Praha, Pivo, Prosim

In the Czech Republic the first of May is a big holiday. Schools and offices are closed and everyone gets to enjoy a day off. Also, it’s a day when Czechs are quite amorous and expressive of their love and libidos. You see, the first day of May is also kind of the Czech version of our Valentine’s Day. According to tradition, you must kiss your lover under a blossoming cherry tree on May first and you will be granted love/luck/prosperity. Frankly, I’m not quite sure if all three of those are true but you get my point. So, a bunch of us headed up the Ujezd funicular to the Petrin where there is a nice park and plenty of cherry trees.

Petrin has a big observation tower that looks quite like the Eiffel Tower. As a whole though, the locale in its entirety is called Petrin Hill (as Prague is a city of hills) so there are great views of the city from there. I cannot confirm this as yesterday was my first trek to Petrin and my ass wasn’t about to hoof it up the tower. I’ll certainly do it another time but I had already walked enough this week and I just wasn’t in the mood to wait in line and get all sweaty when my priorities were elsewhere. Where else could my priorities have been? Ah well, one of the political parties here sponsored some kind of even at Petrin and thusly sold beer and klobasa (I supppose it’s like a Kielbasa–just a big damn sausage that is served with thick sliced Czech bread and spicy mustard). There were also miscellaneous treats for kids (cookies, marzipan confections, etc.) as well as a few of those stupid bouncy-type rooms where kids can toss their lunch onto a plastic vibrating surface. But, going back to the beer and klobasa thing…this was by far the cheapest beer I’ve experienced in this country. The sausage and beer were only 10Kc each. Yeah, EACH. That’s about fifty cents. They WANT you to drink it. It’s an offense to the beer Gods if you do not do so.

So, going back to the Czech day of love and romance and all things sex. I actually really like the idea of kissing your lover under a tree and somehow it guaranteeing continued love and happiness. However, the skeptic in me realizes that’s just a silly tradition but at least it gives people a way to make out as much as possible. That said, Czechs are very open with affection. Much more so than anyone would ever be in the US. Sure, there’s the occasional kiss and hand holding but nothing to the degree that I’ve seen here. There are more than enough make-out sessions on the metros and trams. But they don’t stop on public transport, these folks will be kissy and grabby in most places. Similarly, this openness to sex and love is part of the Czech culture; this behavior is not unique to May first. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, this is a rather sexually liberated country and they have little issue with sexuality, discussions of sex, prostitution, or pornography. So, knowing this, I was fully expecting a flat-out park sex incident yesterday at Petrin. Color me disappointed when all we saw was a bit of spooning and a guy engaged in some kind of yoga/stretchy thing. In fact, the afternoon was low-key which was quite the opposite of what I was expecting. I suppose I was likening it to the ‘if you can shoot up on the sidewalk and not get arrested’ scenario, then why can’t you copulate with your burly hairy backed man lover in the park?

I uploaded some random videos I’ve snapped with my cheap point & shoot over the past few months. Enjoy. Note: they are out of sequence and I didn’t bother to edit them or make them more interesting via iMovie.

On a final note, today is Derby Day and I’m missing it. Something tells me though that my friends back in Kentucky will be having great time!