So the end of our eurotrip has finally come. We have spent the past three nights in Prague and are leaving tomorrow morning to go back to the great Republic of the United States. I can't believe we have been gone for so long, it feels like only yesterday I was in Krakow, making it rain zloty and changing kid's lives. But prague has been pretty ridiculous. The weather here is exactly how I pictured it--dreary and cloudy from sun up to sundown. It's basically communist weather, that's what you get for not making baseball your national past time and eating tree roots instead of doritos. Other than the weather, shit here is pretty dope. The currency is kind of fucked up, its about 20-1 on the dollar, so we end up dropping like $875 on a dinner for three of us. It kind of feels like monopoly money, and it also kind of feels like we are huge bosses throwing around paper. The money here is called Korona's, but we call it either Rupees or Goulashes. It flows better. It also seems like nothing here is illegal. As soon as we stepped out of our hostel (at 3pm on monday), some dude in a medieval jester's outfit asked us if we wanted "sex and striptease." We normally never turn down such offers from people in medieval outfits, but we had a city to explore.
The first night began with a visit to the famed "Beer Factory," where you can go and basically serve yourself beer. Everyone who has been to prague told us we should hit this spot up, so we did. We ended up getting pretty banged up at this place--we met girls from Germany and Russia who loved that we were American. One German broad kept telling me, "Oooh America, I love San Diego, it's a great lifestyle!" I've never been to Whale's Vagina, but I pretended that I had. Tom was seshing conversation with these Russian broads who didn't speak a lick of english. One asked him to dance and then outgrinded him in 45 seconds tops. He tried speaking spanish to them, but that shit doesn't work in the czech republic. We got a bit saucy and then went to this other bar where we basically posted up until the wee hours. Everybody was smoking trees in the bar and I felt like I was in a 50 cent video. The dj was playing hip hop so MoneSplye + Tom hotboyed on the velvet couches, orchestrating the crowd. My favorite mash up the dj played was when he mixed Party Up by DMX with Ride Wit' Me by Nelly. We ended the night back our hostel with some serious pillow talk and honest confessions.
The next day in Prague was legit. We walked around and saw the sights and it basically reminded us a lot of Krakow. A lot of really old buildings, winding streets, and unfriendly eastern europeans. We stumbled into this weird park where we saw an enormous peacock and a sleeping homeless guy. We sat around in the park for a few hours, tossing miniature apples at a small garbage can from 40 ft., and basically were lamp-nation. We wandered around the city some more, bought some gummi bears (oh word?), and then came back and napped. A hilarious night ensued.
We started off at an Absinthe bar that was right across the street from a club we were going to hit up. This woman basically lit some alcohol and sugar on fire and left our table. I thought I was going to take the shot of absinthe and have a Eurotrip experience with it, but it was basically like normal alcohol. Except burningly hot. Splye wasn't so keen on the 'sinthe, but his reaction to it was pretty hilarious. Anyway, we got banged up that night at the bar where Tom was being junior year Tom. Splye was killin it with these czech broads, and did some ill grind dancing. Tom got BO'd and started asking this girl why her "culture was so depressing" and saying "totally" every third word. We got our swerve on and danced til the early hours again. Our night ended as the sun came up with little left intact but our dignity--except not.
We woke up and decided to walk to the Prague castle and saw more European wonders. At this point we have been travelling for so long that shit all seems the same. I guess I'm over travelled, but I'm definitely ready to come home. We went to a baller dinner tonight, threw back some wine and chicken and reminisced about the trip. It's been a great time, catching up with Tom was legit and travelling has been even more fun. I'm glad I kept this blog, I'm going to do a wrap up post when I get home tomorrow or the next day. A lot of hilarious shit has happened that we can't really remember, but it's been enjoyable none the less. Until next time, stay strapped...
does anybody get the title of this post?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
GUEST POST: TOM de SPAIN
Greetings from Prague! Senor Tom speaking. You may remember me from BB&N class of ’04, AEPi Tau chapter at THE Vanderbilt University, or La Escuela Secundaria de Triana, 08-09. Whether you know me personally, or are just some hippie from Portland or trendy New Yorker that I’ve never met, yours truly is now accompanying the road-weary monesplye on a whirlwind tour of Europe. As some of you know, I have spent the year teaching English to little Chiwalla Spaniards, and this trip has been partially organized to relearn the English language and regain some of the wit I have invariably lost in 9 months without any exposure to dry American humor, save the occasional American movie dubbed in Spanish. As monesplye have reported, the trip has gotten off to a great start. Our first night at YAB (You Are Beautiful) with our tour guide Mark Anthony was hilarious and fun. One aspect of the club that mones left out was that the clientele was exclusively made up of extremely thugged out black guys wearing tall T’s and flat brims, and drunk rich American girls wearing what we are all used to drunk rich American girls wearing. I hadn’t seen that unlikely combination work so well since AEPlaid. Interlaken was awesome, probably more fun, but in a completely different way. Our days of wandering around world-famous churches and museums without actually entering any of them turned into afternoons spent climbing down canyons and swimming in turquoise glacial lakes. Our trendy nights sipping aged Chianti in Tuscan Villas or sucking down 9 dollar ‘tails in clubs with laughable names in Florence became pregaming with a vodka and fanta and getting close to blacked out in the smoky basement dive bar whose special was a huge draft beer with a shot of vodka poured into it for 6 euros. Splye explained most of our stay in the Swiss Alps in his blog post. But he didn’t fully capture the hilarity of me and mones dragging him on a 3 hour hike in the pouring rain. There was a point near the top where the trail would change direction every 30 feet or so and become slightly steeper. At this point he just completely stopped interacting with us and put a miserable look on his face (moody splye) and every time he turned a corner he would mutter some string of unspeakable phrases about how miserable he was. He then forced us to take a break and explained that he “hadn’t had so little fun since taking practice SAT’s the summer before senior year.”
But ANYways, we got to Munich 2 days ago in the afternoon ready for the legendary nightlife. I had the misfortune of leaving my ipod on the train and the further misfortune of not realizing it until we got to the hotel, so I spent 20 minutes searching the train and asking help desks if they had found it. It eventually was recovered so the only damage done was to the new mature/responsible post-college image I was trying to portray. Monesplye 1, post-college Tom 0. After we got settled in our hostel and I convinced monesplye that exploring the city a little before we go out would be more fun than laying in bed bbming Holman and checking the mets score, we went out to get some food and walk around. We found some crazy outdoor fair where we bought brautworst (aka footlong fenway franks) and sat down to eat only to realize that we were the only people under the age of 55 present. We walked around uneventfully a little more, decided that we hated munich, returned to the hostel , showered, and put on our finest silk button downs and driving shoes to experience the famous munich nightlife on the only Saturday night of our trip. As it turns out, our taste of the munich nightlife would consist exclusively of the bar on the first floor of our hostel, which was extremely fun and cheap. Monesplye + Tom posted up at the bar at about 7pm, aka happy hour, generally annoyed by the other drunk Americans at the bar who were participating in some gay bar crawl (slogan: the best night you’ll never remember!!) , and order a round of cocktails to begin the night. We soon strike up a conversation with the broads posted up to our left, one of whom turns out to be Kristin Torrey! Not actually but this girl looked EXACTLY like her it was bizarre. We yap with these girls for a very long time, with splye leading conversation. He tells the story about getting held up on the Canadian border for having pot. They loved it cause they were canucks- splye was basically on fire. One of the girls was a fat blonde (Kristin Torrey) and the other was a generic looking jewess with FT’s, both equally enthralled with spence’s every word. Kristin Torrey talked with a ridiculously girly and annoying voice, but was actually saying really hilarious shit. There was one point where me and mones had lauged at like 4 straight jokes she had made, which is pretty unheard of, and he turns to me and says “she’s on fire” in the voice of Dr. Evil from AP#3 when he says “Scottie’s on fire.” It was on point. We end up getting pretty banged up with these girls for the duration of the happy hour and beyond, they decide to stay at the hostel bar, and we decide to go out and see what munich nightlife outside the Euro Youth Hostel has to offer- which is apparently NOT MUCH. We walked out of the hostel like 20 feet behind 4 other girls and a few blocks down the road they ask us if we have a bottle opener, Tom opens her bottle with his teeth, and they instantly love us. One of them was a Japanese girl who spoke English with an incredibly strong british accent which we all agreed wierded us out. Some other girl was from Lake Tahoe and was nonsensically explaining to us how there are a lot of dead people at the bottom of the lake and when global warming happened they were all gonna rise to the surface and destroy the lake’s natural beauty …or something. She was also telling us how the guy who discovered the Titanic explored the bottom of the lake and may or may not have discovered treasure but he won’t tell anyone, so we still don’t know or something. It was hilarious we were like laughing in her face. We all decided to go to this Australian bar, get there only to find it is closed, strike up a conversation with a bunch of brits who were there for their buddy’s bachelor party, and follow them cause they say they’re going to some club. Monesplye + Tom walks about 5 blocks with this crew, realize we are all wearing like running shoes and that the bar at the hostel was more fun, and we slip away unannounced to go back to the hostel. We post up at a table, KT and the Jewess come over , and we keep boozing with them until the wee hours until we all responsibly decide to retire to bed. As we are bidding these girls goodbye, KT hugs spencer and whispers in his ear “you’re my favorite!” It was hilarious, splye was pretty pumped. The next day we awake too late to go on the bike tour and go to some glorious breakfast place that has pancakes, omlettes, fried eggs, etc and had a good meal. We then abandon all plans to go on tours, see the sites, etc and decide to go to the English Garten, the largest urban public park in Europe or something. Mones bets Tom a beer that it’s 10 times as big as central park, which is ridiculous, and it turns out to be like 20 acres bigger and mones has yet to buy Tom that beer. We walk around the park, encounter some ridiculous like white water river that people in wet suits are literally surfing on, and go post up on a bench and yap about hilarious stories from high school and the such. Splye relays the story about Holman finding that email from some beta dude which eventually leads to him getting sucker punched at Mcguinnes, which I thought was hilarious. After several hours in the park we go to this enormous beer garden and get delicious food and extremely large beers. On one side we were sitting next to a group of asian tourists who literally took a picture of each other eating with like blank looks on their face every 3 seconds. They then proceed to start videotaping each other which was so bizarre/hilarious that we take a secretly take a picture. On the other side of us were a bunch of drunk American college students that were being extremely unpopular and annoying. One of the girls went to cheers her friend with these huge mugs and she did it so hard that her mug shattered in her hand and everyone around her said “whooaa” really loud and she loved it. We leave after an hour or so and return to the hostel moderately drunk and extremely tired at like 11. We watch a little of some soccer game and retire to bed early cause we had a 7 hour train to Prague today that left at like 8 in the morning. We are now preparing for our first night out in prague. There will be blood.
But ANYways, we got to Munich 2 days ago in the afternoon ready for the legendary nightlife. I had the misfortune of leaving my ipod on the train and the further misfortune of not realizing it until we got to the hotel, so I spent 20 minutes searching the train and asking help desks if they had found it. It eventually was recovered so the only damage done was to the new mature/responsible post-college image I was trying to portray. Monesplye 1, post-college Tom 0. After we got settled in our hostel and I convinced monesplye that exploring the city a little before we go out would be more fun than laying in bed bbming Holman and checking the mets score, we went out to get some food and walk around. We found some crazy outdoor fair where we bought brautworst (aka footlong fenway franks) and sat down to eat only to realize that we were the only people under the age of 55 present. We walked around uneventfully a little more, decided that we hated munich, returned to the hostel , showered, and put on our finest silk button downs and driving shoes to experience the famous munich nightlife on the only Saturday night of our trip. As it turns out, our taste of the munich nightlife would consist exclusively of the bar on the first floor of our hostel, which was extremely fun and cheap. Monesplye + Tom posted up at the bar at about 7pm, aka happy hour, generally annoyed by the other drunk Americans at the bar who were participating in some gay bar crawl (slogan: the best night you’ll never remember!!) , and order a round of cocktails to begin the night. We soon strike up a conversation with the broads posted up to our left, one of whom turns out to be Kristin Torrey! Not actually but this girl looked EXACTLY like her it was bizarre. We yap with these girls for a very long time, with splye leading conversation. He tells the story about getting held up on the Canadian border for having pot. They loved it cause they were canucks- splye was basically on fire. One of the girls was a fat blonde (Kristin Torrey) and the other was a generic looking jewess with FT’s, both equally enthralled with spence’s every word. Kristin Torrey talked with a ridiculously girly and annoying voice, but was actually saying really hilarious shit. There was one point where me and mones had lauged at like 4 straight jokes she had made, which is pretty unheard of, and he turns to me and says “she’s on fire” in the voice of Dr. Evil from AP#3 when he says “Scottie’s on fire.” It was on point. We end up getting pretty banged up with these girls for the duration of the happy hour and beyond, they decide to stay at the hostel bar, and we decide to go out and see what munich nightlife outside the Euro Youth Hostel has to offer- which is apparently NOT MUCH. We walked out of the hostel like 20 feet behind 4 other girls and a few blocks down the road they ask us if we have a bottle opener, Tom opens her bottle with his teeth, and they instantly love us. One of them was a Japanese girl who spoke English with an incredibly strong british accent which we all agreed wierded us out. Some other girl was from Lake Tahoe and was nonsensically explaining to us how there are a lot of dead people at the bottom of the lake and when global warming happened they were all gonna rise to the surface and destroy the lake’s natural beauty …or something. She was also telling us how the guy who discovered the Titanic explored the bottom of the lake and may or may not have discovered treasure but he won’t tell anyone, so we still don’t know or something. It was hilarious we were like laughing in her face. We all decided to go to this Australian bar, get there only to find it is closed, strike up a conversation with a bunch of brits who were there for their buddy’s bachelor party, and follow them cause they say they’re going to some club. Monesplye + Tom walks about 5 blocks with this crew, realize we are all wearing like running shoes and that the bar at the hostel was more fun, and we slip away unannounced to go back to the hostel. We post up at a table, KT and the Jewess come over , and we keep boozing with them until the wee hours until we all responsibly decide to retire to bed. As we are bidding these girls goodbye, KT hugs spencer and whispers in his ear “you’re my favorite!” It was hilarious, splye was pretty pumped. The next day we awake too late to go on the bike tour and go to some glorious breakfast place that has pancakes, omlettes, fried eggs, etc and had a good meal. We then abandon all plans to go on tours, see the sites, etc and decide to go to the English Garten, the largest urban public park in Europe or something. Mones bets Tom a beer that it’s 10 times as big as central park, which is ridiculous, and it turns out to be like 20 acres bigger and mones has yet to buy Tom that beer. We walk around the park, encounter some ridiculous like white water river that people in wet suits are literally surfing on, and go post up on a bench and yap about hilarious stories from high school and the such. Splye relays the story about Holman finding that email from some beta dude which eventually leads to him getting sucker punched at Mcguinnes, which I thought was hilarious. After several hours in the park we go to this enormous beer garden and get delicious food and extremely large beers. On one side we were sitting next to a group of asian tourists who literally took a picture of each other eating with like blank looks on their face every 3 seconds. They then proceed to start videotaping each other which was so bizarre/hilarious that we take a secretly take a picture. On the other side of us were a bunch of drunk American college students that were being extremely unpopular and annoying. One of the girls went to cheers her friend with these huge mugs and she did it so hard that her mug shattered in her hand and everyone around her said “whooaa” really loud and she loved it. We leave after an hour or so and return to the hostel moderately drunk and extremely tired at like 11. We watch a little of some soccer game and retire to bed early cause we had a 7 hour train to Prague today that left at like 8 in the morning. We are now preparing for our first night out in prague. There will be blood.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Dear Journal, Its me Doug!
the hardest part about writing these blogs is thinking of what to say first. so to make it easy for myself, i wrote this sentence and the previous one to let you know that. we have been in interlaken, switzerland for 3 days and it has been quite glorious to say the least. as some of you smartypants already know interlaken is in between two lakes, hence its name. the lakes are the most wonderous color of blue imaginary to man. i dont really know how to explain it but i would say its a mix between glacier freeze gatorade and the artificial color you see when you are at a lazy river at a water park. i hope that paints the picture for you. the day we got here, it was so nice that monesplye + tom decided to walk to one of the lakes and rent a boat. we rented this rickety rowboat that whenever you made a paddle stroke, the oars would make a noise similar to that of a dying giraffe. we were paddling away from shore so slowly for some reason that trendy people at this trendy lakeside restaurant were just like sipping their frappucinos and glaring at us as we tried to get out of site. adventure tom took a dip in the lake which looked extremely refreshing, but i did not follow his lead because of the loch ness monster. it was like the three of us together were as one, the old man and the sea. we all started laying down on the boat and like semi-napped when the sound of a gigantic boat foghorn startled us as we realized we were in its path or something. that happened like 3 times.
our hostel here looks like a house that would be on the real world (NICE ONE TOM!!!) on the outside. on the inside, it is filled with swarming families of indian and asian decent. i guess this is a huge hotspot for people from asia, who woulda thunk it. it kinda looks like a military bunker with like cement walls and things of that sort that has been decorated by a trendy minimalist interior designer. food and such is ridiculously expensive here, you americans- think of like aspen and thats the feel you get when you are here. so we have been buying stuff to cook for dinner and in order to prevent us from dropping wicked loot at bars, we buy bottles of liquor before we go out. while we were seshing our typical fanta orange and vods, we ran into this dude who graduated vandy this year and kicked it with him and his golfer friend from seton hall. we attempted to go to this bar with them but they wouldnt let us in cause we were like "too good looking" or something.
on the second day, we did this thing called canyoning. it was very exciting and fun. its basically going up into the alps and then making your way down through a river with like rapids and cliffs and like natural water chutes and sweet things of that sort. it was really fun. i didnt know what to expect beforehand and wondered if it was hard. i realized on the bus ride there that i was going to be fine because in our group was a family of large to quite large texans and one of the guides 8 year old son. phew. its kinda hard to explain the different things we did so i wont really try. but there was one small thing we did where the guides like pushed you under a waterfall and you got like pushed around and then you are suppossed to like gracefully float with the current and into the other people who would stop you from going into a rocky wall of death. when i went, last, no one was there to prevent me from hitting this very same rocky wall of death and i basically got my ass beat by the current smashing me into the wall, holding my head underwater. my life flashed before my eyes and i saw a myself on a swing, a rainbow and snuffaluffagus. but i finally was able to free myself from death's watery grasp and i looked up to realize no one really cared about my well being. the whole experience was tight and they even gave us complimentary bread & cheese and beer afterwards. that night, we spiced things up and got rum instead of vodka and drank and went to this bar, balmers. we were told by zachary balthazar reiner that it was like a frat party there and his description did not let us down. the only thing was that there were clusters of REALLY unpopular dudes dancing REALLY unpopularly throughout the bar. this one kid looked like he was 12 and when that song- shorty got low-low-low-low apple bottom jeans or something was on, he got so low that he fell and looked like a turtle on his back, with no power to get up. his other blacked out accomplice helped him out and saved the day. we met these annoying broads from THE ohio state and when that song your hot and your cold your yes and your no came one, tom aka hitch told one of them that it was my song and she told me we should dance, so i did. her attempt of grinddancing was placing her behind on my crotch and like moving every extremity but not her butt. it was a fun night, besides when tom spilled on me and made a flawless representation of what piss would look like if i had pissed my pants.
today, it was raining so we decided to go on a two and a half hour hike up a mountain. great idea. to me the hike was as if you turned the world upside down and we were climbing to the devil's laire in hell. but we made it to the top, soaking wet from rain and sweat. it got to a point where you didnt know why you were wet but you were okay with it. the top was kinda tight with the views and such, but hey i could have seen it on the internet. haha im kidding, im glad i did it but i was definitely not merry during the excursion. we have a mad early train to catch to munich tomorrow so i dont think we are hitting the town tonight. maybe well try and assimilate ourselves into an asian family and like party with them, but i doubt it. i cant believe im going to be home in less than a week. im really excited to get back and play some softball. hope everyones summers are swell. till next time.
-blye, spencer t.
p.s. i hope some of you know the reference of the title of this blog
our hostel here looks like a house that would be on the real world (NICE ONE TOM!!!) on the outside. on the inside, it is filled with swarming families of indian and asian decent. i guess this is a huge hotspot for people from asia, who woulda thunk it. it kinda looks like a military bunker with like cement walls and things of that sort that has been decorated by a trendy minimalist interior designer. food and such is ridiculously expensive here, you americans- think of like aspen and thats the feel you get when you are here. so we have been buying stuff to cook for dinner and in order to prevent us from dropping wicked loot at bars, we buy bottles of liquor before we go out. while we were seshing our typical fanta orange and vods, we ran into this dude who graduated vandy this year and kicked it with him and his golfer friend from seton hall. we attempted to go to this bar with them but they wouldnt let us in cause we were like "too good looking" or something.
on the second day, we did this thing called canyoning. it was very exciting and fun. its basically going up into the alps and then making your way down through a river with like rapids and cliffs and like natural water chutes and sweet things of that sort. it was really fun. i didnt know what to expect beforehand and wondered if it was hard. i realized on the bus ride there that i was going to be fine because in our group was a family of large to quite large texans and one of the guides 8 year old son. phew. its kinda hard to explain the different things we did so i wont really try. but there was one small thing we did where the guides like pushed you under a waterfall and you got like pushed around and then you are suppossed to like gracefully float with the current and into the other people who would stop you from going into a rocky wall of death. when i went, last, no one was there to prevent me from hitting this very same rocky wall of death and i basically got my ass beat by the current smashing me into the wall, holding my head underwater. my life flashed before my eyes and i saw a myself on a swing, a rainbow and snuffaluffagus. but i finally was able to free myself from death's watery grasp and i looked up to realize no one really cared about my well being. the whole experience was tight and they even gave us complimentary bread & cheese and beer afterwards. that night, we spiced things up and got rum instead of vodka and drank and went to this bar, balmers. we were told by zachary balthazar reiner that it was like a frat party there and his description did not let us down. the only thing was that there were clusters of REALLY unpopular dudes dancing REALLY unpopularly throughout the bar. this one kid looked like he was 12 and when that song- shorty got low-low-low-low apple bottom jeans or something was on, he got so low that he fell and looked like a turtle on his back, with no power to get up. his other blacked out accomplice helped him out and saved the day. we met these annoying broads from THE ohio state and when that song your hot and your cold your yes and your no came one, tom aka hitch told one of them that it was my song and she told me we should dance, so i did. her attempt of grinddancing was placing her behind on my crotch and like moving every extremity but not her butt. it was a fun night, besides when tom spilled on me and made a flawless representation of what piss would look like if i had pissed my pants.
today, it was raining so we decided to go on a two and a half hour hike up a mountain. great idea. to me the hike was as if you turned the world upside down and we were climbing to the devil's laire in hell. but we made it to the top, soaking wet from rain and sweat. it got to a point where you didnt know why you were wet but you were okay with it. the top was kinda tight with the views and such, but hey i could have seen it on the internet. haha im kidding, im glad i did it but i was definitely not merry during the excursion. we have a mad early train to catch to munich tomorrow so i dont think we are hitting the town tonight. maybe well try and assimilate ourselves into an asian family and like party with them, but i doubt it. i cant believe im going to be home in less than a week. im really excited to get back and play some softball. hope everyones summers are swell. till next time.
-blye, spencer t.
p.s. i hope some of you know the reference of the title of this blog
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Partying with Mark Anthony and Tony Gonzales
What up world? Shit has gotten radically different since we last spoke. We bounced out of Poland, and are now touring western Europe. You might have noticed that the quality of the blog has gone a bit downhill in the past few weeks. Quite simply, we got very bored of Krakow--partially because we lived in a hostel for 22 DAYS, partially because a daily diet of sausage, vodka and stale bread numbs the mind. Don't fear, the quality of the blog is about to sky rocket, partially because of the arrival of.....FAT TOM.
We met fat tom in the florence train station, where he took a picture of us as we got off the train. funny because we were going to do the same thing, but he beat us to the punch. We haven't seen Tom since he came to visit school last year, and he remains mostly the same after a year in spain. The only major differences are that he drinks expresso (for real), he has lost command of the english language, and wears cardigans. But we brought him back to earth with (according to him) our "dry wit and jewish humor." Anyway, the trip has started off with a bang to say the least. We got a little saucy with a bottle of wine and some beers and we hit florence. We walked around and eventually stumbled into this restaurant, which was bomb as hell. This puerto rican dude was kind of our waiter and we decided to ask him what bars to go to, since none of us had really spent time in florence before. Suprisingly enough he told us to just wait for him to get off work and he would roll with us out. Last time we followed random dudes to bars, MoneSplye ended up at a gay bar with three dudes. But this was a different country, so we rolled the dice. So the guy basically returns in this weird vest, holman-esque jean shorts and a fedora. He got us free shots from the bar next to the restaurant, and we were off. He takes us to this hip hop bar called YAB, which stands for You Are Beautiful (what?) and gets us past the bouncers in a way that JLevine would envy. We did the following things:
1. We partied with Tony Gonzales, soon to be Atlanta Falcon. I told him he was a legend and he took a picture with us. He was the man, it's cool to see NFL players dancing like retards in the club and gettin buck.
2. We encountered a group of girls and dudes from Vanderbilt, doing some study abroad program. We knew a few of them and grind danced a little bit before they left. We seshed a few tails and showed off our newly acquired European swagger. Tom led the pack, the graduate who was "just helpin the kids" in Spain.
3. Got swindled.
The entire time this puerto rican dude, Mark Anthony was following us around. He was literally our roll dog, he kept trying to find us girls and get f'd up with us. The night ended as we walked back to our hotel late night. He kept sayin things like, "I got a son, but you know I keep it real" Then he showed us these pornos he made on his phone. of him. that got really graphic. we all silently looked at eachother with what the fuck written across our face. Anyway, he gave us his business card, which was just a puerto rican flag with his name and number. it made me realize i should get a business card with my name and the American flag, i'd get mad jobs and womens. End night 1 in Florence. Great Success.
The second night in florence was even better. We ended up going out to Spencer's family friend's house in the Tuscan countryside. We were scheduled to have dinner with this woman at her house, and she supposedly was a notoriously good cook. Driving out of the city in her son's Mini, I imagined a sprawling Tuscan mansion surrounded by a huge property. I imagined a luscious garden with olive trees and various flowers--there would also be a sick pool and a tennis court. I couldn't have been more right in my assumptions. This house was ballin--it was built in the 14th century or some shit and looked like an ill museum on the inside. Only pictures could do it justice. We had an incredible dinner of florentine steak, sausage, ribs, pasta, salad and four bottles of red wine. One of her sons spoke good english, so there was interesting conversation to draw out the dinner. Tom kept speaking SPanish and picking up random italian so he was able to laugh at their jokes. Me and splye didnt really understand shit, so we werent able to keep up but whatever. tom probably had no idea what they were saying--he was just giddy to be with Americans again.
Anyway, we are chillin in Interlaken now. it's a postcard beautiful everywhere you look. The alps are dank nugs to say the least. Catching up with tom is fun, we rehashed some old southpark and made fun of eachother about ladies, drinking, and frat shit.
I gotta go drink more vodka and orange soda--the standard drink of this trip. stay tuned for a guest post by tom...
BM
We met fat tom in the florence train station, where he took a picture of us as we got off the train. funny because we were going to do the same thing, but he beat us to the punch. We haven't seen Tom since he came to visit school last year, and he remains mostly the same after a year in spain. The only major differences are that he drinks expresso (for real), he has lost command of the english language, and wears cardigans. But we brought him back to earth with (according to him) our "dry wit and jewish humor." Anyway, the trip has started off with a bang to say the least. We got a little saucy with a bottle of wine and some beers and we hit florence. We walked around and eventually stumbled into this restaurant, which was bomb as hell. This puerto rican dude was kind of our waiter and we decided to ask him what bars to go to, since none of us had really spent time in florence before. Suprisingly enough he told us to just wait for him to get off work and he would roll with us out. Last time we followed random dudes to bars, MoneSplye ended up at a gay bar with three dudes. But this was a different country, so we rolled the dice. So the guy basically returns in this weird vest, holman-esque jean shorts and a fedora. He got us free shots from the bar next to the restaurant, and we were off. He takes us to this hip hop bar called YAB, which stands for You Are Beautiful (what?) and gets us past the bouncers in a way that JLevine would envy. We did the following things:
1. We partied with Tony Gonzales, soon to be Atlanta Falcon. I told him he was a legend and he took a picture with us. He was the man, it's cool to see NFL players dancing like retards in the club and gettin buck.
2. We encountered a group of girls and dudes from Vanderbilt, doing some study abroad program. We knew a few of them and grind danced a little bit before they left. We seshed a few tails and showed off our newly acquired European swagger. Tom led the pack, the graduate who was "just helpin the kids" in Spain.
3. Got swindled.
The entire time this puerto rican dude, Mark Anthony was following us around. He was literally our roll dog, he kept trying to find us girls and get f'd up with us. The night ended as we walked back to our hotel late night. He kept sayin things like, "I got a son, but you know I keep it real" Then he showed us these pornos he made on his phone. of him. that got really graphic. we all silently looked at eachother with what the fuck written across our face. Anyway, he gave us his business card, which was just a puerto rican flag with his name and number. it made me realize i should get a business card with my name and the American flag, i'd get mad jobs and womens. End night 1 in Florence. Great Success.
The second night in florence was even better. We ended up going out to Spencer's family friend's house in the Tuscan countryside. We were scheduled to have dinner with this woman at her house, and she supposedly was a notoriously good cook. Driving out of the city in her son's Mini, I imagined a sprawling Tuscan mansion surrounded by a huge property. I imagined a luscious garden with olive trees and various flowers--there would also be a sick pool and a tennis court. I couldn't have been more right in my assumptions. This house was ballin--it was built in the 14th century or some shit and looked like an ill museum on the inside. Only pictures could do it justice. We had an incredible dinner of florentine steak, sausage, ribs, pasta, salad and four bottles of red wine. One of her sons spoke good english, so there was interesting conversation to draw out the dinner. Tom kept speaking SPanish and picking up random italian so he was able to laugh at their jokes. Me and splye didnt really understand shit, so we werent able to keep up but whatever. tom probably had no idea what they were saying--he was just giddy to be with Americans again.
Anyway, we are chillin in Interlaken now. it's a postcard beautiful everywhere you look. The alps are dank nugs to say the least. Catching up with tom is fun, we rehashed some old southpark and made fun of eachother about ladies, drinking, and frat shit.
I gotta go drink more vodka and orange soda--the standard drink of this trip. stay tuned for a guest post by tom...
BM
Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Beginning of the End
"the loss of monesplye will dampen krakow forever"-the polish times
"take our first born, but do not taketh monesplye"-the gypsy inquirer
"economy in ruins after departure of monesplye"- the polak journal
"monument to be made in market square to remember monesplye"- the weekend pole
"gypsys caught feasting on human flesh in abandoned home"-poland post
as monesplye awoke on the first cloudless morning in recent history, he was greated with church bells and stacks of various publications giving their respect to the departing duo. we know we were really cool, but famous? wow. for those of you who have journeyed with us on our blog through our ups and downs in krakow, you should understand that we are ready to get the fuck up out of this bitch. a journey lies ahead of us, and we are ready to take europe head on. krakow definitely left its mark on me and i will always remember it as my first european experience. i will also remember it for rain, gypsys and the lack of males wearing flip flops.
we said goodbye to our polish guide woman this afternoon and it was painful to say the least. with her were two other girls on a similar program as monesplye and they were pissing me off. this one girl, some teva wearing hippie from chi town was just blabbering on about uninteresting stuff and sipping some trendy hot chocolate as if she owned the freakin world. she noticed that monesplye wasnt into the conversation and was giving us silent and audible attitude. as we tried to be polite about leaving, she barked out of nowhere and said "TRYING TO GO?" or something in hippie jargon. i felt the urge to take her hot cocoa and throw it in her face but i resisted, i have learned the zen ways of poland. when we hugged and kissed out coordinator kasia goodbye, it finally hit us that we were leaving. taking the tram one last time, monesplye soaked in the memories while a barely coherent fat polak stood awfully too close to ben.
a few nights ago, when we went to one of our favorite spots, cien club, i spotted this girl dancing who had to have been on some sort of date rape drug. she was flailing around, but loving life nonetheless. i then saw a dude that she was with who looked as if he had just been head butt by a mountain ram. the look on his face meant one or two things. one, he was rolling on ecstasy and had no fucking idea what was going on. or two, he was a zombie licking his lips and dreaming about eating human flesh. im going to put my imagination aside and go with number one. the blacked out girl then came up to me, i dont know why, and hollered at me that this guy was just her friend. "i swear hes just my friend. JUST MY FRIEND" jesus lady your scaring us. i was afraid if i got too close she was going to try and grind with me and i was not feeling a loopy dance with this bizarrely drugged broad. so i was pretty distant and she eventually left, teetering her way back to her night of the living dead partner and stood around for a while and left. about 30 minutes later we left the club and i saw them sitting in a gutter crying or something.
this is the last post from poland. i believe the next you will hear from us will be from florence, italia. i cant think of much else to write because these 3 weeks in poland have numbed my brain. but i am confident that our travels ahead of us and the addition of senjor tom will bring life to me once again. see ya later.
-spenceblye
"take our first born, but do not taketh monesplye"-the gypsy inquirer
"economy in ruins after departure of monesplye"- the polak journal
"monument to be made in market square to remember monesplye"- the weekend pole
"gypsys caught feasting on human flesh in abandoned home"-poland post
as monesplye awoke on the first cloudless morning in recent history, he was greated with church bells and stacks of various publications giving their respect to the departing duo. we know we were really cool, but famous? wow. for those of you who have journeyed with us on our blog through our ups and downs in krakow, you should understand that we are ready to get the fuck up out of this bitch. a journey lies ahead of us, and we are ready to take europe head on. krakow definitely left its mark on me and i will always remember it as my first european experience. i will also remember it for rain, gypsys and the lack of males wearing flip flops.
we said goodbye to our polish guide woman this afternoon and it was painful to say the least. with her were two other girls on a similar program as monesplye and they were pissing me off. this one girl, some teva wearing hippie from chi town was just blabbering on about uninteresting stuff and sipping some trendy hot chocolate as if she owned the freakin world. she noticed that monesplye wasnt into the conversation and was giving us silent and audible attitude. as we tried to be polite about leaving, she barked out of nowhere and said "TRYING TO GO?" or something in hippie jargon. i felt the urge to take her hot cocoa and throw it in her face but i resisted, i have learned the zen ways of poland. when we hugged and kissed out coordinator kasia goodbye, it finally hit us that we were leaving. taking the tram one last time, monesplye soaked in the memories while a barely coherent fat polak stood awfully too close to ben.
a few nights ago, when we went to one of our favorite spots, cien club, i spotted this girl dancing who had to have been on some sort of date rape drug. she was flailing around, but loving life nonetheless. i then saw a dude that she was with who looked as if he had just been head butt by a mountain ram. the look on his face meant one or two things. one, he was rolling on ecstasy and had no fucking idea what was going on. or two, he was a zombie licking his lips and dreaming about eating human flesh. im going to put my imagination aside and go with number one. the blacked out girl then came up to me, i dont know why, and hollered at me that this guy was just her friend. "i swear hes just my friend. JUST MY FRIEND" jesus lady your scaring us. i was afraid if i got too close she was going to try and grind with me and i was not feeling a loopy dance with this bizarrely drugged broad. so i was pretty distant and she eventually left, teetering her way back to her night of the living dead partner and stood around for a while and left. about 30 minutes later we left the club and i saw them sitting in a gutter crying or something.
this is the last post from poland. i believe the next you will hear from us will be from florence, italia. i cant think of much else to write because these 3 weeks in poland have numbed my brain. but i am confident that our travels ahead of us and the addition of senjor tom will bring life to me once again. see ya later.
-spenceblye
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The End of the Alf Klub
Dear Diary,
Working at the Alf Klub has officially come to a close. No longer will we take the maze of Polish public transportation to the youth center on the outskirts of Poland. No longer will MoneSplye exchange a glance and a nod when we pass the famed "Field of Dreams" busstop. No longer will we be harassed by gypsys and other creatures of the night, who are blacked out at 10am on a tuesday morning. Our time as virtuous volunteers for the disadvantaged has come to an abrupt end.
The Last Day
We arrived at the Alf Klub to hundreds of little children, dressed in little white tuxes and long dresses, throwing flower petals in our wake. As we passed them, they joined together in a large group, singing our praises in a Polish folk song to the tune of "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." Our final day began as normal. We greeted the other volunteers with a solemn "Hello." Buried in anti-American sentiment, they merely thrust us a disapproving glance. Today was the day that we would cook for the children. We were told by the program director we would have to cook the children one day before our time there was up. We wanted to save the best for last. Spencer, once a sous-chef at a four-star Sri Lankan restaurant, and I, a professionally trained saucier from Indonesia, would prepare a feast. I decided to cook the American classic, "Sloppy Joes" while Spencer opted for the equally tantalizing "Caesar Salad." Both dishes turned out fantastic. Spencer, forced to work with meager ingredients (no vinegar for his vinigrette dressing? preposterous!) turned out a fantastic product. I slaved over the little electric stove for hours, sauteeing the ground beef. A dash of brown sugar there, a cup of sliced bell pepper here, a little TLC, and the rest was history. The children downed the food. It seemed to be the first real meal they had in ages as I watched the young ones clean their plates. After lunch, as the gypsy's cleaned the stove, eating any scraps that might have fallen to the floor, MoneSplye settled into the computer room for our last online gaming session with the kids. We laughed at their jokes, were stupefied when they leveled up to level 20 dwarf Paladins with ease, and shared in their merriment. The other volunteers sat silently, blown away at how we have bonded with the children in such a short time. The other volunteers had resented us, called us names. They had told us that we were loud and tall, as all Americans are. With the latter I cannot disagree, at a combined height MoneSplye stands at a staggering 13 ft. Yet their constant berating and name-calling would not go unpunished--we pooped in paper bags and placed them in their cubbies.
As the day wound to a close, the children suddenly realized they would never see us again. Who would they turn to for inspiration? Who would they confide in? Who would supply them with the immeasurable wealth of love and caring that we had supplied for them? As we left, the children gathered in numbers around us, tugging at our coattails. They begged for us not to leave. At one point, a little girl ripped off Spencer's button down shirt, flying out the door. She was merely trying to keep some memento of the thoughtfulness and happiness she experienced with MoneSplye. "Take us with you!" they cried, tears streaming down their cheeks. "Don't leave!" they garbled in broken English. The usually stoic MoneSplye began to crumble. A single tear rolled down their cheeks as they hugged the children goodbye. "I love statue of liberty," one said. "Dog the Bounty Hunter," said another. "Top Gun!" another cried. We could not take all of these children with us. As we made our way for the door, one of the students tried to thrust herself out the window in an attempted suicide. Luckily, she did not notice that there was also a screen covering the opening. A 21-gun salute greeted us as we began to exit the building, a light bagpipe playing somewhere in the background. As we walked through the halls of the youth center, we passed groups of people. Students, teachers, janitors, priests. All gathered to give us their final goodbyes. Some cried, some held strong. Nodding at our friends and enemies, we left with a clean slate. Walking out the door, we knew that life at Alf Klub would soon return to the monotonous reality it endured before MoneSplye arrival. Yet we were sure of one thing: we had made an impact not only on the local community, but upon ourselves as well.
Goodbye, Alf Klub. Your memory will live on.
Sincerely,
Ben
p.s. This commercial is hilarious. My favorite part is when the guy says, "The last two pages are recipes, most people don't even get that far"
Working at the Alf Klub has officially come to a close. No longer will we take the maze of Polish public transportation to the youth center on the outskirts of Poland. No longer will MoneSplye exchange a glance and a nod when we pass the famed "Field of Dreams" busstop. No longer will we be harassed by gypsys and other creatures of the night, who are blacked out at 10am on a tuesday morning. Our time as virtuous volunteers for the disadvantaged has come to an abrupt end.
The Last Day
We arrived at the Alf Klub to hundreds of little children, dressed in little white tuxes and long dresses, throwing flower petals in our wake. As we passed them, they joined together in a large group, singing our praises in a Polish folk song to the tune of "Every Rose Has It's Thorn." Our final day began as normal. We greeted the other volunteers with a solemn "Hello." Buried in anti-American sentiment, they merely thrust us a disapproving glance. Today was the day that we would cook for the children. We were told by the program director we would have to cook the children one day before our time there was up. We wanted to save the best for last. Spencer, once a sous-chef at a four-star Sri Lankan restaurant, and I, a professionally trained saucier from Indonesia, would prepare a feast. I decided to cook the American classic, "Sloppy Joes" while Spencer opted for the equally tantalizing "Caesar Salad." Both dishes turned out fantastic. Spencer, forced to work with meager ingredients (no vinegar for his vinigrette dressing? preposterous!) turned out a fantastic product. I slaved over the little electric stove for hours, sauteeing the ground beef. A dash of brown sugar there, a cup of sliced bell pepper here, a little TLC, and the rest was history. The children downed the food. It seemed to be the first real meal they had in ages as I watched the young ones clean their plates. After lunch, as the gypsy's cleaned the stove, eating any scraps that might have fallen to the floor, MoneSplye settled into the computer room for our last online gaming session with the kids. We laughed at their jokes, were stupefied when they leveled up to level 20 dwarf Paladins with ease, and shared in their merriment. The other volunteers sat silently, blown away at how we have bonded with the children in such a short time. The other volunteers had resented us, called us names. They had told us that we were loud and tall, as all Americans are. With the latter I cannot disagree, at a combined height MoneSplye stands at a staggering 13 ft. Yet their constant berating and name-calling would not go unpunished--we pooped in paper bags and placed them in their cubbies.
As the day wound to a close, the children suddenly realized they would never see us again. Who would they turn to for inspiration? Who would they confide in? Who would supply them with the immeasurable wealth of love and caring that we had supplied for them? As we left, the children gathered in numbers around us, tugging at our coattails. They begged for us not to leave. At one point, a little girl ripped off Spencer's button down shirt, flying out the door. She was merely trying to keep some memento of the thoughtfulness and happiness she experienced with MoneSplye. "Take us with you!" they cried, tears streaming down their cheeks. "Don't leave!" they garbled in broken English. The usually stoic MoneSplye began to crumble. A single tear rolled down their cheeks as they hugged the children goodbye. "I love statue of liberty," one said. "Dog the Bounty Hunter," said another. "Top Gun!" another cried. We could not take all of these children with us. As we made our way for the door, one of the students tried to thrust herself out the window in an attempted suicide. Luckily, she did not notice that there was also a screen covering the opening. A 21-gun salute greeted us as we began to exit the building, a light bagpipe playing somewhere in the background. As we walked through the halls of the youth center, we passed groups of people. Students, teachers, janitors, priests. All gathered to give us their final goodbyes. Some cried, some held strong. Nodding at our friends and enemies, we left with a clean slate. Walking out the door, we knew that life at Alf Klub would soon return to the monotonous reality it endured before MoneSplye arrival. Yet we were sure of one thing: we had made an impact not only on the local community, but upon ourselves as well.
Goodbye, Alf Klub. Your memory will live on.
Sincerely,
Ben
p.s. This commercial is hilarious. My favorite part is when the guy says, "The last two pages are recipes, most people don't even get that far"
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Professor Monesplye: Class is in Session!
hey guys! whats REALLY good?
life here across the pond is coming along and monesplye only has 5 more days in cracovia. woopie! i really enjoy this city and am having a great time, but we have done all there is to do here and a consensus vote has been taken and monesplye is ready to part ways from the gypsys and meet up with none other than senjor thom. for those of you who do not know tommy aulet, he is as all-american as you can quite possibly be. but living in seville for a year may have changed him and i guess well see. im confident that he will still go buckwild over steak and buttered noodles and red sox t-shirt jerseys.
tonight monesplye decided to splurge and hit up a really trendy italian restaurant. probably our most expensive meal here to date, it costed us 192 zlotte combined, which roughly comes out to 33 dollars (US dollars, aka real money) per person. we got a lovely bottle of the house wine which went adoringly well with my beef carpaccio appetizer. to top it off, it complimented my mixed seafood platter flawlessy leaving a breathtakingly smooth after taste. exquisite, simply exquisite.
but after our meal, things went sour. the event that followed was one of the biggest disappointments of my trip so far. as some of you know, i am a huge supporter of the lord of the rings series. for those of you who did not know that, dont talk shit, and if you do, BACK OFFF. in a recent article i read in esquire magazine, megan fox said she loves lord of the rings and knows the name of gandalf's horse off the top of her head. me too, its shadowfax. so maybe that will change your hippie perspective on one of the greatest trilogies ever (im not a nerd). so apparently there is a lord of the rings themed bar here in krakow and i made mones find it and go there with me. i also made him bring his camera so that i could make a detailed photoshoot to capture the experience. but when we got into the bar, things did not go as planned. it basically had one picture on the wall that said middle earth and that was it. excruciatingly disappointing. it gave me the pit in the stomach feeling i got when christy tompkins never showed up to my 3rd grade bowling party. c'est la vie.
as our loyal blog followers were aware of, monesplye had his presentation on his life in america today at the elementary school where we volunteer at. when we got there, we did not really know what to expect. we walked into a classroom and set up like 20 chairs for our crowd. who was coming to watch? nobody knew and our coordinator, pan anjay, who doesnt speak a freaking word of english obviously didnt say shit to us. but monesplye came prepared for whatever would be fired our way and it turned out about 60 students came into this classroom to listen to us. this girl veida was our translator and we basically had to talk really slow and simple to accomodate her and not the young children. there were many times throughout the presentation that veida had to be corrected by little polish kids whom i was lead to believe could not even tie their own shoes. mones, the bold warrior he is, went first and spoke about things such as portland, his family, basketball, vanderbilt (what what) and pig roasting. i then followed with a brilliant lecture about cool things about nyc such as the statue of liberty and central park. i then tried to teach the kids about baseball and i am confident in saying that these children now know what happens when the ball is hit into the stands where the people sit for the games. it was really funny, when they saw the picture of the statue of liberty on my poster, they all gasped like there was a sensational fireworks show. it was kind of interesting though to see how much these kids want to go to america. def struck a cord.
when we finished our presentation, the kids gave us a huge ovation. it kinda felt like kappa kappa gala all over again. when monesplye left the classroom after all the kids went off after the show, we walked out and were instantly treated like celebrities. i kind of felt like the beatles when we walked through the hallways because little polish girls were screaming and crying while reaching out to touch us. i even saw this one girl rip this other girls pony tail off just so that she could be in our line of sight. no but serially, every kid wanted a piece of monesplye. obama aint got shit on us. on this day, monesplye=n'sync-the gay astronaut dude x burt reynolds. the priest of the school watched our presentation and came up to us afterwards saying that he loves nba basketball and that there were many russians in the nba. ya thanks pal, we know, we are americans. but then something really weird happened. he told our translator something in gibberish and she looked at mones oddly and told him that the guy wanted him to join the priesthood. it was truly bizarre. we have no idea why. maybe its cause hes tall, or maybe cause this guy wanted to bang mones. i guess well never know. he asked us where we were staying and instead of trying to communicate with him verbally, i just gave him the card of our hostel. an action i truly regretted instantly. he said he wanted to visit us or some shit. YIKES. mones said hes sleeping with ducktape on his butt tonight just in case.
one more funny thing i wanted to tell you. we take the bus to work everyday, and when you get outside of the city limits and into the countryside, there are not too many establishments in that area. there is one bus stop that we decided to call the "field of dreams" stop because it literally gets off at a path that curves up a hill and into a little forest. i think most of you devoted blog followers can guess what i am going to say lives up there. everybody on three, 1......2.......3......GYPSYS. cooorrreect. i knew you had it in you. those who said cave goblins, ill give you the benefit of the doubt.
well thats it for now. i foresee myself only making one more post here in krakow, but dont worry, the hostels we have lined up in florence, interlaken, munich and prague all have free wifi.
<3 spencer
life here across the pond is coming along and monesplye only has 5 more days in cracovia. woopie! i really enjoy this city and am having a great time, but we have done all there is to do here and a consensus vote has been taken and monesplye is ready to part ways from the gypsys and meet up with none other than senjor thom. for those of you who do not know tommy aulet, he is as all-american as you can quite possibly be. but living in seville for a year may have changed him and i guess well see. im confident that he will still go buckwild over steak and buttered noodles and red sox t-shirt jerseys.
tonight monesplye decided to splurge and hit up a really trendy italian restaurant. probably our most expensive meal here to date, it costed us 192 zlotte combined, which roughly comes out to 33 dollars (US dollars, aka real money) per person. we got a lovely bottle of the house wine which went adoringly well with my beef carpaccio appetizer. to top it off, it complimented my mixed seafood platter flawlessy leaving a breathtakingly smooth after taste. exquisite, simply exquisite.
but after our meal, things went sour. the event that followed was one of the biggest disappointments of my trip so far. as some of you know, i am a huge supporter of the lord of the rings series. for those of you who did not know that, dont talk shit, and if you do, BACK OFFF. in a recent article i read in esquire magazine, megan fox said she loves lord of the rings and knows the name of gandalf's horse off the top of her head. me too, its shadowfax. so maybe that will change your hippie perspective on one of the greatest trilogies ever (im not a nerd). so apparently there is a lord of the rings themed bar here in krakow and i made mones find it and go there with me. i also made him bring his camera so that i could make a detailed photoshoot to capture the experience. but when we got into the bar, things did not go as planned. it basically had one picture on the wall that said middle earth and that was it. excruciatingly disappointing. it gave me the pit in the stomach feeling i got when christy tompkins never showed up to my 3rd grade bowling party. c'est la vie.
as our loyal blog followers were aware of, monesplye had his presentation on his life in america today at the elementary school where we volunteer at. when we got there, we did not really know what to expect. we walked into a classroom and set up like 20 chairs for our crowd. who was coming to watch? nobody knew and our coordinator, pan anjay, who doesnt speak a freaking word of english obviously didnt say shit to us. but monesplye came prepared for whatever would be fired our way and it turned out about 60 students came into this classroom to listen to us. this girl veida was our translator and we basically had to talk really slow and simple to accomodate her and not the young children. there were many times throughout the presentation that veida had to be corrected by little polish kids whom i was lead to believe could not even tie their own shoes. mones, the bold warrior he is, went first and spoke about things such as portland, his family, basketball, vanderbilt (what what) and pig roasting. i then followed with a brilliant lecture about cool things about nyc such as the statue of liberty and central park. i then tried to teach the kids about baseball and i am confident in saying that these children now know what happens when the ball is hit into the stands where the people sit for the games. it was really funny, when they saw the picture of the statue of liberty on my poster, they all gasped like there was a sensational fireworks show. it was kind of interesting though to see how much these kids want to go to america. def struck a cord.
when we finished our presentation, the kids gave us a huge ovation. it kinda felt like kappa kappa gala all over again. when monesplye left the classroom after all the kids went off after the show, we walked out and were instantly treated like celebrities. i kind of felt like the beatles when we walked through the hallways because little polish girls were screaming and crying while reaching out to touch us. i even saw this one girl rip this other girls pony tail off just so that she could be in our line of sight. no but serially, every kid wanted a piece of monesplye. obama aint got shit on us. on this day, monesplye=n'sync-the gay astronaut dude x burt reynolds. the priest of the school watched our presentation and came up to us afterwards saying that he loves nba basketball and that there were many russians in the nba. ya thanks pal, we know, we are americans. but then something really weird happened. he told our translator something in gibberish and she looked at mones oddly and told him that the guy wanted him to join the priesthood. it was truly bizarre. we have no idea why. maybe its cause hes tall, or maybe cause this guy wanted to bang mones. i guess well never know. he asked us where we were staying and instead of trying to communicate with him verbally, i just gave him the card of our hostel. an action i truly regretted instantly. he said he wanted to visit us or some shit. YIKES. mones said hes sleeping with ducktape on his butt tonight just in case.
one more funny thing i wanted to tell you. we take the bus to work everyday, and when you get outside of the city limits and into the countryside, there are not too many establishments in that area. there is one bus stop that we decided to call the "field of dreams" stop because it literally gets off at a path that curves up a hill and into a little forest. i think most of you devoted blog followers can guess what i am going to say lives up there. everybody on three, 1......2.......3......GYPSYS. cooorrreect. i knew you had it in you. those who said cave goblins, ill give you the benefit of the doubt.
well thats it for now. i foresee myself only making one more post here in krakow, but dont worry, the hostels we have lined up in florence, interlaken, munich and prague all have free wifi.
<3 spencer
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