I know that I’m more than a week past my personal deadline, that I’ve transformed my weekly journal into a bi-weekly, and that it’s atrocious. But I’ve just poured myself some nice Scotch (my father is in the house) and I’m very anxious to make up for all that lost time, so…

            I’ll start with the canoeing trip:

Imagine me in wet sweatpants and a RedSox hat, squatting at the front of a plastic orange canoe, gripping a plastic paddle, awaiting further instructions from my 72-year-old grandfather whose 200+-pound ass is parked in the back of the rocking vessel. Then imagine a sunburned, sweaty me feebly stirring the placid waters of the Berounka as a stiff-limbed Grandpa huffs behind me. Finally, imagine me hanging over a bubbling rapid, paddling empty air while the back of the boat scrapes the riverbed under the weight of Grandpa’s behind.

            Meanwhile, in a nearby canoe, high school history teacher, recent aneurysm survivor and Grandpa’s lifelong friend Michal makes inappropriate comments to a frantically paddling cousin Misa. “What’s worse?” she wonders. “Michal having another episode or Michal making a move on me?”

            Despite our geriatric companions, both Misa and I derive energy from the lush wilderness, medieval castle ruins and cliff-hugged meanders of the Berounka valley. We vow to never again sit in the same boat as a septuagenarian and plan future canoeing trips with our respective boyfriends. THE END

The following week is marked by the arrival of the Hulpach boys: My father and Kenny took up residence in my otherwise lonely flat. A day earlier, Prague welcomed Jacki and Jean, who took up residence on the pullout couch in the living room. While in Prague, the girls were escorted to four bars, each within 500 meters from the flat.

            We flew to Paris at an ungodly hour on Friday morning, thus missing a night of sleep that the ville lumineuse never ceded. To explain: my heart belongs to Prague, but I would cheat on her with Paris. 

            On day one, we sleepwalked through les Jardins de Luxembourg and La cimetiere du Montparnasse. Double espressos no longer had any effect, so I dragged the girls to the Café Select—the establishment in which Hemingway drank his way through The Sun Also Rises—had a whiskey, and felt like the happiest Bohemian in the world.

            At night, Jacki and I dragged Jean on a quest for “The Film Noir bar”. To explain: When Jacki and I last came to Paris, we were both single, and so, nuturelment, we wanted to meet the boys from la Sorbonne. Our hotel at the time was in the Quartier Latine, a stone’s throw from the famed university, and in our wanders through the dim-lit streets ‘round Cluny, we found a bar whose flickering neon light spoke to us in a universal language. In short: we went in, met a group of French kids who took us to another bar, got drunk, had great fun, but no action ensued.

            Much has changed over the last two years, but Jacki was apparently still on the same mission. The hotel she selected, for example, was only one block away from the one we’d stayed at on our previous trip. It took determination, but after combing through the Sorbonne area for an hour, we finally found the familiar neon light. Different actors, same scenario: After a few rhum-cocas, we were approached by a French boy whose name I forget (unlike Jacki), introduced to a dozen of his closest friends, and hauled off to a Saint Germain bar called la Guillotine. At this point, someone handed me a TGV (Tequila-Gin-Vodka). Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to drink it—they only gave it to me as a joke—but I did. After all, I’m Czech. And so I got into my usual state of being plastered without knowing I’m plastered, and conversed in le franglais affreux with the locals until I saw that Jacki was also plastered, and whispered in her ear the lethal phrase: “Jacki, when is the last time you got laid?”

I didn’t mean anything by it—after all, I was plastered—but Jacki was obviously stirred. When I looked to find Jacki an hour later, she was in a passionate embrace with the guy whose name I don’t remember.

Ruling to give my sexually deprived friend some privacy, I opted out of the bar and headed home. It was lovely—the morning fog was rising from the Seine, the Boulevard Saint Michel was all but abandoned, and I was absolutely hammered. In my wanders, I bumped into a 32-year-old French-British financial analyst whose uneven steps indicated that he was just as forlorn as I. He asked me if I wanted to join him for breakfast. And so it was that an affianced 23-year-old journalist from Prague and a 32-year-old what’s-his-name from Bath discussed literature and world politics over oysters and white wine in a Champs Elysees café at, oh, 7 in the morning.

Meanwhile, Jacki got it on with her “French lover.”

On Saturday night, we took Jean to the scummy strip clubs of Pigalle and then to Le Pulp, a lesbian club which ended up being a riot, even for those of us who claim to be straight. Jean is considering chopping her hair so that she could be easily identified by other lesbos. I’m all for it.

On Sunday, Jacki and I hiked up to Montmartre. We sat in front of the Sacre Coeur and picnicked on a baguette and a bottle of Cotes du Rhone. La fin.

This week, I worked my ass off and continued to not sleep. On Monday, I met up with Prague Post photographer Vladimir and took the train to Podebrady, a central Bohemian spa hamlet about 50 km west of Prague. My mission was to meet Milan Paumer, a former member of an IRA-style Czechoslovak resistance group that sabotaged, chloroformed and shot commies in the Stalinist 1950s. Everyone HAS to read my 1600-word people profile this Thursday. Shit like this makes me realize why I do what I do.

Current Mood: amused