"Serbia has always been on the border, right in the middle of the divide. Between East and West."

What better evidence can I give to back up the words of my friend Zivko than the intensely Orthodox religiosity of this country? Christian, like the West, but with a touch of mysticism, which has trickled down through time from the legacy of Byzantium.


And Belgrade has been the heart and soul of the modern Serbian nation, the country with an identity crisis, between East and West.


They may use the Cyrillic alphabet, but you forget -- say, for example, when you are walking around the Beograd Zoo, which has all the trappings of a modern Western animal prison -- that you are in what many consider to be the "East" every minute of the day.



But I love Serbia, whether it knows itself truly or not. 

This is Jalal. Jalal is the man.


It was at times like these in Prague -- when I meet an Iraqi from a town actually called "Babylon" who is trying to get a job teaching English, though he himself is not a native speaker -- that I miss my friend Tom. He's in South Africa right now, having the time of his life in the Peace Corps, but the plain fact is that he missed out on a big experience in not meeting Jalal.


Happy foreigners who speak English are quite possibly my favorite people in the world. They are the types who would automatically become "the man" if they were introduced to Tom. "Jalal is crazy! Jalal is the man!" is what TK would surely yell at every possible moment, and Jalal, not understanding the humor, would simply smile and then feel obliged to yell, or go "Whoo!", or something to indicate that yes, he is in fact "crazy" and "the man."


But what Jalal would never know is that he isn't "the man" for any other reason besides the fact that he is from another country, speaks English, smiles a lot, and exists.


Just look at him. Especially after he rallied, you could see why Jalal is THE MAN. 

"If you need to cross the river," Bino told me, pointing out places on the map that I could scope out that afternoon in Prague, "don't go on the Charles Bridge. There are way too many tourists."

"I mean, there can't be that many," I said, my morning coffee in hand. "How bad could it really be?"

Bino just stared at me. "When you look at Prague on Google Earth, you can see the tourists on the thing."

I thought he was exaggerating. Then I saw for myself.

"I tried to cross the Charles Bridge once," he told me once I returned home, having confirmed with an eye witness account just how destructive a force mass tourism can be. "It took 30 minutes."

We couldn't compare times, because I had taken one look at the bridge formerly known as Charles (but which has recently been renamed "Overpopulation In a Nutshell Most") and veered to the left. I may be a tourist, but I am a self-loathing tourist. I can't beat 'em, but I still ain't joining 'em. Most Legit -- which doesn't have nearly the longevity as its next door neighbor to the north, yet remains a perfectly good way to cross the river -- was just fine by me.



MOST LEGIT! MOST LEGIT 2 QUIT! HEY! HEEEEYYY!


Break it down!


Once again, I ask the question: If a river isn't clean enough to swim in it, is it clean enough to eat fish out of it?



With all the popular fixation on mullets, I don't think rat tails have gotten a fair shake. This one was legendary.

 

More Prague.

BMW cannot be happy about the free subliminal advertising Mercedes-Benz gets every time a tagger forgets what a peace sign actually looks like.


Wes? Is that YOU?


Va Beach Va, dude. For real.


Yes, it says what you think it says.


I was walking home alone from the Reggae Bar, and I happened upon a free concert being put on in a public plaza. "Support Lesbiens" (I can't tell if the extra 'e' -- rather than an 'a' -- is significant in changing the word's meaning) was either the name of the band, or the event.

Kind of strange.

Not that there's anything WRONG with that! (You have to be a Seinfeld watcher to get that one).



This bridge dates back to the era when MC Hammer actually had money, and was most legit. So legit that he bought the rights to rename a bridge in Prague after his essence. But sadly, so legit that he could not quit his spendthrift ways ... which was of course what led to his bankruptcy.

Praha...

... has UVa secret society members?


....and people who don't like George Bush?! What is this, Europe or something?


Ya know Bino, I can handle a lot of the Christian jokes that you send my way. But telling me, "Looks like your boy is a little pale there. He could use some sun"?? Now that is just taking it too far.


(But I still laughed).


I have a general rule of thumb for traveling, and that is, whenever the first place I go is called "Reggae Bar," the city is okay in my book.

 

Praha.


That means Prague.


I know I left a while ago, with a sour taste in my mouth after "Restarting Marketa" ended in a draw, but the place is gorgeous.


It needs to be memorialized on the blog.

 

Remember when I went to Copenhagen, and fell in love with the hippie commune called Christiania? Ljubljana doesn't quite have that, but Metelkova is about as close of a parallel that I have been able to find.


It's not really a "commune" so much as it is an abandoned military complex -- just like Christiania -- that has been converted into an artsy, alternative style hangout that has chill bars and good music, all the time. Like Jan, I can only wish that I had had a place like Metelkova to hang out at as a high schooler ... or even as a college kid.


I mean, please, a jungle jim that you can chill on with beers at night? Without having to worry about cops getting on your case? Sign me up.


And why is it that we don't paint all of our buildings like this?


Or decorate them like this? 

Ljubljana DRAGONS!!


I kept waiting for the Wicked Witch of the Eastern Europe to swoop down at any moment.


You can't escape them. You can only hope to find St. George.


My question is, How in the world did the idea of a "dragon" spread so universally in the days before the Internet? It's not like dragons exist, so it really baffles my mind. Everyone seemed to know about them, from China to Great Britain. Even John of Patmos was talking about 'em! Have you ever read the Book of Revelation?? Someone, please do a study on this.

 

So my Belgian friend Jan (as in a dude whose name is pronounced Yon, not a girl from "The Brady Bunch") and I hiked up to the castle in Ljubljana to see what was up, and we came across a random photo exhibit of one of those Chinese cities that wows people with the fact that 10 million people can live in a place without anyone ever having heard of it.

I can't remember the name of the town.

But I will never forget that this apparently makes the cut of the Top 100 Reasons why I should go there.


Don't worry, you read the caption correctly: Sweet Lovers. I don't even wanna know what "Sweet and Sour Lovers" would show. 

Ljubljana

I am obsessed with dragons. There are plenty of them on display here in the heart of Slovenia.



I'm telling you: Ljubljana = the illegitimate child of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Holland, with the Dutch daddy exiting the scene forever after their one night stand, leaving the Austrians to raise a kid whose genes scream out "The Netherlands!"


 

The graffiti in Ljubljana was the best I have seen. In the Balkans, it was trash. In the non-Balkan part of the former Yugoslavia, it was art.

Less is more.

People tried to tell me while I was there that no one in the country had any love lost for the Tito dictatorship. I sure found a lot of places that bucked that trend -- his portrait can still be found throughout the former Yugoslavia, even in Ljubljana. He may have been a dictator who sucked all the money into Belgrade, "Brotherhood and Unity" style, but Josip Broz Tito was still half-Slovene, and despite the relative prosperity of this country in relation to the rest of the "republics," a lot of people miss the good ole days.

Brilliant work. A is for the internet, invented by a former U.S. presidential candidate. M is for corporate domination. E is for ... corporate domination. R is for ... corporate domination. I is for one of two things, which the four of us argued over: Elise and I said it was a rocket, a tribute to NASA (this could just be a Houston bias, though a Quebecoise agrees with me, so there); the other two people with us contend that it stands for a missile, or a bomb. But seriously, guys, when was the last time a bomb had a checker board painted on it?? I is for NASA. K is for ... none of us could figure out what K (the artsy way of writing 'C') is for. And the upside down A is symbolic of the about face AMERIKA's image has taken in the unipolar age, in the eyes of the international community.

I'm not into art, mainly because I am not deep enough to understand it really, but I know one thing: This is art.

And this? This is just scary ... but it's cool, huh? (He is saying "Good night!")

 

"Restarting Marketa"

Anonymous said...
so what happened with Marketa? did you stay or did you go? did you pay or did you fold?

A rare comment deserves a detailed response.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Should I stay or should I go now? Da da da da da da da da...

None of us were bringing it up, but all three of us -- Jordan, Bino and I -- were playing the same tune in our heads, over and over and over. "It" was the little situation Marketa's greed had gotten me into. "It" was a taboo subject.

Marketa, the English-speaking Czech landlady who collects rent from the Naughty by Norfolk duo, had demanded (retroactively) that I pay her back for all the "utilities" I had used during my week sleeping on the floor at "her" apartment ... the one on Staropramenna Ave., owned by her father, for which my two friends are paying more than what is fair in rent. I had made her an offer: 200 Kc, or about $10, from which I wasn't budging. She said -- via text message -- that 200 Kc wasn't enough, without making me a counter offer. She wasn't budging, either. And so we were stuck, two rams butting heads, our intertwined horns forcing our eyes downward to ensure that no solution would be reached.

"It" was a black cloud hovering below the ceiling at Fraktal, the Prague cafe where Jordan, Bino and I sat in silence, not talking about "it."

Oh, you've got to let Marketa knoooow, should Billy stay or should he go? Da da da da da da da da...

The cloud was only getting darker, bigger, more ominous with every minute that passed.

All I knew was that I wasn't going to cave. I wasn't filling Greedy McGreed Greed's pockets with anything more than ten bucks -- and even that was extortion in my eyes. Jordan and Bino were maxing out their phones' credit with text messages to friends, searching on my behalf for a Good Samaritan somewhere in Prague, trying in vain to separate the rams' horns and find me a place to crash -- but it was looking bleak. Most didn't respond; one had moved to Budapest the day before; another already had a full house; the last one said his landlady would be delighted to have me stay ... for 500 Kc.

A lightning bolt struck down in the corner of the room, and I began to count down the seconds until I heard the rumble of thunder. Rain drops would begin to fall any minute, I thought.

The logic of not talking about "it" was about as sensical as restarting your computer when it won't connect to the Internet, hoping that everything will magically work out when it turns back on. You know nothing will have changed, but you can't think of anything better to try, so you heave up a Hail Mary ... with no receivers in the end zone. "If we just don't talk about it, and stay away from the apartment for long enough, eventually everything will be okay, and she'll let me stay there without demanding reparations for all the 'utilities' I used..."

We were deluding ourselves, and we knew it, though wouldn't admit it openly. "Restarting Marketa" was as likely to work as lightning striking twice.

But sometimes, lightning does strike twice.

The subject still taboo, we paid the bill at Fraktal and made out for the park nearby. It was cold, it was dark, and it was plainly obvious that Daylight Savings had fallen back the day before. The mood outside was fitting: Bleak and depressing. Should I stay or should I go now? At that point, I was leaning towards "go." Taking a hamburger-folded print-out from my back pocket -- (I had gotten a list of all trains leaving Prague for my next stop from the station's information desk that afternoon) -- I honed in on the 0:52 departure time for Budapest. Suddenly, a 4:00 a.m. change in Bratislava was looking mighty attractive.

And that is when Jordan's phone buzzed again -- the familiar sound of an incoming text message.

The entire day, he had been receiving them, mostly from Marketa. And every time, his face had read the content aloud before his words could do the job. Bad news, bad news, bad news Bears, each and every time. I was becoming conditioned to the sight of him pulling out his phone, as Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to the sound of a bell -- but instead of salivating, I had learned to automatically curse Marketa's existence.

This time, though, was different. This time, it looked like Jordan might have something good to tell me.

I can't remember the exact wording of Marketa's final message, but I do remember that it sounded like anything but Pavlov's bell. "Marketa says she's not staying with us tonight after all, and wants to know if I can come home and help her move her bags downstairs, because she is crashing at a friend's place," Jordan deadpanned.

Could it be??? The impossible? Victory ... was ... mine?

Bino chimed in without missing a beat. "Tell her that we're at an Internet cafe as far on the other side of Prague as you can come up with. We're not going back there."

It looked like our "Restarting Marketa" strategy had worked out, after all. Lightning had struck twice. Not knowing what else to do, Bino and I went in for the "Saved By The Bell" leaping high five ... and awkwardly connected with the sides of our hands. So we tried again, and smacked palms as solidly as an Albert Pujols swing on a Brad Lidge hanging slider. Victory was mine, and I wouldn't have to pay a dime ...

... as long as I could avoid running into Marketa until I left for Budapest the following day.

You can imagine that, after such an unbelievably opportune stroke of luck, the three of us were going to make damn sure that that didn't happen at the apartment. I may have been hanging out with two Jews, but neither were named Daniel. We weren't walking into the Lion's Den. The only way I could possibly lose at that point would be if I randomly bumped into Marketa on the streets of Prague. Fat chance, right?

We took a tram ride across the river and found a new cafe. Black tea, hot chocolate, coffee with milk, Irish coffee, bagged potato chips inexplicably served on a plate with a napkin and silverware, whatever -- just keep it comin', and please make the service as slow as possible. I was trying to dilly, dally, procrastinate and waste time like I was back on a construction site in the sweltering summer heat of Houston, working for Humphries. (It was while working construction as a 16-year-old that I got the name "Bílly," by the way, because the Mexicans were simply incapable of pronouncing the name "Bayless.")

"I can't BELIEVE how lucky I am!" I said probably a thousand times in the two hours after Jordan got that text message. "I mean, seriously, she lets me off the hook like that? When she KNOWS she's got me boxed in? Incredible."

Jordan and Bino couldn't agree more. "That's what we keep trying to tell you about this woman," one of them said. "She spent a half a million dollars on coke in her lifetime, and was into heroin, too -- she's freaking bipolar, man. One minute, nicest woman ever. The next, she's a raving lunatic. You never know with her, ever. She can change on a dime."

And she had changed on a dime -- from rejecting 100 of them to getting nada. And I couldn't have been more pleased with myself.

Everything went smoothly from there. We returned to Staropramenna Ave., up the three flights of stairs and into an empty apartment. Some of Marketa's bags were gone, and she hadn't stolen any of my stuff as collateral -- as Jordan had mentioned as a hahaha seriously though possibility a few hours earlier. When we got ready to go to sleep, he set his alarm for early -- 8 in the morning -- and I packed up ahead of time, ready to roll out of there as soon as I got up from a nice, comfortable, cost-free sleep on my air mattress. All was well in my world, and I was 200Kc the richer as a result.

The next morning, everything went without a hitch. I showered quickly and strapped on my pack. My watch read 8:30. Still early, but there was no way I was going to get greedy with the time I had been alotted to escape. The Clash with Marketa had not materialized -- I was no longer wondering "Should I stay or should I go," because after such a close call averted, I was going. The Phish lyrics I had been humming all week prior to Marketa's demand -- (Jordan's iPod put me to sleep every night I was there) -- retook center stage, as I said goodbye to Bino's old, and my new, friend from Norfolk: "This has all been wonderful, and now I'm on way!"

And I walked out the door -- no Marketa. And down the stairs -- no Marketa. And outside -- no Marketa. I was free!

This has all been wonderful, and now I'm (really) on my way!

Or so I thought.

Bino, like the good friend that he is, got out of bed an hour later and made his way down to the nearby mall, to meet me for a coffee in the food court before I left for the station. We promptly moved over from the McDonald's -- which was all that had been open when I arrived as an early morning asylum-seeker -- to Cafe Emporium, a WiFi hot spot at the top of the escalator. Enclosed by transparent plate glass, it turned out to be quite a hot spot indeed.

My back was to the glass, so I didn't see it coming, but when I heard that tappety-tap-tap just behind my head, Bino looked like he had seen a ghost. And like Jordan's text message from the night before, I knew without words: It was Marketa.

She had come to ruin my farewell party.

"How did she find us??" I could not believe it. And neither could my old roomate. "Do you think Jordan told her??"

"No way, man. I have no clue." And then, there she was, standing above us, asking if she could sit down.

"Sure," her tenant said. There was no escape; we were busted.

It was surreal -- like a scene from a movie, when the hitman offers his victim a cigarette, smiling as he makes polite small talk with a man who knows his minutes are numbered. The three of us were in a no-smoking, yuppie establishment, so no cigarettes were proffered. But the tension was just as high. And this time, "it" was far from taboo.

"So, I hear you want to give me 200Kc?" Marketa said in my direction, smiling her sinister, hitman smile. Silence. Awkward silence. "You don't want to give me anything, do you?" And she laughed, as if that would make the exchange less uncomfortable. "Don't you think it's fair that you pay me back for all the utilities you used? You were there for what, a week? I don't think you could find a hostel that would let you stay for free, do you?"

No, and that's the whole idea of staying with FRIENDS, I wanted to shout. Not only that, but thoughts of screaming, "They already PAID for those freaking utilities in the ridiculous rent you charged them!" and "Why didn't you freaking mention my financial obligations when we met FIVE DAYS AGO!" crossed my mind, with a choice word other than "freaking" included in my imagined outburst. But I said nothing; I just stared at the table cloth in front of me. Bino looked like a deer in headlights, and it was only the thought of his immediate future that held my tongue for me.

Marketa had me cornered, and knew that my attachment to the friend sitting across the table from me was the Achilles' heel which prevented me from springing across the table like a caged animal.

"Also," she continued, the sinister smile still pulling her lips upwards as she shifted her gaze to Bino, "I believe you and Jordan owe me some money for staying at the place an extra three days." She was referring to October 29, 30 and 31, which apparently were not included in the "month" long lease the pair had originally signed. Now it was simply bordering on the ridiculous. I knew Greedy McGreed Greed was into avarice, but not to this extent.

"Uh, yeah," Bino said, always the diplomat who avoids confrontation. "Sure, we'll leave you some money." Just as Marketa knew that Bino's welfare was my kryptonite, she also knew that her connections with Bino and Jordan's new landlady -- who had tried to force the Naughty By Norfolkers to sign a lease agreement written only in Czech -- was enough to cripple any effective resistance from her soon-to-be former residents.

"Yeah, I think that would be fair," she continued. "You're about to find out how expensive utilities are in Prague."

My dad always told me not to hit girls, but he said nothing about bludgeoning or strangling. The thought briefly crossed my mind.

"Sure, Marketa, we'll figure something out," was all Bino could muster. Tension. Awkward, awkward tension. I was still staring at the table cloth. How in the world had she found us??

It turns out it was just luck. Just as Jordan is a Jew not named Daniel, neither is he named Judas. He was not to blame -- it was just plain old bad luck. Finally, Marketa left, satisfied that she had extorted enough for the morning, and exited the table with -- what else -- a sinister smile, and a "Have a great time in Budapest!"

Five minutes later, Bino and I paid the bill, and we left for the station. There was no parade; it had been cancelled due to rain.

Did "Restarting Marketa" lead to victory in the end? I would say the answer to that is a resounding no. Justice was not served; a tyrant enriched herself at the expense of virtue. But would I go so far as to say that I lost? Definitely not. I had already said that 200Kc was my limit, and I withdrew the said amount for my buddy before hopping on my outbound train. Marketa got more money than she deserved, but she probably still wasn't satisfied.

So, in response to "Anonymous," did I stay or did I go? I stayed. Did I pay or did I fold? I paid. Marketa 1, Bayless 1. Even draw.