Biding Time Until Monday.

I'd like to begin by thanking everyone for their encouragement. You have no idea how supported and cared for I feel, and that's incredibly valuable. I'm thousands of miles away from home, and I'm surrounded with people whom I socialize for a few days, and then we part ways. I have fun, but I miss the comfort of knowing people, and, furthermore, knowing that I can build lasting friendships with the company I keep. It's very difficult (impossible?) to do that in a hostel (hostile?) atmosphere, and it touches me deeply to know that I have such a network of supportive and kind people cheering me on. So thank you again, and I promise the preceding statements are the closest to maudlin sentiment I'll ever come in this blog.

Now to begin. It's been a while since my last update, and, quite frankly, that's because I haven't done a whole hell of a lot. I watched another day of games out at Slavia, and I honestly didn't see anywhere I would fit in. One of the pluses to the restaurant over the ice is that no one speaks English. It's a very culturally immersive atmosphere, and very good for my pronunciation. One of the minuses, however, is that no one speaks English. It's hard to make connections. I was thinking of talking to my bartender friend, having him call Jakob, and then buying Jakob drinks, dinner, and a couple rounds of pool if he'd be my interpreter and help me talk to coaches and rink staff. Then the rains came. It's been more or less torrential since Wednesday afternoon, and the weather was essentially prohibitive to any journey more than a kilometer from my hostel. The day it started, Thursday, I went to Charles Bridge at sunrise after staying up all night in the hopes of recovering the amazing pictures that were on my last camera (grumble grumble). The sky was clear until first light, then the clouds came in. Then the clouds turned grey. Then the clouds turned black and the bottom fell out. Before weather got too inclement, though, I had another rather regrettable experience with my countrymen. I was walking around on the bridge and heard the harsh twang of what could only be a Tennessee accent; a group of college-age gentlemen (?) were milling about, and I figured it couldn't hurt to investigate.

"Where y'all from?"

"Tennessee, man, and we're FUUUUUUUUUUCKed UUUUUUUUUUP."

"That's cool. I'm from Tennessee too, and I'm dead tired and sober as a sober stick."

Hence began a discussion of common acquaintances. (Names will be changed to protect the not-so-innocent). Finn, a UT-Knoxville student knew several Sewanee Kappa Alphas, and if you're known by the company you keep...well, suffice to say all parties involved have fairly low standing. They told me about their adventures in the five-story club on the Vltava, drunk as hell and zooed on ecstasy all night long. One gentleman regaled me of his unprotected untoward actions with a certain young courtesan...in the club bathroom stall. Oh, woe is me, to think of the unctuous lavatory passion I must have missed with the Bulgarian Beauty (swoon). And yes, poor Finn had to pay for it, but, as he said with a big dumb grin on his face, "man, I was just so hammered I didn't even care. She only wanted like $1,000 kc" (approx. US$50). I mumbled something under my breath about how I had little doubt that Chlamydia would be a lovely name for the forthcoming baby. The Tennesseeans had made plans to go to Kutna Hora, and they said they wanted me to come too, since I knew what was up. I do indeed know what's up, but I also know that, like the golden boys, these fellows should suffer a little. Maybe they will. Just remember kids, the sexual act in a standing position averages six to eight minutes. But human papilloma virus, like a diamond, is forever.

So since I've been more or less cooped up, I've been pissing my hostelmates off by hogging the internet. They want to check facebook; I have research to do. They can wait. I may have found a place to play at long sweet last. The T-Mobile Arena, a place with 15,000 capacity, seemed like an unlikely choice. It was. When I first scouted the T-Mobile out, however, I failed to notice the smaller building behind the monstrosity. That is the Mala Sportovni Hala...the little ice rink. Right under my nose, it was. I went there in the rain with skates and gloves in hand, but the place was, drumroll please, CLOSED. The arena restaurant was open, though, and the bar girl understood enough English to say "Otrevno Podelnik" (open Monday). So monday will be chaos. I'll skate, if not play hockey, from 14:00-18:00, and then have just enough time to clean up before the Nine Inch Nails concert at eight.

In other news, the count of people who say I speak English poorly is up to three. I really think I'm going to keep a running tally now. Apparently I "do not know how to articulate." The count is as follows: Germany 1, France 2, Josh nought. Being able to laugh things off has proven priceless on this trip. It seems to me that part of being adaptable is being able to have a sense of humor about things, even when the situation isn't necessarily that funny. Europeans picking on my English, however, is HILARIOUS.

Pictures come up when I find a computer that doesn't suck.