Once inside, the girls found a crypt of Old World magic and wonder. Or just me and my books in glee.

I showed them my new purchase, a children’s book about Old Praha. Mike tried his Chinese New Year greeting again with an Asian girl that came in. No response. I urged him to try again. That was when she recognised him. Apparently an old friend from the States. A Korean-American, so his Mandarin wasn’t of much use. But still, Small World.

When we finally left, we traipsed over to the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, which was closed. The great doors had this forbidding “Silentium” sign, which we happily ignored. We walked around the Old Town Square for a bit, taking photos, doing the tourist stint. There was this one great mass of scuplture in the middle of the square, and we could swear the main statue looked exactly like Abe Lincoln.

The famed and misnamed Astronomical Clock was beautiful, with the Zodiac dials and whatnots. There was a little magic trawling the alleyways sprawled with touristy shops. The city just drums with life, even if the life of tourists. Actually I didn’t notice them that much. It was like the whole place was for us, the souvenirs were just for us. Hmm.

Gobsmacked when we reached Charles Bridge. The bridge seemed an entity by itself without the river or the banks on both sides. The merchants were of wares not ancient but echoes of the past. Caricaturists, portrait artists, musicians (Middle-Eastern, jazz, even a glass harp maestro), trinklets, soothsayers, minor demons, left-wing politicians, and other tenders wonders of the tourist trade. We were gawking at them as much as the guardian statues and the views, so who-whee.

The girls kept walking steadily ahead. I caught up with them and we decided we wanted to go on, but we turned back to find the rest of the guys. I found them but then I lost the girls, who had the map. Pace of women. We found our way home – to find the girls snoozing in their beds. Sweet.

Later, Mike tried waking Claudia up, thinking she was Donatella. She just kept pushing him away, with more force than he would attribute to Dona. This was particularly hilarious as he was trying to avoid Claudia in the first place. Let’s say she definitely got up the wrong side of the bed. I’ve more bedroom anecdotes but for the sake of the ladies, I shall not repeat them here.

Rowdy dinner with plenty of table violence: pepper doobies and flying coasters. I’m convinced a stray coaster hit a waitress. She sure wasn’t smiling. But nothing quite beat Claudia feeding Mike leftovers from Dona’s peaches and cream. Not so much erotic as absurd.

Massive argument with Dona over whose responsibility it was for the group being separated. Reverse psychology does not work with Italian women, by the way. I tried, “OK, so I’m wrong, blame it on me” and she replied with smug satisfaction, “Yes, that’s right, it’s all your fault.”

What?

I’m not sure if I had the last laugh when Dona later led us west-left-north-under the city to several clubs, the last one we reached 15 mins before closing time.

…to be continued.

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Copyright © 2002 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.