I have wanderlust.
In fact, after I'm done failing this semester I am going to drop out of school, sell everything I own except a pair of Tevas and a hemp knapsack, stop washing my hair, and make the globe my BETCH.
And I can already cross one of my destinations off of my 9-meter long list (yes I am using the metric system now)!
Last weekend I went to Prague with some girlfriends and
IT
WAS
INCREDIBALLS.
If I'm being completely honest, I didn't even know where Prague was until about six months ago. In fact six months ago I probably still thought Prague was a jarred spaghetti sauce. I don't know why all of a sudden I was dying to go to Prague, I just knew that it was cheap and beautiful and a two hour flight from Istanbul. So off we go.
The first thing I notice in Prague is that I am blind. No seriously. My eyeballs had adjusted to the weather in Turkey in such a way that they were prepared to never see the sun again. The weather was extraordinary. I felt like the picture on the VHS sleeve of the Sound of Music.
The second thing I notice is that there are a lot of cool things like this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
and this:
The third thing I notice is that Prague is a city of dudes. Lots and lots of dudes. Tall dudes, short dudes, loud dudes, drunk dudes, tool-ey dudes, friendly dudes, dudes in groups, dudes on Segways, dudes on tours, dudes on Segway tours....I'm telling all you dudes out there right now, if you are looking for a city to pick up girls PRAGUE IS NOT IT.
Due to a mix-up with the booking at the hostel in which they predictably thought I was a dude because of my name, my friend Hallie and I were forced to share a room with 6 American dudes and 2 British dudes. Despite growing up with brothers, this experience showed me how little I actually knew about our Y-chromosomed counterparts. I learned a lot of valuable lessons about dudes, and I think I totally get it now. If someone were to sneak into my room tonight and somehow perform a sex change without me being aware of it, I would be probably be able to adjust to life as a bloke pretty smoothly because my former female self would have drawn up a comprehensive guide to dudes that she will share with you all now.
1. Because you have the equipment that allows you to piss wherever you want, you are allowed to piss wherever you want.
The very first night at the hostel, we all crashed at about 10 pm because we were exhausted from a long day of rain, traveling, and failing midterms. It was also the last night at the hostel for some 70 Irish dudes, so needless to say there was an offensive amount of partying, noise, and intoxicating beverages going on in the hostel. Hallie and I had our own "room" that didn't have a door but DID have the lockers and the bathroom in it, so we had loud drunk boys coming in and out all night, obviously unaware that we were there and that we were female.
Now I can't give an accurate account of this story because I had miraculously managed to remain asleep, but Hallie and I have told it so many times that I know what obscene events unfolded. At around 4 am Hallie hears a strange sound and realizes in cold-blooded horror that an absolutely plastered dude is PEEING in the corner of the "room," three meters from the bathroom and no more than one meter from her head. Fortunately she had the good sense not to try speaking to him lest he whip around and piss all over her bed. The next morning we examined the spot where he allegedly pissed and there was nothing there. So either it had already evaporated or he had by some act of God managed to to re-route his stream to the tiny trash can.
Two of my friends who shall remain unnamed took it as a challenge and pissed in the street a couple of nights later. YOU LADIES SURE SHOWED HIM. And I hope you have cleaned the urine off your shoes by now.
2. If you can't afford to take your girlfriend to Paris, take her to Prague and just pretend its Paris.
Now see, there ARE some ladies in Prague, but they are usually attached to a dude by their tongues. There was so much coupley-ness bombarding us from all sides that I felt like I was an extra in one of the video montages in the middle of a romantic comedy where it shows the couple doing lots of fun things and getting caricatures drawn and kissing in scenic locations and sharing an ice cream cone. Which is really cute and all, until you bring the sex scene that gave the rom com its PG-13 rating straight to the Charles Bridge. Or the bagel shop. Or the chocolate museum. Or the tram, for hell's sake, which is definitely not a sanitary enough environment to have your tongue anywhere but tucked away safely inside your own mouth.
PDA= Prague's Dirty Action.
3. When it comes to Axe Body Spray, more is more and too much is perfect.
The "Axe Effect" in detail:
Open door.
Walk into solid wall of "Phoenix for Him."
Choke.
Gasp.
Momentarily lose consciousness.
Slowly regain senses.
Stagger to window.
Open all of them.
4. Try everything. No seriously, ANYTHING.
I get the distinct impression that dudes are a lot more willing to experiment with things that can potentially end human life. Must be the testosterone that lends to terribly awfully misled "I am invincible" notion.
We were all enjoying a rousing game of "Never Have I Ever" in the Chamber of Secrets (the bar in this dungeon at the hostel. Not its real name). Mark Zuckerberg doppleganger proposes, "Never have I ever done walrus tranquilizers." Silence. Giggles. An "awww maaaan!" and then who should put a finger down but Piss Boy himself.
Walrus Tranquilizers.
WALRUS tranquilizers.
Walrus TRANQUILIZERS.
This invariably begged many questions. First of all, Piss Boy hailed from St. Louis, which from what I understand has a very sparse walrus population. Did he have to import them from somewhere? Are tranquilizers common enough that they can be easily obtained?
"Oh sure. They got cat tranquilizers, moose tranquilizers..." Then he starts talking about how when you're on Kedamine it looks like you're really small and everything else is really tall and that's about the time I decided that I needed to cover my ears and rock back and forth in a dark corner or just go to bed.
5. The douchier you act, the more edgy and interesting everyone will think you are.
I mean, the pink Vineyard Vines bowtie should have been an adequate tip-off.
His friends called him "Reagan" after his man-crush/favorite President of the United States, but the girls and I referred to him behind his back and maybe once to his face as Doucher McDouchenugget.
He managed to work how much he loved America into every conversation. And, okay, patriotism can be cool. But when you talk about your love for America in the context of how many houses you own in the U.S., and how much you hate Europe and Europeans, and how America should close its borders to immigrants, and how much you love Kid Rock, and how you wish you had a hair dryer to dry your goofy Donald Trump-ian hairstyle, IT BECOMES REALLY REALLY NOT COOL.
Let's add to the "really really not cool" list: the barbed wire tattoo on D McD's upper arm. Totally clashed with yellow polo shirt. But at least it wasn't something like an American flag or "I <3 GOP" or something.
6. When trying to get into bed with a girl, "no" means "yes" and "get the hell out" means "keep trying."
Let us hearken back to the first story about Piss Boy. Back to the first night. Before he owned up to doing walrus tranquilizers.
After Piss Boy finishes pissing in the corner of our "room," he tries to sit on Hallie's bed and she kicks him out. This is the part where I wake up, because Piss Boy is now climbing UP the ladder into MY BED. He gets in MY BED, looks at me right in my face, and passes out. IN MY BED. Due to shock and trying to convince myself that I was not trippin balls, it took me about two minutes of looking desperately at Hallie to respond. I hit Piss Boy in the leg.
Me: "HEY."
PB: "rrmmmpph"
Me: "This bed is only big enough for one, homes."
silence.
Me: "HEY."
PB: "rrmmmphh"
Me: "Get out of my bed."
At this point Piss Boy sits up.
PB: "What? This is my bed."
Me: "No it's not.
PB:"Yes it is."
Hallie: "No. It's not."
PB: "Then where's my bed?"
Hallie: "Over there."
Thus I learned that getting rid of unsavory dudes requires a sharp tongue and a firm backhand. Hallie, however, didn't pick up on this right away. Two nights later, on the night that I didn't go out, our other roomie Allegedly Mike (allegedly because we were never really sure if that was his name) followed Hallie around like moths on a lightbulb. When she returned to the hostel later that night, Allegedly Mike was still hovering, all 5'1" of him, in our "room" in his wifebeat and dogtags. We tried to go to sleep, but he kept making excuses to come into our "room" After about 30 minutes he stopped beating around the bush and begged, I'm not kidding, BEGGED Hallie to let him get into bed with her. The only reason I didn't intervene right away was because I kept expecting her to zip on her badass pants and beat the daylights out of him right there, but instead she just kept saying, "Just go to bed...No, in your own bed." After way too many minutes of this I leaned over my bunk and saw Allegedly Mike kneeling by her bed in his skivvies in position that looked an awful lot like pleading and desperation.
I found that if you use phrases like "Aw HELL naw," and "You respect the lady's wishes," all in one sentence, it catches them off guard and they have to leave. Some threatening doesn't hurt either.
We slept soundly that night.
And yes, I do provide bitch lessons, MWF, 30 Turkish Lira per hour.
7. Honestly, it doesn't make much sense
I will never forget freshman year of college when one of my guy friends was flipping through one of my girly magazines and said, "It's funny that they have all these articles about what guys think. Honestly, we don't really think that much."
And I'm like, "Obviously."
I feel as though what I learned about dudes from Piss Boy, Mark Zuckerberg, Doucher McDouchenugget and Allegedly Mike was more valuable than the knowledge I gained from 21 years of having brothers. In addition to "always check the couch cushions for Gogurt wrappers before you sit down" and "if you don't know what it is, don't pick it up," I can add to my list of cautions gems like:
"If it walks like a dude and talks like a dude, it probably pisses like a dude"
and "Don't jump over fences into closed parks with Mark Zuckerberg in the middle of the night in foreign cities, or else you will fall and break your arm and your friends will have to button your pants for you and make you a sling out of a scarf until you can receive medical attention."
and "Never, ever use your real name."*
*For the sake of future shenanigans I will not be providing the psuedonyms we used at this time
and "For the love of the Almighty, clearly indicate your gender when making lodging arrangements."
