Discostup: So, you have a SISTER....?

Of course, once my thoughts had betrayed her (too), Lord Vader surmised that maybe, just maybe, if I couldn’t be turned to the dark side, then perhaps SHE could. Well now I can’t remember. Either that happened, or else it was simply that “little” Mal decided to bring her boyfriend Chris (a lad once deemed to be weaker than Papa Stup - by Papa Stup himself, I might add - and apparently it wasn’t even close) and come stay and travel with Gwen and I to some Eastern European hot spots for a week.

OK, so both events happened. But let’s just focus on the recent week’s vacation.

"That boy was our last hope..."

"No. There is another...."

It's well known that Papa Stup thinks Chris needs to hit the weights...

Prague

Prior to arriving in Prague, we spent nearly a whole day on various trains. It had started to snow that day, and heavily, and the result was that the normally rigidly timed German train system was beginning to have delays. At one point, we were supposed to switch trains in Dresden. Our train was arriving late, though, and with but a minimal layover I was concerned that we wouldn't make the connection at all. When we got off at the wrong train station in Dresden, however, the fault shifted from the train itself to squarely on our heads. We quickly hopped BACK on a train heading toward the main Dresden station (though 10 minutes later than our already late original train) and thus we arrived even later. And, as expected, the train to Prague - from Dresden - that we had tediously booked and had nice seat reservations and even a table(!) on, was long gone, and without us.

So Gwen and I rushed into the booking office at the overly crowded, cold, and blustery (from construction) main Dresden station, There, we waited in line for the ticket agent to solve our problem. The line was long and it seemed we weren’t the only ones hung up by the delays. When we got to the lady, she unfortunately turned out to actually mean it when she said she only spoke “a little” English. (Most people here, when they say that, mean that they speak it barely well enough to go into a full debate about 18th century African politics, or the like, and in near perfect English). But this lady only did speak a “little” English. And furthermore, she seemed to forget that we didn’t speak ANY German, and every time I asked her a question (in English), she would rattle off Germanic phrases in the classic put-out, no patience way that most German people have when speaking to someone who doesn’t speak German. So, despite my pleas of showing our ticket reservations, and then telling her the TRAIN was late (conveniently leaving out the piece about the idiot tourists getting off at the wrong station to make us even later), we ended up having to buy 4 new tickets to get on the next train to Prague. Fuckles.

Moments later, as we waited in the aforementioned blustery and freezing train station (which was exposed to open air and the ongoing snowstorm, and hardly seemed like shelter at all thanks to the ongoing construction), I decided to march back in to the office and see if I couldn’t inquire about how much MORE it would be to upgrade to first class tickets. This time, I was armed with a phrase book (which ended up adding like a whole one word to my German vocabulary - the term for “first class”). With that, and with various hopefully universal pantomimes, I managed to get the lady to understand that I wanted to upgrade the tickets to first class. It wasn’t even that much more money. Success.

Then, as we waited for that train to arrive, and as we came to see about 8 MILLION people waiting to get on said train (many probably also late from the various snow delays), I realized I was glad I booked the first class tickets. If we had ridden second class, we likely would have been standing like steerage the whole way. (You can only book actual seat reservations well ahead of time, and thus we couldn’t book them in second class. And by now we’ve seen multiple trains get way overcrowed, and of course it’s NO fun to stand on a 3 hour train ride jockeying for seats while carrying significant luggage, as we were.)

Anyway, after all that, we were off to Prague for reals. Heading towards Prague, I was well aware that I didn’t speak Czech. Upon arrival in Prague, however, Mallory and I were both pleased to see that the Czechs were quite familiar with all things “Stup”. Entrance, exit, street names - there seemed to be no end to the syllable “stup” in the Czech language. Mallory and I quickly decided that we owned that town, and that we should simply storm into places like restaurants and yell things like, “Hello, a couple of STUP’s over here - can we get a table already?!?!”

From the train station in Prague (or “Praha”, as the locals call it), we took the metro over toward our hotel. From their, we walked to the hotel, all this in the midst of falling snowflakes. It made for a sort of majestical image, hauling luggage in old Prague back streets heading toward the hotel. Kind of a cool way to enter the city.

And Prague itself WAS a cool city. Very picturesque with that old world feel about it. The circa-freezing tempatures, falling snow, and biting wind all added to the Winter Wonderland (Tm) feel of the city, which continued through Vienna and was more or less the overriding theme of most of the trip. (Or at least it was a strong second place to the Mike and Mallory "see who can spend the most time talking like Papa Stup" theme of the trip).

Our hotel was located quite close to the legendary Charles Bridge, which was quite a sight. We arrived on a Saturday evening, relaxed at the hotel, and then went to one of the local restaurants. I really liked all the Czech beer that I drank, with the Pils Urquell probably being my favorite.

On the first full day we enjoyed the hotel’s continental breakfast and then went into action-tourist mode, power walking a good portion of the city, hitting up the bridges, hitting up the old castle, rolling around to various cathedrals, seeing the Christmas village thing, enjoying glu-vine and hot chocolate, doing some shopping, laughing with (and at) the locals, and basically having a good time. Dinner the second night was especially entertaining because of the Czech Keyboard player who the “centerpiece” in the Icelandic restaurant that we went to. He kept covering American classic rock songs (in his own special, and unintentionally hilarious Czech way). He had the smug look about him that some of these under-talented but ambitious restaurant keyboard players tend to have. Adding to the spectacle was the fact that I was about 20 feet away and in direct line of sight, so oftentimes, as he shrilled out his oddly-pronounced CCR hits, he would look me in the eye - as if he was singing to me. All the while he had that sort of “check out my talent” look about him which made for highest of the high unintentional comedy.

At that point it became our mission to videotape him with our various digital cameras. We couldn’t get it working in time during his unbelievably entertaining version of “Have you ever seen the rain” by CCR, but we did manage to get some tape of “Hotel California”, which was a close second in terms of hilarity. Also on his play list were “Oh ble Di, Oh ble Da” (Beatles), “Bad Moon Rising”, and many others too numerous to list. Somehow, I have to figure out how to post up video clips. Oddly enough, half the fun was trying to look like we weren’t filming him, when in reality we were wholly obsessed with photo-documenting the entire surreal experience. (I kept having my sister and Chris “fake pose” and then move at the last second as I took my pictures. The video clips were even harder to pull off, but for the effort were THAT much more rewarding).

On the second full Prague day, we got shut out at a museum (which was only closed on Mondays), and spent the day checking out other parts of the city. That day was also Gwen’s 30th birthday. I wish she could have had a more "Gwen oriented" 30th, but I think the day went fairly well as it was and she seemed happy. But then we made plans to eat at “El Gaucho” for dinner, which we hoped was in league with the wonderful “El Gaucho” chain in the Northwest. (The Seattle and Tacoma El Gaucho restaurants are high-quality steakhouses). Unfortunately, the restaurant was more like “Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag” with good fun, good food, and, uh, lots of crazy crap on the walls. (Actually, it was more like Carlos Murphy’s in San Diego than anything else I can think of). To make things, worse, we managed to get the worst waiter that I’ve had in at least the pastfive years. This guy was so horrible that I only wished Papa Stup could have been there to break down HOW horrible he actually was. The list of grievances with this particular individual is long. I remember thinking the whole encounter was going to go badly after seeing the sarcastic and put out “yes, your MAJESTY....”expression he put forth when we simply asked for the wine list.

After we picked a wine, he had to check to see if they had it. Then he brought it over, (though it was the wrong year), and sat the bottle on the table and walked away. We didn’t see him for another 20 minutes (at least), leaving us basically to sit and stare at the wine (there were no other drinks yet, and no bread - NOTHING). “Um, sure LOOKS good,” we would say. Unbelievable. Ordering was another debacle. At one point the guy told my sister she could walk over to where they kept the salad dressing and see which one she liked, even though her question had nothing to do with that. The food itself was decent, if not spectacular. At the end of the meal, the waiter topped everything by saying “Here is where you put tip”, then circling the spot on the receipt, then standing one foot away and staring down while waiting for me to put it in. “Um, I think we’ll do the tip with cash, buddy,” I said. This sort of horrid service, which was far worse than even the typical laissez-faire German style, was all the more shocking because you’re actually supposed to leave a tip in Czechoslovakia. (So the waiters have a reason to care about their service).

It’s been a long time since I actually stiffed somebody on a tip. (Usually if I think a waiter sucks, I give him like 15% instead of 20-25%) This guy, however, was stiffed. He was atrocious. (Papa Stup might have considered him to be almost as worthless a human being as Ron Dayne.)

Prague Pics:

If only I could incorporate this picture into my fantasy football trash talk...

All the politically correct souvenirs you could want

Now you're talkin!

Obligatory Mike is an idiot picture

The Iwan sports bar

Vienna

The next day we boarded our train and cruised down to beautiful Austria. We had less time in fair Vienna, only a day and a half really, as compared to the 2.5 days in Prague. The city, also beautiful, was cold but fun. We went to a pretty sweet art museum the second day, and then walked all around the central part of the city for the rest of the day. The last night there, we ended up eating a fantastic meal at some small local place. It was perhaps the best meal of the trip.

The way back on the train was another long day. Luckily, the various amount of time on trains was sped along my new favorite toy - my Sony PSP. Also, I’ve been re-reading the amazing “Song of Ice and Fire” series by George R. R. Martin, which is the best modern fantasy fiction I’ve read, by far.

It was also wonderful to see and spend some quality time with my sister. She is nine and a half years younger, and we unfortunately haven’t been able to spend a lot of time together the last several years because of our geographical separation and all my moving around. One of the recurring highlights of the trip was our constant assuming the persona of Papa Stup. After trading stories, we were almost perpetually in dueling Papa Stup mode, laughing and enjoying everything about it. (I’m sure its no surprise to any regular reader of this thing just how much mileage you can get out of Papa Stup phrases while on vacation - things like, “Hey, it’s a good bag - you just roll it”, and “Take you five minutes”, “Did you read the book?” etc. Not to excluse the inordinate amount of time spent "middle finger pointing things out" on maps - another P. Stup trademark). And, of course, we beat all these phrases and gestures into the ground and then some. (I don’t think I ever addressed my sister without starting with, “Uh, Mallory...”) Gwen and Chris were good sports about the whole thing as well. Anyway, it was a good time all around. The trip was a blast. Time for Vienna pics....