Drunks

So before I go on and tell everyone how Prague is, I want to make a note about how much public drunkenness is on a streets of Europe, and how much of it rocks. So here are the short, unedited tales of three of my favorite drunks.

First off, and award for most awkward moment of the trip came when we were passing one of Munich's many strip clubs. We were about ten steps from the door when a man is thrown out onto the street, we sort of glanced in and looked to see who was tossing him out, assuming it was going to be some huge bouncer, but it ended up being several strippers with looks of contempt on their faces. You know you are a little overboard when you get looks of contempt from strippers of all people. The expulsion from the club wasn't the part that made him so drunk, it was the fact that he had his pants down to his knees and was completely unaware that his kit and kaboodles were on display for the whole world. As we turned the corner (please note we were walking past the strip club, not to it) he was slowly waddling away from the club with his pants slowly falling further down.

Drunk number two was the most entertaining of the three. We were in a pub called U Fleku here in Prague. When we first got to the pub there was a little two man tuba/accordion band playing some traditional Czech songs. Some of the more inebriated patrons ended up standing up, dancing, falling down and repeating more than once while they were playing, but it was still an enjoyable little duo. The entertainment to follow came in the form of a ridiculously trashed guy singing Czech songs at the top of his lungs with no regard to his surrounding or the laughter that swelled from every corner of the pub. The guy literally sang for ten minutes, getting pleasant applause when he was finished, and gentle encouragement whenever he would start to forget words.

The final drunk, and my personal favorite, was a man we saw grabbing a light pole as we exited the hostel at about 6:00 in the afternoon. At first I thought he was maybe waiting for someone, but he had the look on his face of a small child whenever them are going to the bathroom in their diaper. Just sort of holding onto the pole with a strange look of concentration/constipation on his face. As we passed him, he made his move, he started staggering sideways across the sidewalk to a windowsill where he stopped and got back into his awkward stance. We actually turned to watch as he made his way to the next light pole and repeated his actions. We turned to walk away, but I immediately thought of the advice I have gotten many times as a runner, if you are having a hard time during a run, find a checkpoint up ahead and make your way to it. Once you get to that one, pick another and repeat. That man was obviously taught the same lesson but was able to apply it to his everyday life. Kudos!