The First Day in Prague

It wasn't meant to be the usual smutty long weekend. Well, for me it wasn't. It was meant to be cultural, meaningful and romantic...

It was, on the whole. We were hindered slightly from anything else; the ‘Sex Machine Museum’ was 270 Czech Crowns (£10!) so I had to choose between Bavarian roast duckling with cabbage and dumplings later that night or watching a mannequin slapped and tickled by half a dozen dildos on the end of a rotating wheel. I think I made the right choice, especially as the alternative museum was the 'Chocolate Factory', complete with historical section, demonstration and tasting and truth be told, I'd rather embrace my inner fat kid than kindle my seventeenth century perve any day.

When we arrived in the city, after a shockingly smooth navigation from a plane to a bus to a train which made me rather proud, I was suddenly aware that we had three full days in Prague and that it isn't a very big place. I'd visited during the hazy days of last summer and was pretty sure I did everything, a bus full of Australians not included. So when we found Wenceslas Square, (which is a strip, not a square, by the way-odd, I know), I thought it was time to break Matthew's 'NO MUSEUMS!' rule straight away, and frog-marched him into the landmark 'National Museum'.

It isn't about the history of Czechoslovakia as you might think, but contains an assortment of zoological and other artefacts inside, to look at and say ‘oooh!’ then move on swiftly to the next without having to read too much information about crustaceans and rock strata. We refused to pay an extra £1 for the ‘Camera Pass’ and posed with the woolly mammoth with enough stealth of petty thievery to make even our mothers proud, co-operating like the perfect couple to ensure no flash was emitted from beneath our jackets, under no watchful eye of a hawk-like attendant with a well versed speech and walkie-talkie link to security.

We had circulated the entire city by evening. We saw the Astronomical clock, but I couldn't remember what it did or why it was special, so just pointed and Matthew nodded. After seeing all the sites we checked in to our hotel, just minutes from the strip.

“Whoohoo! Flat screen satellite TV!”

OK. Maybe we did intend to spend a bit of time in the room.

“Ah . . . the only English channels are . . . CNN and BBC WORLD NEWS.”

We certainly left Prague knowing a bit more about current affairs. Obama, if you’ve not plugged that damn hole yet! The updates were every hour and they still hadn’t stopped it by the time we left . . .

After getting familiar with our environment we went for dinner and made the stupid-in-retrospect-decision to eat in the ‘TRADITIONAL CZECH STYLE RESTAURANT’, on the main square, OUTSIDE. Somewhere in my brain, I had lodged the information crucial to any traveller – eating inside, good, eating outside BAD. Very bad. It’s usually 50% more expensive, as we were to find out on our last day . . .

My goulash tasted like heaven to begin with, then I steadily began to choke on the thick sauce and, after I had finished my £4 bottle of 50cl Italian-so-it-must-be-good water, I was confined to dabbing the sauce off and just fished out the meat. Matthew on the other hand successfully devoured his half a chicken, dumplings and potato croquettes with enough panache to make the boy dressed as a seventeenth century foot soldier smile even more manically from the doorway opposite and proceed to thrust the desert menu beneath our noses.

I’ll try not to make this blog entirely about food, but, in case I hadn’t mentioned, it is integral to my life. (Not in an, everyone eats or they die, duh Jess, kind of way but an 'mmmm! Cake!' kind of way, whenever we passed a bakery, which was quite often wandering round Prague for three days).

We ordered the best apple strudel known to man, to ‘share’ I add. Matthew took a few bites and surrendered. Now, I can’t leave food. It’s been ingrained in me from childhood that you finish your plate, especially if you’ve paid for it and if you leave any pudding you're damned to hell, so I ate it all. And paid a painful £6 for it. It was a costly meal that we definitely learned from . . .

Back at the hotel we read our books over the noise of the news at ten and attempted to cuddle over the divide in the two single beds. So we ended the day more 'pensioner's last hurrah before they die' than 'first trip away', but don't judge OK? Day 1 was 'cultural' and we had been up since four . . .

The pensioners wouldn't have gone to bed at ten either, would they?

Holiday Essentials

Sat eating dinner the night before we leave -

Mrs S: Do you know where your passport is?

Matthew: Jess.

Mrs S: Money?

M: Jess.

Mrs S: You need to pack your phone charger and camera, anything else?

M: No.

Mrs S: There's an umberella by your case as well.
M: 'K.

Mrs S: Matthew..?

M: Yeah?

Mrs S: Do you actually know what you're going to be doing in Prague?

M: Yeah... Jess.

- and then I choke on my meatball.

When Matthew Met Jim

They were stood together, talking at the bar. Matthew was alternating swigs from his JD and coke, bottle of white wine and champagne, listening intently while Dad spoke at length between each sip from his shandy. The bar didn't have any Gay Beers on the tab -non-alcoholic beer that is, given the un-PC name by the tee-total semi-homophobe I call 'Daddy'- so he had to make do with that instead. 
'We', being the women of the family, were watching from a safe distance, judging, guessing and waiting for it to be over so that we could coerce the men into moving side to side to the Macarena without treading on our bare and blistered party feet and, of course, to be filled in with the details of the intriguing conversation we'd been shunned from.

"Do you think Uncle Jim is lecturing him?" my cousin Tanya asked.
"I can't tell from this far away," I replied, "Dad's not frowning, so he's not angry . . . Plus is it just me, or is Matthew smiling inanely? Surely it can't be a history lesson or, you know, worse."
"Go over and investigate," Mum nudged me, already tipsy from her second champagne and unwilling to tread the dangerous territory across the room in her Jimmy Choo's, that had cut her feet to shreds, but looked 'fabulous darling!' 


I was worried about Matthew, and rightly so. Dad usually grilled each unwilling suspect that I brought home, leaving them frowning, spluttering or just rudely chillin' on the couch completely oblivious to what he was saying while he made up his mind that they were pitifully under-par as their eyes glazed over.  


I wanted to know how he was coping, so sidled over to them under the pretence of getting my sixth free drink. I'll add here that, unlike my usual light-weight self, the alcohol hadn't affected me. It couldn't be absorbed into my blood stream you see, thanks largely to the canapés, Parma ham and strawberries, assortment of fish, new potatoes with garden vegetables and the near tastiest chocolate pudding and ice cream I've EVER tasted, lining my stomach and bursting the seams of my dress while I smiled contently. 

I approached them with tentative steps and attempted to eavesdrop but they stopped talking before I was close enough to hear. 

"You boys alright?" I asked, more to Matthew than Dad. I was hoping our telepathic connection would kick in and Matthew would blink once for 'he's boring me to death, get me to the dance-floor quick-sharp', but he just did the smile again.

"Yeah, we're fine." Then they both smiled. It was creepy. "Go have fun, dance."

They were definitely trying to get rid of me. . . 

Ten minutes later he found me, just in time for the Grease Mega-Mix and a lovely rendition of some of the words in some of the right places. He was pretty smashed by now. 

"So, what were you talking to my Dad about?" 

"Oh, you know, secret stuff."

"Matthew, tell me! Could he tell you were drunk?"

"No, not at all preeeetty. It was just men stuff," 

"Ok, if you say so," 

And I left it at that.

Two days later I was in the car with my parents as they brought me back to Derby and we began talking about the party.

"So what were you talking to Matthew about then?"

"Oh, just funny stuff. He's a nice lad."

"But what was it about?"

"Mostly 'coitus-interruptus' and horses."

"What?"

"Well, Matthew was pretty gone, bless him. We were talking about drinking in our teens - I told him about the time I came back to the flat and the kitchen was filled with chickens and a leg of lamb on the table because they'd done over the butcher's - and yeah, he told me some things too."

"About sex though? He told you about sex?" I said it quietly, hoping it wasn't true.   

"I think it was from the farmyard tangent, yeah. He said something about a horse looking at them in a field?"

Matthew's side of the story was a bit different.

"We hadn't been having sex!"

"But he said coitus interruptus,"

"Yeah! I know! I didn't know what that meant."

"Oh, right. It's Latin, see."

So maybe it was a bit of a misunderstanding, but they were still in a dangerous, weird territory if you ask me. They should have been talking about careers, or music, or me even, in an affectionate, complementary, 'God, isn't she ace' kind of way. Anything but that sort of men stuff. It's like they were both nineteen, and one wasn't my father.   

It's fine though, I've got a Plan Of Action. I'll never leave them alone together again. Not without an approved list of topics anyway.  

   


[And then this happened the next morning, which was thankfully not a sickening coincidence - Room Service]

If You Say 'Please'!

A young man walks towards us and throws his polyester sports jacket onto the floor next to the cash point. He sits down and swigs from his bottle of Fosters.

Man: 'Ere love, got any spare change?
[All three of us turning away simultaneously while we use the machine] . . .
Man: You there, you three girls!
[Looking at the floor]
Man: Scuse me! Can I have some change darlin'? You THERE! In the black JACKET! OI! I'm talking to you three, you wankers!

Option 1: Toss him some coppers and avoid catching his eye.
Option 2: Be polite and say we don't have any change . . .
Option 3: Tell him where to go... [namely back to his nice flat on Uttoxeter Road if he forgot his wallet and next time pretend to be homeless with a little more finesse. Then start running before he tries to bottle us].

We choose Option 4 in the end:

Continue to ignore his slurs of abuse aimed at the backs of our heads for five minutes while we each get a crisp ten pound note out, resisting the urge to waft it in his face and engage in a bitch fight with the faux-homeless that would probably have ended in a similar way to Option 3.

This happens quite a lot in Derby. It's a lovely place.

An Indecent Response

Wandering through town . . .

J: Fancy a quickie when we get back?

In a black and white 1940's romance/an ideal world:

M: Of course I do sweetie, you don't need to ask!

[Sweeps me into a full blown kiss in the middle of Saddlergate that makes even the passers-by go weak at the knees]

What He Actually Replied:

M: No, I can't. I'm going to clean my bathroom.

Well, at least his mum will be pleased . . .

As Young As . . . Take 2

[Wearing a flowery summer dress and a smile. Approaches the bar, leans on the rail to get a bit of height]

Jess: Hi, can I get a chicken burger and a lemonade please?
Girl: Have you got any ID?

Scenario 1] The Way it Could Have Gone:

Jess: Are you being serious? This is a fucking joke right? I'm 20 years old!
Girl: If you can't provide any identification I'll have to ask you to leave,
Jess: For a LEMONADE??

Scenario 2] The Way it Should Have Gone:

Jess: I don't need to show you any ID; I'm not attempting to purchase an alcoholic drink and even if I was and you thought I was sixteen it would be perfectly legal for me to do so as I'm with three 'adults'. If you thought I was fifteen then I would be well within my rights to purchase this meal as I'm actually seated in the designated children's area, with, again, the two adults from my UNIVERSITY FLAT. Oh yeah, and I only want a lemonade!

Girl: Fair point. I really am just a stupid power-tripping blonde bitch aren't I?
Jess: Yeah, just a tad.

Scenario 3] The Way It Went:

Jess: [handing provisional licence over the bar, muttering under breath...] Gaaaaaay!
Girl: [narrowing eyes] Here's your change.

So, on a brighter note, in the past few months I've gone from looking fourteen to fifteen. Soon I'll nearly be legal at this rate.

Two Brunettes and a Mixing Bowl

We were bored, so the logical thing to do was to bake something. The only problem was we didn't have any scales, so used mugs instead. Or a recipe actually, but we never stick to them anyway... We didn't have  eggs either, but we soon realised that mixing some flour, caster sugar and flora light together in a bowl nearly closely resembles the mixture for shortbread. Izzy put the flour in the bowl, then I began beating the marg'.
"It says not suitable for baking," I notice on the side of the tub, "do you think it will be OK?"
"Yeah, it'll be fine. And it's healthier than butter anyway...right?"
She stirs. I toss in a cup full of sugar.
"Oh, we were meant to mix the butter and sugar together first I think, I wonder if it'll make a difference?"
"Probs not, it'll taste fine."
"Well shall we try separate the flour and the sugar?"
"Erm, I don't think we can really. They're both grainy, aren't they?"
"Yeah, spose."
The mixture turns to a pale dough and Izzy adds a bit more caster sugar, as though somehow that will make it brown and tasty looking. Or tastier, for that matter...
We throw the baking tray into the oven and keep checking every fifteen minutes, leaving it in there for longer than the required thirty, an hour to be exact. It's still white. I pull the tray out and cut a square off, placing it into my mouth. I burst out laughing and Izzy asks what's so funny.
"It tastes like Roti! How funny! Indian things you know, like chapatis? My Grandma used to make them. All we need now is a bit of jam and I almost feel Indian,"
"Jess, you are Indian."
"Yeah, but not really. Accidental shortbread roti's are the closest I'm gunna get..."
"So more sugar then next time?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. They do taste a bit weird. I'm not sure if I like it."

The tray was empty by the next morning, Izzy tried to eat one and it nearly broke her tooth. I never did try them with jam. I might try to make them again sometime. 'Accidental shortbread roti's' I mean, not the biscuits.