I shouldn’t be alone because I risk obsessing about my flaws in a completely unhealthy and unproductive way and/or learning how to make a noose out of an electrical cord.

Don’t worry about that last bit. That’s more a reference to my state of mind 14 months ago. Right now, I’m smart enough to get out of my head for as long as it takes for these feelings to pass me by. I’m not really unhappy; it’s more of an empty feeling. And I shall fill it with beer, across the table from a single man.

I haven't been posting much lately, in part, because I started my new job on Monday, but largely because I've been sick. I finally realized last night that the sickness is stress-induced (or stress-exacerbated).

I think I need to have a really good cry to let out some of the emotions that I'm bottling up, and I almost managed it earlier this evening. My mom has been sending me updates on my grandpa's health. Two days ago, the news was that he has been placed in the "long term care" unit of the hospital. Today she told me that when she went to see him, he was crying, because he's tired of the constant hospital visits.

(I've decided not to document a lot of these visits over the past several months because I personally don't enjoy reading about the health of someone else's seemingly distant relative--it always seems like comment whoring to me. And I hate explaining how close I am to my grandparents--that I saw them daily when I was growing up, and it was really hard to see my grandpa this past August because it looked like he had aged a decade since last winter. But there. Now you know.)

Anyway, I cannot imagine my grandpa crying, because it was something I never saw in the 18 years that I saw him every day and in the seven years since. It makes me ill to imagine him looking so vulnerable and defeated. But I choked back all of my tears because Fouad was here, and I didn't want to talk about it with him.

I am also stressed about my health insurance, about my overpriced rent, and about my (presumably) unfaithful boyfriend. I'm stressed about my new job--not because the work is stressful but because big new situations like that take a tremendous toll on me. I'm stressed about my friendship with Leon and even felt homesick for him, the guinea pigs, and our home in California. He knows this; we had a Skype video call, and I bawled and expressed regret, after which he told me that he finally feels single now.

Last but not least, my stress-induced illness has made me stressed, because I wonder when it will go away. I can't eat. My sleep is disturbed. I am in a lot of physical pain--the kind that justifies sick leave but, of course, I couldn't possibly take a sick day during my first week of work.

I think that I just need rest, but Caroline's birthday party is this weekend, and that also stresses me out a bit. The last time that Caroline got drunk in my (and Jirka's) presence, she got so upset about having such shitty birthdays in the past that she cried, set a quota for the number of party attendees, made specifications for a type of cake that is not commercially available in Prague (and neither Jirka nor I bake), and jokingly let me know that she's expecting a pretty damn good gift from me because Jirka won't be paid in time to buy her anything for her party. And, of course, I don't know what I'm giving her.

Caroline took most if not all of these requirements back when she was sober, but she won't be sober at her party, so I can't expect complete rationality.

(And, by the way, I love Caroline, so I'm not complaining and I ready don't mind it, although it does fall at a pretty inopportune time.)

Anyway, this isn't helping matters. I need to rest.

Yesterday I joined Caroline, Jirka, and one of Jirka's 15 friends named Petr for a wine festival. Earlier this summer, a guy from California asked me if my living so close to Napa Valley for three years had turned me into a wine snob. Not even close, I told him.

The truth is that I've consumed enough wine in my days to know what I like and what I don't but this has absolutely no relationship to said wine's quality. And it obviously doesn't speak to my knowledge (or lack thereof) of wine making.

So yesterday's festival wasn't really about wine--it was about burcek or unfermented wine. A quick search on "unfermented wine" tells me that this is simply grape juice, but what was being served in massive quantities yesterday was certainly not grape juice, so perhaps it was slightly fermented, since it did taste quite a bit like cider. I don't know, though.

What I do know is what Caroline told me of this burcek, and she said that it would ferment in our stomachs and make us all incredibly gassy. Lovely. I'm not sure if it made me gassy, but perhaps I was too busy shitting out my guts last night to be a good judge.

Sorry! Just slipped that TMI in there!

Anyway, Petr.



When I met Petr back in early June (pre-Fouad), he was perhaps the first guy in the Czech Republic who I had even the slightest interest in dating. I was at a huge disadvantage, though, because I looked like a hideous mess that day. I had failed to put on very much makeup and that which I was wearing had surely melted off by the time that we arrived at Happy Fest, a Hare Krishna celebration.

I flirted with him anyway, and, if you know me in person, you know that this is a very rare occurrence (and one that is quite painful to watch). I thought that he liked me too, at least enough that he and I spoke together privately for a large portion of the evening and he even broke out his Czech/English dictionary to keep the conversation going.

At some point, the majority of us decided to leave Happy Fest in search of a pub (not too hard to find in Prague). Our group consisted of me, Caroline, and three Czech men, and Caroline started getting very irritable and wanted to go home with Jirka. Jirka didn't want to, so she pouted.

I really, really wanted Caroline to cheer up and ride out the evening for me, her friend, but she had no intention of being so charitable. In truth, I think she thought her presence was unnecessary, because I was interested in Petr and Jirka was interested in his friends, but I knew that as soon as she left, it would be odd for me not to leave with her.

So, as we all drank our beers, the Czech men conversed, Caroline pouted, and I tried not to look as awkward as I felt. Eventually the pub closed and the men wanted to go to another one, but Caroline put her foot down and, with that, the evening ended.

Petr got on a tram with me and got off at my stop, despite the fact that he lived four or five stops after mine. In retrospect, he was probably expecting me to ask him if he wanted to come home with me, but I wasn't comfortable with that. Instead, I asked him if he wanted to get another drink, which he declined, saying that he should probably catch the next tram.

He then asked if I would be going out with Jirka et al the following weekend, and I said yes. He said that he'd call Jirka and then maybe he'd meet us. Maybe.

When the weekend rolled around, Caroline made sure that Jirka invited Petr out with us. Petr told Jirka that he had plans but that he'd try to stop by beforehand. He never showed, and I sulked the majority of the evening.

Yesterday was the first time I had seen him since Happy Fest, and I felt as though he expected the flirtation to continue. He was playing with my camera and taking pictures of me, but I wasn't interested because I already have a boyfriend. Too late, buddy!

Besides, after drinking all of that burcek, I had to make a date with my toilet. And unlike Petr three months ago, I actually showed.

The other day, some guy felt me up outside a restaurant bathroom. Fun!

It was no later than 4:00 in the afternoon, and Caroline and I went to have a drink at the restaurant where her Czech language assistant/friend works part time. I put away a liter of beer, which was the most I'd had to drink in nearly two months, and I felt a little tipsy.

I went to use the bathroom (a liter of beer can make that necessary), and as I reached for the door of the women's room, a man came teetering out of the men's. He had dark hair and a mustache and looked to be in his late forties or early fifties. He started speaking to me.

I had no idea what language he was speaking, but he mentioned Slovakia at least twice, so common sense suggests it was Slovak. I told him, "Sorry, I don't understand," to which he said "English, English?" but then continued to speak in Slovak.

He was clearly intoxicated, but because I was too, I found myself more curious than concerned. Plus, I thought it would be rude to just walk away.

And then he, you know, touched me. It was just a single finger and so light, that I, at first, thought that he only meant to point at me, but when he went for boob number two, I was pretty sure it was intentional. Yes, I am a very smart girl.

Afterwards, he kissed his fingers, and I sort of backed into the bathroom, saying, "Sorry, sorry, sorry." I thought he might follow me in there, but he didn't.

He was, however, sitting on a bench outside when Caroline and I left, and when he saw me, he tried to talk to me, but Caroline quickly ushered me away. I had, of course, relayed the story to her and remarked that I didn't know what he was trying to say to me.

She looked at me like I was dense and said, "Uhh, he was telling you that he likes your boobs and he wants to take you back to his country and marry you."

"Oh."

And then she gave me that Kate-you-are-so-naive look that I see way too often. I should really do something about that.

Caroline has three male roommates--one from Bulgaria, one from Mexico (who, presently, isn't paying to stay there and is sleeping on the kitchen floor), and one from the United States--New York, to be specific.

This New Yorker has rubbed me the wrong way almost since I first met him. My assessment of him for Caroline has always been that he is interesting and witty but very arrogant. Caroline said that she gets the same vibes from him, but I think she feels extremely guilty about not liking him. Me? Not so much.

The main reason that I don't like him is because of the way he acted at the rooftop grill party that he and Caroline threw at the beginning of July--the same party at which I ate an avocado and got incredibly sick.

Anyway, he declared one day that he was going to have a party and then he invited a bunch of people. To his credit, he bought a grill, so that there could actually be a grill party, but he didn't lift a finger to help obtain food or alcohol, and that really pissed me off.

Caroline and Asger (a roommate who no longer lives there and who was not throwing the party) bought and made the food, and somehow I got volunteered to help with the alcohol.

You see, in their apartment were several crates of empty beer bottles that Caroline intended to carry to a nearby grocery store and turn in for filled bottles. Of course, Caroline's apartment is on the fourth floor of a building that doesn't have an elevator, so carrying these extremely heavy crates was something of a chore.

And did the big, strong New Yorker dude help? No. He was home, and I asked if he "wanted" to help, which I thought was the politest way to phrase the question, but phrasing it like that made it easy for him to refuse.

Instead, Caroline, Jirka, and I carried these crates--Jirka and I being guests of the party, or so I thought. That really annoyed me and led me to believe that this New Yorker is the kind of guy who tries to get away with doing the least work possible (and you know how I feel about those people!).

But that wasn't the only thing he did that day that I found annoying. The second happened when I wanted to leave after getting sick from the avocado. I couldn't leave on my own, though, because Caroline's apartment building is locked so that, unless you have a key, you cannot get out. This sort of arrangement would never be acceptable in America, obviously, because you'd be trapped if there were a fire, but it's quite common here.

So, at this party, after I ate the avocado, I sat in Caroline's bed and waited until someone had to go downstairs to let in more guests. That person turned out to be the New Yorker.

So I followed him down the stairs, but I was so sick that he was able to let in his friends before I got there, and, seeing that the door was shut, I asked him to open it.

He told me that it was unlocked and then made some snotty remark about how you turn the knob and pull, like I didn't know how to open a door. All of his friends snickered, and I couldn't believe someone would actually say something like that.

...Yeah, I don't like him.

The reason I bring him up right now is that Caroline wants him to move out (it's her lease), but obviously she's far too kind to evict him. But, while I was in the States, he:

1. Ate food of hers that was in the fridge with a "DO NOT EAT" note.

2. Used one of her bath towels to clean the oven and then threw it away.

3. Threw out all of her dish towels.

4. Threw away a pair of her shoes.

5. Ate food of hers that was in her room.

All of these activities are the kinds of behavior that show he has no concern for anyone else or, at least, their belongings.

Caroline said she's going to post signs around the apartment so that he won't do any of these things again, but, if I had any say in the matter, I would definitely vote this guy out. Back to America for you, buddy.

Incredibly Drunk Caroline: Kate, you look too hot today. And your hair is so trendy flipped out like that. You look like an E! News anchor.

Kate: Aw, thank you!

I.D. Caroline: THAT'S NOT A COMPLIMENT!

The other night, I did something that I've never before done in my nearly 25 years on this earth. And it's something I hope to God I never do again: I drank so much I vomited.

Aren't I too old for that? It's like I was a freshman at her first frat party. Actually, it really was.

Caroline has three male roommates--one from Denmark, one from Mexico, and one from New York--and they were welcoming a recent high school grad from Los Gatos, California, traveling through Europe on his summer before college.

So the always hospitable Isaac (that's the Mexican roommate) decided to open a couple of bottles of red wine that he had been saving for his birthday at the end of the month. Caroline and I partook, of course, and then she opened a bottle of red wine that she had bought when we were at Marks and Spencer a month or so ago.

This was all well and good, but then the wine ran out, and Asger (that's the Danish roommate) began rummaging through the fridge for something to mix his vodka and licorice-flavored Turkish alcohol with. After drinking all of the juice, we had no choice but to have the blue Powerade that Jirka had purchased for Caroline when she was sick. And then we polished off some alcoholic orange drink in a water bottle that Caroline had brought home with her from a recent hash.

And that, my friends, is the drunkest I have ever been. My eyes were watering like hell, which amused everyone, I'm sure, as it looked like I was crying. And I was far too drunk to go home, so Isaac put a blanket down on the floor in his room, and I attempted to sleep there. Except that I got up twice, once to weakly get some water, and once to puke.

I really fought it too, because never drinking to the point of vomiting is something to be proud of. And now it is lost forever. But at least I recovered shortly after. Caroline, meanwhile, was sick pretty much the entire day following. I talked to her on Skype and told her that I was feeling better and could probably eat an entire Christmas ham, and I'm pretty sure she wanted to murder me for even mentioning food.

I'm not feeling so good now, though. Caroline thinks I may have eaten a bad avocado or maybe it's because tonight I tried to drink for the first time since the vomit incident. And my stomach just said, "No!" So now I'm vowing to never drink again and I'm sure that'll last a good day or two.

I was a very lucky girl today, and I managed to procure pictures from both Caroline and Petr (one of Jirka's friends), which means that I can finally provide photographic evidence that I have really been in Prague this whole time.

This is excellent news for my mother, whose critique of my Prague photos has been largely limited to "more of you, please." Oh, she will be delighted!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some photos but it's rather late here so I'll just show some hash photos, as they don't require much explanation.

And, also, because nothing proves I'm really in the Czech Republic like a photo of me drinking water:



At the end of the hash, Jirka took our picture as we sadly and impatiently waited for our beer:



...And then after we received them:



More photos to come, and, if my mom has anything to say about it, I'll be in them!

I'm going back to Europe in November to visit Dirk and Caroline. Caroline, as you may recall, is my friend from college who I visited abroad this past Easter. She was also a bridesmaid in my wedding. Dirk is a new friend, although I haven't done a very good job of introducing him.

At one point after returning from Europe last April, I started to detail my trip, including how I met Dirk, a German hash house harrier and a Major in the British Army. I grew tired of this, as I do of telling any story that takes more than an entry or two (I never even posted pictures from my wedding reception or honeymoon).

Well, I met him at the hash in Wurzburg, Germany that Caroline and I attended the last weekend of my stay. He and I had a similar agenda, which was to avoid running the hash trail. My reason was that it was expected to take 8 hours, and I was weak--weakened even moreso by the blisters that I had accumulated all over my feet from walking through Budapest, Vienna, Munich, and all of those other fabulous cities. He didn't want to go running because it was raining.


Dirk.

So after I slept half the day, he invited me to go into the city with him. He was fairly talkative, which was good because I was not, and I escorted him as he purchased chopsticks and hot sauce in some Asian market. Then he and I drank hefeweizen in a little pub before returning to the hostel.

Later in the evening, there was a party in the hostel and I gravitated toward him, largely because Caroline was busy dancing with some guy and Dirk was one of the only people I really knew. Plus he was too busy chain smoking and drinking to care about dancing and was instead among a group of smokers near the entrance to the hostel. Since I am a hideous dancer, I didn't mind hanging out with the smokers, even if many of their conversations were in German.

At one point, Dirk said to me that if I were ever in Germany again that I could stay with him, and if he was not home, I could stay with his girlfriend. It was nice, but it sounded like something a person says when they are drunk and acting overly friendly. What I didn't know was that it was typical of him. This summer alone, he's hosted at least three American tourists and a Canadian. Thus, at the time, I thought it was a nice thing to say, but I knew I'd never take him up on the offer.

Five months later, it's a different story. Seven months later, I'll be taking advantage of his offer.

Come November, I am flying into Brussels, where I will stay in a holiday flat with Dirk and one of his friends for a few days, before heading to Bonn for the rest of the trip. I will meet some of his friends and his girlfriend Fiona. I will sightsee and meet up with Caroline, who is currently in Prague. It should be a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to it immensely.

After this, I suppose I should stop travelling alone and start taking Leon with me. And I imagine that I will. But in November, I will have the opportunity to spend time with two people who mean a great deal to me and I can do so in a most fabulous place, eating and seeing and experiencing amazing things. I need to accomplish this before I get too old.


Me and Caroline in Budapest.

I've been a trifle self-absorbed over the past few weeks, and I think I failed to mention that Leon's sister Ruth visited us for a week around the 4th of July. We did our best to entertain her with miniature golf, wine country, the Steinhart Aquarium, Chinatown, an improv comedy show, and a very unsuccessful barbecue.

Here are some photos, largely self explanatory:



( It's a handful. )

[Confused? Read the first part here.]

In the kitchen there were maybe ten people, including a young married couple (with the hashing names Hermaphrodick and Insufficient Cums), an incredibly nice and heavily tattooed American man (Tour de Cervix), a bubbly Canadian woman with a lot of disdain for Caroline (Cumming Numb), a Southern American who had just made a liquor run (11BO), a young and shy married American (Hot or Not), and a middle-aged man who was in a long-term relationship with one of the female hashers who had already gone to bed (Teacher's Pet).

Add to this mix Maradona, the 37-year-old German chain smoker and me, 23, American, clueless.

Teacher's Pet seemed almost immediately amused and excited to see me. It was as if he rubbed his hands together and said, "Oh ho ho! Look who we have here." And he briefly made it his mission to get the Virgin drunk.

Before I knew what was happening, I had a bottle of Hot Damn stuck in my mouth and tilted at a 60 degree angle by Teacher's Pet. I was pleased to discover that Hot Damn was actually very sweet and not at all alcoholic tasting, so I gulped and gulped at it, wondering how much I would have to drink before he was satisfied. I actually thought that he was very very drunk and incapable of judging what was a reasonable amount to drink.

Maybe ten seconds into having the Hot Damn poured down my throat, I decided to stick my tongue on the mouth of the bottle and essentially cork it. Another few seconds passed and I didn't have to drink anything. Of course, I was unprepared for Teacher's Pet to dislodge the bottle, and this sent Hot Damn pouring all down my face and onto my shirt. How embarrassing!


Teacher's Pet

His next idea was for me to lie down on a table and have him take a shot out of my belly button. But I vetoed this immediately. "Oh, come on," he said, but I shook my head and didn't relent. So he lost interest in me and decided to take a shot out of Cumming Numb's belly button. She reciprocated by taking a shot out of his.

Then she told us a story about a previous hash weekend, when she awoke in the morning to find a black line down the front of her underwear. "I was like, 'What the hell is that?'" she said. But then she remembered that people had been doing shots of licorice-flavored liqueur on her stomach and, well…yeah, you can pretty much figure out the rest.


Cumming Numb (left) with Seven, the only other woman staying in my room

Teacher's Pet went to bed, and the rest of us played a drinking game. At one point, I remember Insufficient Cums saying that she would challenge the person who seemed the most sober and this had to be Maradona. This amused me greatly, because he was really fucking wasted. And so they drank, and we chatted, and what had been a shitty evening in which I wandered around an unknown German town became quite nice.

We all went to bed at the same time, and Maradona tried to convince me to sleep next door with him in a vacant room to get away from the snoring, which, for me, was still not a problem. I insisted that I would be fine in my own bed, and he shrugged and went to sleep on his own.

In part, I didn't join him because I figured that my own snoring would keep him awake. But there was also no need, and he was kicked out of the room at some point by a group of people coming in super late. So he had to return to his bunk in the room full of loud, sleeping men.

Skipping far ahead in my European vacation (through part of Hungary and all of Austria), I found myself in Wurzburg, Germany for a hash weekend. This was how I spent my last two and a half days in Europe and, in the days leading up to the hash, I had come to regret making these arrangements.

In the past year, Caroline has gotten into hashing, and I told her that I would go to a hash with her. This was for a few reasons. The first is simply that it sounded like fun. The second is that it would give me an opportunity to experience something in which she has recently become very interested. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Caroline tends to get very drunk at these events and could use a friend like me who would watch out for her. So that was my main objective. But since hashing is all about running, I was more than a little worried that I had gotten myself into something that I wouldn't enjoy, to say the least.

Friday night, we arrived at the Babelfish Hostel, which was the center of the hash--where most meals were eaten and where everyone was sleeping. Almost immediately upon arrival, I could tell that this hashing business was not for me. Earlier, Caroline had been angry with me, because we got lost walking from the train station to the hostel, but when we arrived she was suddenly in good spirits. I, however, was still licking my wounds, and so when Caroline and everyone transitioned into okay-it's-time-to-be-witty-and-make-everything-into-sexual-innuendo-whee-what-fun!, I just wasn't on board. I didn't feel like a real hasher and being branded a "virgin," with a picture of the Virgin Mary on my name tag, probably didn't help.


A hasher nicknamed False Advertisement enjoys himself.

Once we arrived, Caroline and I registered and took our belongings upstairs to our beds, which were situated in two connecting rooms that had a total of 10 beds. She and I each chose bottom bunks but had to settle for sleeping in separate rooms due to availability. As it turned out, there were only three women in our room and seven men. At least six of those men snored, but we would find this out later.

Downstairs, we gathered with other hashers and ate sandwiches. I was introduced to a lot of people--mostly ex-pats with a few Germans, Brits, and other Europeans thrown into the mix. A lot of the men were in the army, it seemed. A lot of these people were in relationships with other hashers. One of the people I met was a German man whose hashing name was Maradona. He had met Caroline a couple of weeks before, and she introduced us. I felt like he had a lot of disdain for me from the minute we shook hands. His expression said to me, "Oh, God. Not another silly, fat American."

We commenced getting drunk.

Later in the evening, the hashers formed a circle outside, sang a jolly song, and began the night's primary festivity: a pub crawl through Wurzburg. We were given tickets for a free beer at each pub.

I felt like such an oddity, as I walked through the streets of Wurzburg with people who were obviously drunk, wearing silly hats, and singing loud, obnoxious songs. A lot of young people stopped to point and laugh. Others tried to engage the drunkest and most eccentric of us in conversation. I found myself completely fascinated by the spectacle that we were.


Some of the female hashers (harriettes, maybe?).

At the first bar, I ordered my drink and moved away from the bar. Maradona made eye contact with me and offered me a seat at his table. I thanked him. Almost immediately, though, Caroline came and found me and said that she was at another table and that I should join her. I told Maradona that I was sorry, and he just shrugged, as if to say, "Ah, no big deal. I was just being polite."

We chatted with some of the other hashers and I was pleased to discover that they were incredibly nice people. I mean, alarmingly nice. I hadn't expected them to be rude or mean, but I was definitely taken aback by their level of friendliness.


Drink up.

We went to our second bar. I chatted with a man who was so drunk that he made absolutely no sense, so it wasn't so much that we chatted as it was that he rattled off random British slang while I nodded as if to say, "That is so true!"

By the third bar, I was drunk to the point of being overemotional. I left and thought that I would walk back to the hostel. I started to blubber like a child. I cried, and I cried, and I cried. I felt really uncomfortable, I suppose. By the second bar, Caroline had lost interest in me, and I felt out of place and alone. I felt homesick. I fantasized about flying home early. I was very, very drunk.

Unfortunately, I was too drunk to find my way back to the hostel. It didn't help that Caroline and I had gotten lost on our way there and that we were following this little trail of chalk marks that seemed intent on leading us astray. So I wandered the empty streets of Wurzburg for thirty minutes or so while I cried and looked for cabs. I eventually found the group again when they were returning to the first bar.

When Caroline spotted me, she was absolutely relieved to know that I was all right. She said that she couldn't find me and was worried. It made me feel much better, I must admit.

But when I had the chance to leave the pub crawl, I did. I walked back to the hostel with the first group of people who left (or so I thought). I was surprised to find that there were at least two people asleep in my room. I took a shower and went to bed.

An hour or so later, I was awoken by Caroline and Maradona returning to our room. She went right to bed, but he was irritated by the men who were snoring.

"You can't sleep with all this noise, can you?" he asked me, even though the snoring hadn't bothered me a bit. But I must have looked so disoriented and drunk, because he brought me a bottle of water and told me to drink up and he patted me on the back in a very paternal way.

Then he said, "Come on, let's go downstairs. You can't sleep through this, and I can't sleep through this, so let's go have a drink. Just put on some clothes and we'll go downstairs." So I put on my sneakers and my light blue hoodie and followed Maradona downstairs to the kitchen, where the last ten hashers were continuing to drink, well into the night.


A photo from another hash. Maradona (real name Dirk) is on the right.