11: Prague Diary

Before going to Dominoes, Russ wanted to try a Mexican bar that he’d seen. There was nothing Mex about it, it was just another typical Czech bar called Mexican Bar, which was disappointing, we’d had our fill of those. We went in and all conversation stopped, everybody turned to stare at us, but I was used to it now and went straight through to the backroom to find a seat. I knew I looked classy, good even for me and maybe I even swaggered a bit. The men stare at me lewdly. I’m heavy breasted and long-legged with waist length black hair and I had dirty old bastards perving at me all week. I’d hit the point where I didn’t care, I was done feeling worthless. The room was miniscule with only space for two two-seater tables. A man was already sitting at one, so I took the other. I hated the place. We got our vodkas, drained them in about three minutes and got up to leave. The man hadn’t taken his disgusting eyes from me once the entire time that I’d been sitting there. The Czechs will stare at somebody without any attempt to hide the fact that they are staring, there’s nothing covert about it. I was used to it and it didn’t bother me at all that night. My dress was ankle length, red velvet with a split to just above the knee on one side. I’ve got decent legs, I suppose, but I made sure that my stocking top was covered when I sat down and crossed my legs. I didn’t want him thinking that I’m a hooker. His eyes went from my legs to my boobs and back again.

Remember the stilettos? Well Russ wasn’t guiding me when I completely forgot about the high step and fell out of one room right into the other, crashed into a person, a woman I think, sitting at the bar and almost landed in a heap.

This was new and hadn’t happened before. This was really something to make them stop and stare. The crazy pissed up British woman falling all over the place. As it was, I’d had only three drinks all night and was almost perfectly sober mind that Finlandia stuff, knocks your socks off. But regardless of the vodka It was not seeing the step that had caused me to trip.

I made a feeble joke about it being a stupid place to put a step and we nearly got stoned out of the place. The person who I’d crashed into at the bar was still righting her (?) self and muttering obscenities at me and then I made a mess of paying for the drinks. In every place we’d been, including the posh restaurant, we’d paid less than one hundred crona for two drinks. The only exception to this was the British bars exclusively aimed at the tourists in the town center, this certainly wasn't one of those. I handed the man behind the bar a one hundred coin and told him to keep the change. We began to walk out. He called us back and I thought he was trying to give me some money back. I told him that it was okay and carried on walking. This time his voice was harsh when he told us that he wanted another one hundred crona. I am one hundred percent convinced that he saw us coming, took us for fools and tripled the price of his drinks. I was too embarrassed to make any more of a scene and amid scathing remarks we paid and left.

In Dominoes we got our usual table, the vodka flowed and it neither looked like nor smelled of whiskey. We got happily, blissfully, blessedly pissed and left there at four thirty in the morning. Yes we got stared at, and yes, I’m sure we were also talked about. The Czechs dress well, but they keep it very plain and simple. They almost always seem to wear jeans. I stood out like a pulsing penis in my bright red dress; I commented to Russ that I looked like a prostitute, but, at least I looked like a high class pro and not a street walker. I can live with that. After our night-cap coffee I expected that we’d have to walk the couple of miles home and me in my damned high heels too, but joy of joys we found a number fifty three, the all night tram that took us to our usual stop.

We got to the hotel and were dismayed to find it all locked up for the night. Like all Prague nights it was bloody freezing. I started to giggle. What the hell were we going to do? Russ said that he’d knock somebody up to open the door. ‘You can’t do that at this time of night,’ I said, horrified, ‘They’ll hate us.’

‘Watch me,’ he replied. ‘they already hate us so we’ve nothing to lose.'

As it was the door opened very quickly. The night porter had been having a crafty sleep on the red sofa in the hall. ‘I wouldn’t mind sleeping on that,’ Russ whispered as we giggled and stumbled our way up the stairs. ‘You just go back to that lap dancing club and you will be’ I replied.

When we got back to our room neither of us felt much like sleeping, I wanted to go out dancing, but there was nowhere to dance .