So the weekend in review…this weekend I decided to stay in Stockholm. Which was an OK thing to do.

On Friday I hung out with Markus. That was very nice. We hadn’t hung out together for ages. However, something went really wrong on Friday. All of the alcohol made me really sick and I had to leave without warning. Luckily I did not get sick on Saturday, but I didn’t feel good for most of the day.

On Saturday I just decided to take it easy. I was supposed to go to Lino to support Max who was beginning his first night as a bartender there. But I took a few shots at home to see what would happen. And sure enough, as I was walking out the door, I got violently ill. There could very well be something in the choices that I am making for drinks. I don’t know what to do, so I will avoid alcohol for the immediate future.

And today, it’s Sunday morning, and I am listening to jazz-influenced music. It’s really a tradition I had back in Boston. When I was away from home for so long, I often liked to spend Sunday morning listening to a radio station that played great jazz (Magic 106.7) and would just have a leisurely breakfast of something like scones and a latte while reading the papers or a good book and just spending a few hours disconnected from the world. Of course, I live in Sweden now, so replace the scone with knäckebröd och cheese, a youghurt drink, a piece of fruit, and CNN online. Funny how life is sometimes.

So last weekend I went to Prague. I decided to wait to post about it because I wanted to give it some time. Prague is about the only other capital city in Europe that I like more than Berlin. In Scandinavia, Copenhagen is the cosmopolitian capital. In the West, I would argue that Berlin actually matters more than London or Paris, whose main draw is accessibility and historical charm. Prague is the capital of the East. I like Prague because even though I was there in 2001, and just went back last weekend, it is clearly still a capital in transition. It is gritty and raw and beautiful and inspiring at the same time. That’s the best way I can describe it.

Anyway, I arrived on Friday early afternoon. I stayed at the renaissance hotel, which is a nice place and where I stayed last time. The hotel was nice. I wanted to immediately go and see the castle, but I got a call from work and that forced me to spend a few hours in front of the machine (now that I think about this, I’m going to charge them for the internet access for Friday). But after that, I went off to see the castle and take some pictures. The problem was that I forgot that I had left my memory sticks for my camera at home, so no pictures to show.

Anyway, on Friday night I went to see Brokeback Mountain. I then went out to a few bars and I had a really nice time at the bars. There was a problem on Friday, but that will be in the friends-only area.

On Saturday I did some shopping and walking around. It was a pretty good time. You would not believe just how cheap everything is in Prague. It’s like a sale on money! Got some alcohol from the shops because it’s 40-60% less than in Stockholm. Forget for a moment that I have 75 liters of alcohol of various types — a bargain is a bargain. Met up with a really cool guy named Alec on Saturday. It was cool to hang out with him. We went to a club and I hung out for awhile until I got really drunk and left without saying goodbye. oops! (sorry Alec). But he’s really cool so we’ll keep in touch I am sure.

On Sunday, I had a nice and lazy day. No rush to go anywhere except to the airport. When you pass through customs and immigration, there’s the Czech Airlines tax-free shop. A mecca of everything a human wants that is bad for them. Eager for more bargains, I purchased more….alcohol. Including absynth. Sigh. So now I have bags and bags of stuff. ANd as usual, when I landed in Stockholm, I hold my bags of booze up in front of customer and yell “Kiss My Ass, Systembolaget.” The corresponding strip searches and urine samples are small prices to pay for those 4 seconds of glory.

So anyhoo. I have lots of good reasons to go back to Prague, including an unspent €300 SAS voucher 😉 So I will be back there in late-April, early-May