Episode 8: Over The Rainbow

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high

There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare dream

Really do come true

— E.Y. Harburg, 1939

Hey folks, Sarah was away again on business last week, and I was once again hanging solo. But this time not in Sofia or Soho. At her suggestion, I took a little 5 day trip to Prague in the Czech Republic.

I hate traveling alone, so I called up Bunks and Yo to see if they would like to come hang out in Prague with me. But either of them could make it. I even asked Sarah if she could skip her meeting and meet me there. He he. No can do. So, at this point I really wanted get out of it, so I started wining and throwing Opie Taylor like temper tantrums, making all kinds of excuses like, "I'd just get lost or kidnapped and end up at the bottom of a river dead and tied up wearing a blonde wig with my feet cut off." But she insisted I would enjoy myself and booked the flight. And once again, the woman was right.

I hate it when she's right.

I didn't end up dead at all, I actually was very much alive in Prague. I got around all by myself pretty successfully. I even think being alone in Prague made it a more of an interesting and memorable trip for me. So now I can add it to my list of solo travels. First Turkey, now the Czech Replubic. I'll say that's seasoned, right? Don't answer that!

Whatever the case, I thought Prague was one of the most beautiful cities I'd have ever seen in my whole life. I felt like I had entered the Emerald City in that movie The Wizard Of Oz, and I was like a male Dorothy Gale, with an afro, but no a Toto. I even met some good friends along the way and eventually found The Wizard.

Here's how my fairy tale went...

When I arrived in Prague, I fought with the taxi drivers outside of the airport about the shady price they were offering me to get to my hotel. You see, the day before, I'd spoken to a woman on the tele at The Little House Hotel and she told me not to pay over 500 Czech crowns for the ride from the airport. Yeah, I know, 500 sounds crazy, right? But I'll get back to that in a minute. Anyway, I finally found an honest cab driver who took me to my hotel for under 500. Sweet.

When I got to the hotel, I quickly thanked the hotel lady for that money advice and she said no problem and showed me to my room. My room was pretty sweet. Okay, okay, Sarah did do the booking for me, and thank goodness she did, because she hooked a brother up a with a nice lovers suite that had an awesome view of Prague Castle, the largest castle in the world! Had I done the booking myself, I would have ended up staying in little shack hotel somewhere outside of town. The place was really clean and had two twin beds so I could switch up each night. It even had a fridge, stove, and sink! The lady was curious if I'd be having more company, because they usually don't offer this kind of room to just one person. But it was too late for them to switch it, now. Ha! After she left the room, I did my happy dance.

In the morning, I asked the hotel lady if she could help explain those Czech crowns to me. She helped me out by doing a little math example. Basically she told me that a 100 crowns is equivalent to $5. I used this little example for the entire trip to help me figure out the cost of items and sorts. As I left the office with a big smile on my face and ready to go on my first adventures in Prague, the hotel lady looked at me awkwardly with her eyebrows raised and said, "Mr. Davis, you are welcome to take my umbrella if you like?" I looked back at her and said, "Oh, is it raining out? A little rain ain't never hurt nobody. No thank you!" As I opened the door to the hotel lobby and stepped out into the great outdoors, it felt like someone had literally taken a huge bucket of cold water and poured it down right on top of my 'fro from up above. I really don't think I'd ever seen it rain that hard before in my entire life. It was truly dreadful.

I ran back inside all wet and embarrassed and almost got down on my knees to beg her for that umbrella she had generously offered. She and her assistant just smirked at me while she replied, "No problem Mr. Davis. Enjoy Prague," in this tiny little perky voice that annoyed me more than the rain outside. I said, "enjoy Prague? Lady how am I going to enjoy Prague in this weather?" She just kept that awful smirk going and said, "This time of year is how the weather is in Prague. You might as well get used to it, Mr. Davis."

I walked out with my head hung low and went back to my hotel room to bitch at Sarah in email. Sarah replied back saying the same thing that the hotel lady said but added a hopeful line of, "Owen, opportunities like this don't happen very often in a lifetime, so you might as well live the moment to the fullest." After reading her words of wisdom, I just sucked in my chest, grabbed that umbrella and faced the music. Or in this case, the rain. As a matter of fact, Sarah's words of wisdom stuck with me throughout the entire trip. So I guess Sarah's voice of wisdom will be my first Wizard of Oz character in my little fairy tale. So let's call her my Aunt Em for this story since Aunt Em or Sarah wasn't present in The Land Of Oz, or The Land Of Prague in my case.

When I got outside, the rain and clouds seemed ever more dreadful than before. So I stepped inside a McDonald's next to my hotel. As I sat there in misery, chomping on fries, Sarah's words of wisdom became louder in my head, "Owen, opportunities like this don't happen very often in a lifetime, so you might as well live the moment to the fullest." So I jumped up and went right back out in rain. Then like that memorable scene in The Wizard Of Oz when Dorothy sings Over The Rainbow, I looked up far above Prague Castle, and there was this tiny little hole in the sky with a sunbeam burning its way through the dark gray clouds. It warmed my heart. And although I wanted to, I didn't stand there and sing "Over The Rainbow" out loud in the front of McDonald's. That would have been funny, though, but instead I just smiled because I sensed that it was a sign of good weather coming my way for the remainder of the trip.

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds are far behind me

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

A way above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me

At this point I really didn't know where to go. I was just got excited and needed to walk. Anywhere. So I just walked and walked for hours taking pictures and enjoying the magnificent views of the city. I got to Old Town Square and happened upon a Hard Rock Cafe, which I always have to stop whenever I visit a new city. That's where I met Livia. A very sweet Czech girl in her mid 20s. But for this story, I'll call her my Glinda, the Good Witch of Prague. And not because she told me to follow the Yellow Brick Road, but because I met her first and she gave me some good advice when visiting the Czech Republic, just like Glida did for Dorothy.

Besides being sweet, she was also generous. She gave me one of a 1,000 rare John Lennon Imagine bracelets donated to the Hard Rock Cafe by Yoko Ono herself. Pretty cool, right? She also must have noticed that I looked like someone who would read comic books, because she showed me where a really awesome comic book store was where I could actually read the books inside of the store and not get thrown out for doing so. Pretty sweet, right? I'll say. I spent an entire night there. Ha!

The next day I signed up for a free tour that was offered by the Little House Hotel. That's where I met Sven, the Cowardly Lion of my story, who really wasn't cowardly at all, but huge in stature. He stood a whopping 7 foot 2 inches tall! Sven was a Seattle native in his early 20s who decided to travel all of Europe alone after graduation. Like I said, no coward here. He also took notice of my celebrity status, which, by the way, was about 25% less then it is in Sophia. In Prague, instead of folks just staring or gawking at me, they just came right up to me and insisted I take a picture with them. Ha! I would always oblige, and if they were interesting or cute (clears throat) I'd ask them if I could also have a picture with them for my scrap book. My celebrity status also came in handy for using them to take pictures of me next to the Prague scenery.

Anyway, back to Sven, he was totally taken by this strange celebrity status phenomena of mine prompting our conversation about his tremendous height, and stating how it also puts him in that celebrity status bracket a bit when traveling around Europe. He even made a few jokes about how the two of us together must look like the perfect Odd Couple walking the streets of Prague. Like me, he also was a strong believer in The O. Davis Theory Of Travel. That's a theory I came up with that simply says, when entering a town that you've never visited, just ignore the map they give you and walk blindly. You're bound to fall into something fun. Trust me, it seems to always work out for me. And, apparently, for my boy Sven, too.

Like me, Sven was also enamored by what I'll call the Yellow Brick Road for my story, the picturesque Charles Bridge. Just taking daily walks across this bridge was my number one favorite thing to do in Prague. I really can't explain it, and I'm sure anyone who has been there will vouch for me, but once you're on this bridge, a magical feeling takes over you. It just warmed my heart. And fortunately, my hotel was a block away from the bridge making it easy access each day.

Anyway, after our free tour ended, Sven and I hit the town together putting The O. Davis Theory Of Travel to good use. It was also good that I met Sven, because we both confessed that we hate eating in nice restaurants alone. But together we no longer had that problem, so we hit up a couple of nice restaurants that served some delicious Czech cuisine. As dawn approached, Sven reminded me that our tour guide, Katya, invited us to a Prague bar crawl. These bar crawls are a huge hit tourist attraction. But being as I don't drink alcohol, I passed on the offer and decided to hit up more of that comic book shop instead.

The next day, Sven was hung over so he couldn't make our breakfast date leaving me solo in Prague once more. This was actually perfect though, because I needed some alone time to finish hunting for what I'll call The Wizard Of Prague of my story, The Lennon Wall. It's a huge wall of graffiti in memory and tribute to my late hero, John Lennon. Besides the fact that John Lennon was a modern day wizard of music and poetry himself, the main reason why I'm calling The Lennon Wall the Wizard Of Prague is because I'd been searching hours and hours for it. Looking high and low like Dorothy and Co. searching for The Wizard Of Oz.

And it wasn't until I met Enrico, whom I call my Tin Man for my story, who had plenty of heart and soul, that I finally got to see this wall. Enrico was an 18 year old senior from Italy. He was accompanied by his classmates. But for my story, I'll call them my Munchkins. They were on a final class trip, so it was truly an honor for them to have insisted that I hang out with them for the day. But before they bestowed this honor upon me, they felt it was their duty to help me find great the Lennon Wall. They seemed to have sensed I was a huge fan. Of course they found it with know problem. Ha! Nothing like the youth, right? When we arrived at the wall, and this brings me to another reason why I am calling The Lennon Wall my Wizard of Prague, just like at the end of the Wizard of Oz, when the Wizard was surprisingly this little old dude with no real powers, The Lennon Wall was not really all it was hyped up to be as well. We all definitely agreed that it just wasn't worth the hunt or urgent visitation when visiting Prague.

From a first glance it just appeared to be a wall with loads of bad graffiti and most of it way over done. But after learning about the whole history of why this wall came into prominence, I gave it the respect it so deserves. It is also, miraculously, listed as one the most visited tourist attractions in Prague. I guess this is another testimony of the power of a Beatle and John's great contribution to humanity and culture in general. After our little hippie moment at The Lennon Wall, I told the students that if they ever get the chance to travel the States, they should definitely stop by New York's Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park. That's when Carlotta, my favorite little Munchkin of them all, interjected loudly and rather proudly, "I've been to New York, Owen! And it was quite fantastic!" I learned that Carlotta also lived in the States for a year, so she and I chatted the most during my pleasant day trip with the students.

For dinner, they took me to a very cool Czech restaurant/bar where I was surprised to see that they were immediately served up a huge helping of beer and whiskey shots. For a second, I'd forgotten that the USA is one of the very few countries that has a legal drinking age of 21. I asked the students if this 18 year old legal drinking age is a problem in their country and I was surprised to find they all answered unanimously, "yes, a huge problem!" They cited, rather sadly, that there is a tremendously high rate of teenage alcoholics and drunk driving fatalities. Out of the group only two were non drinkers, Virginia and Agnese. So the three of us sat together, chugging down our Coca-Colas and chatting about health issues. I told them that for my European trip, I decided to become a vegetarian who eats fish and dairy products. They laughed about that but was supportive and proud of my efforts.

After overhearing me and the two girls conversation, the rest of the students were extremely intrigued prompting their curiousity of my age. So I told them if any of them could get the right answer in 3 guesses, then dinner was on me. They got excited. But none of them could guess over the 20s. Whew, that would have been expensive! Ha! After they begged and begged, I finally told them my age, and there was this long moment of silence as they all looked at me like they saw a real life vampire right before their eyes. Carlotta broke the silence by insisting that I show some proof of age. So I whipped out my passport resulting in even more silence. After this, I thought my age would change the way they treated me, but surprisingly they just went right on back treating me like I was a fellow student. So besides the lovely and magical Charles Bridge, meeting these Italian students were a number 2 highlight of my trip. At such an awfully young age, they were just so mature and interesting to hang out with. I never once felt like an old dude in their presence. Well, except for when they found that Lennon Wall so damn easily. But that just might be attributed to my cluelessness, right? Uh, don't answer that!

When we parted ways, to my surprise, not one of them asked me the infamous and annoying question that most people today tend to ask when meeting: are you on Face Book? Which truly warmed my heart. Instead, me, Carlotta and Enrico did the surprisingly extinct system of exchanging email addresses as they told me with a look of sincerity, "keep in touch! And if you are ever in Italy look us up, we'd love to show you around town." When I arrived home they had already written me, telling me how much of a pleasure it was to have me around on their last school outing. Warming my heart once again.

Okay, before I get to the final conclusion of my fairy tale--as always, please feel free to check out my awesome photos from Prague. They tell a much better story than I can. Here's a link:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?token=954093245805%3A1962443925&cm_mmc=site_email-_-new_site_share-_-core-_-View_photos_link

Okay, now to the end. On my last proper full day of the trip, I forgot to book an extra night at The Little House Hotel like Sarah advised and they recommended a sister hostel for me. That's where I met Michelle. Michelle was a a stylish Australian lady in her 50s who'd been living in Prague for 10 years. And since I had to alter my sex to be the Dorothy of my story, Michelle will just have to alter hers, too and be my Scarecrow. It actually fits her perfectly, too, because she wasn't scared or shy of anything. From the first moment I arrived, she intoduced herself to me and gave me a great big hug. Nice. She and I just chatted away whenever I came into the office to get the key for my room. We mainly chatted about politics, history and our love for traveling. But somehow, miraculously, one of our many conversations led to music. How about , my favorite subject. Ha! And that's where she pointed the way to what would be the best CD/Vinyl shop that I've ever been to in all of Europe, a store called Second Hand CD. It was also the only CD store ever, I mean ever, to carried anything by the great and criminally underrated Gilbert O'Sullivan. Wow. I was impressed.

I shopped like a starving fat man in a Super Giant! I found all kinds of cool and rare CDs, like The Three Degrees Christmas album where they remake the Wham! classic and one of my top 5 favorite holiday songs of all time, Last Christmas. I am savoring that one for this upcoming holiday season. And folks who know me well, might have witnessed that I can live in a CD store for over 24 hours straight without eating, drinking or sleeping. So the dude who worked there had to remind me several times that it was closing time. And although my story doesn't feature a Wicked Witch of the West, this dude will just have to be her! Sorry. Because when I got to the counter and he rung me up, just like that rain that felt like a huge bucket of cold water being poured being poured on my head, he said those 2 evil words that any shopper at a register when a store is closing would dread to hear, "cash only." His voice sounded like it was in slow motion as he muttered it slowly. At that moment, I felt like Florida Evans on Good Times when James died.

Damn! Damn!! Damn!!!

He must have noticed that it looked like my world had just come to an end, so he told me that the store opened at 10 am tomorrow and that he'd safely hold all my goodies for me. I told him that I had an 11:30 am flight, but that I'd try to make it. I walked back to the hotel with my head hung lower than it hung when it was raining cats and dogs on my first day. I really wanted the CDs. It would make my trip to Prague complete. At this point, I needed a plan B.

Somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly

Birds fly over the rainbow

Why then, Oh why can't I?

When I got back to the hotel, Michelle asked me what I thought of the CD store that she recommended, so I ran down my tragic story to her with the biggest pout and puppy dog eyes one could imagine. Michelle reacted like that Australian aunt I never had. She just smiled at me, squeezed my cheeks and said, "don't you worry, Owen. You'll get those CDs in the morning. I'll make sure of it." In the morning Michelle mapped out a mission for me. She pointed out the bank where I'll get the cash and the quickest route to the CD store, that was roughly about 6 New York blocks away. She even called a cab that would be ready and waiting to rush me to the airport after I got the goods.

I found that plan B.

I gave Michelle the biggest hug and kiss goodbye and was off. My Wizard Of Oz fantasy trip turned into Mission: Impossible! Michelle looked worried as she squeezed my hand and wished me luck. And luck was what I needed. I mean I'd never cut a flight this close before in all my whole life! It was a huge risk I was taking. But I had to do it. It would make my trip to Prague complete. I put my iPod on, turned the volume up on Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith for some inspiration and walked as fast as I could. I only had 10 minutes to get all of this done.

I got the money, ran to the store, got the discs and got back to the waiting cab all in just 10 minutes flat! Somehow I made it! My trip to Prague was complete. The cab driver that Michelle sent was awesome, too. He taught me a little Czech while making a record 20 minutes time to the airport! I thanked and tipped him well and ran inside to the horror of what looked like a line for free McDonald's cheeseburgers. I mean it was huge! I sucked my chest in and waited patiently. When I got to the counter the dude checked me in and noticed my late arrival. He surprisingly hooked a brother up and called a lady over to escort me to the front of the security line. This never happens to me! I mean, I wasn't even a random! Ha! I ran down the hall to terminal B6 where two lovely stewardess greeted me with a smile and said, "you made it, Mr. Davis. Enjoy your flight." I got to my window seat. Sat back and relaxed to the soundtrack of my trip, an album that I downloaded from iTunes on the first day called Heartbeat Radio by Sondre Lerche. It's a beautiful album that is surprisingly in tribute to Prefab Sprout. As I listened, I gazed out my window as the plane reached a little below cloud level. I could see Prague below me. I thought of the bridge. I thought of all the wonderful people I met and my night time walks through the city.

My heart was warm.

If Happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why can't I?

Be seeing you.

O