Helter Swelter!

 

How to Stay Cool in the Evil Prague Heat

The latest European heat wave feels like Satan farted blazing habanero sauce into our weeping eyes. They call it the European Heat Dome, and it does not feature a song contest. It's just a giant bubble of high pressure driving the temps up near 100F. Yikes. Every year it gets hotter and hotter and nobody does anything about it. So if you're suffering from a near heat stroke in Prague in June 2026, get ready for some sweet solace for your sweaty ass. It's Big Sir's list of his favorite places in Prague that actually have working air conditioning—and actually turn it on.

Don't worry, my ninjaz. If you read my old Prague Heat Beater advice, you probably noticed I suggested you run behind one of those water tanks cooling off the roads. Yes, they treat roads better than people. And I've learned not to give out such ridiculous advice. But I'm now going to share with you my go-to places for cooling off in the helter swelter.

U Sládečků

Just got back from this Czech restaurant with a modern twist: working air conditioning. They've got Pilsner Urquell from the tank. This is a massive underground tank that ensures that all beer is cold, clean, crisp, and (mostly) free of that weird metallic taste Pilsner normally has (I prefer Guinness, but I'm weird that way). They also serve all the Czech classics, including my favorite: fried cheese. But it's not the garden variety commie Czech rubber eidam cheese. It's Gouda, baby.

The main AC unit is perched over the entrance to the WC. Sit directly across from it for maximum effect. If it's full, just wait at another table for a few minutes. Any Czechs seated there will run and hide in a sunny corner. They fear air conditioning as if it were a French daguerreotype camera trying to steal their peasant souls. The superstitious fux think that cool air blowing on their skin will cause disease. More than a few of them have told me this.

So my friend and I moved to the golden table area when a Czech man ran from the terrifying scourge of modern cooling tech. And we ate of the cheese and drank of the beer. And all was well in our sweat glands.

U Tří Prasátek

Three porcine figures stand guard over the door like ragged remnants of a mighty swine army the Roman covered in oil, set fire to, and stampeded directly into the enemy lines. Stupid spaghetti eaters. All that bacon, WASTED.

The Tří Prasátek, aka Three Little Pigs, welcome you to a bacchanalian feast of epic proportions. You will pig out on the finest swine morsels in Prague. Legendary ribs, medieval pork knee, beautiful meat platters, sauces, sides, and cold beer to send the swine swimming in your gut right proper.

The AC sweet spot is against the wall to the left of the bar as you enter. The AC unit is slightly hidden behind the bar, but it blows cascades of cool over you as you combat the meat sweats brewing within. When my culinary comrade and I were there, the front door was wide open, letting in the heat and letting out the cold. It may take them a decade or more to learn how AC works. In the meantime, head for that cold corner, grab a frosty beer, and eat a metric fuckton (actual EU measurement) of pork products.

Želva Beers & Burgers

I hesitated for years to mention this amazing place in the maze of cyberspace. What if it became mobbed and the prices doubled? Or worse, I couldn't get a seat? Fortunately, you can make reservations (recommended) for this tiny burger joint slinging the best mother flipping burgers in Prague.

Swine is king in Czechia. They have perfected the art of pork and taken it to new heights. Sadly, they don't know anything about the American style of smoky, streaky, crispy bacon. But I can forgive them because ribs and pork knee. They also don't know much about making burgers. And when they do, they charge higher than US prices for one. Rat bastards.

Želva is the only place in Prague that I will eat a burger. They grind the beef daily from fresh beef. Then they slow cook thick patties so they soak up the grill smoke on the outside and stay moist in the middle. They will actually cook it medium, or medium rare if you want it. Anything above medium is rubber. That's just the way beef is, I'm afraid. Unless you're doing a smokehouse job on a brisket. But that's a different kettle of, um, cow. The prices are also reasonable.

This joint also serves nice beers from a microbrewery in some village that I don't need to research. It's good, that's enough. I love the dark beer, but they also have other shades and tints. They also sling excellent home fries with the skins on the tips. Like they actually came from actual potatoes (they do).

A few years ago, Želva committed itself to a complete renovation. The small space removed the previously scattered tall tables and replaced them with wall-to-wall booths. Then they added a wooden ceiling with two air conditioning units in them. Previously, they had a rather anemic single unit over a single table. Obviously I chose that one.

Caveat: they don't always use the AC. And I don't always stay. But I find that they generally run the AC when it exceeds 90F (30ish C) outside. Sit anywhere when the AC is on. It chills reeeeaaaaallll gooooood. Unless some Czech chump leaves the dang front door open.

Loď Pivovar. A Boatload of Beer!

There's a lot of riverside joints you can choose to spend ridiculous amounts of money for a river view and a beer. But how many of them brew the beer right on the boat? Better yet: how many of them have air conditioning? One. That would be Loď Pivovar, or BrewBoat. Located right down the road from Namesti Republiky, it's just the ticket for quenching your thirst and cooling your jets. And by jets I mean yo sweaty ass.

There are three decks on the BrewBoat: the top deck, nice for an open air, riverside drinking experience. Not so much when it's 100F/38C outside. Which is has been for the last week. Step across the boat ramp into the air conditoned paradise on the river. Depending on the time of year, you can sample up to 7 kinds of beer, all brewed right there on the boat.

They've also got grub from the galley, from fish n chips to burgers and coleslaw. The only downside is the price. I used to pay 65 CZK for a brilliant pint of porter called Monarchie. That same pint costs 95 crowns. Which is a lot for this country. But hey, you get a river view, craft beer, AND air conditioning. And they bloody well know that.

Woodoo

This pub on Bořivojova street really hits the spot. It's got cold beer, cold AC, and cool funk on the speakers. They've got Foosball tables for the chilluns to spin and run tourneys, and the clientele runs on the younger side. But they don't seem to mind an old wide body geezer like me coming in and drinking their beer. Weird masks adorn the walls in this modern twist on the old Czech beer hall.

You can grab bar bites if you want, more along the lines of chips and nuts. If you need some serious food, don't worry. Bořivojova is a prime pub street in Žižkov. Wander it and get your fill. But in the meantime, soak up that Woodoo they do and chill.

Malls

Yes, malls. These architectural monstrosities are popular, gaudy temples to consumerism for a reason. One stop shopping, food courts, and yes: air conditioning. When you can't beat the heat, give up and head to one of Prague's many malls. The double-mall complex at Narodni trida is my go-to. Each of them has a food court in the shade. And they blast the cool air like true champions.

Some malls (like Flora, Smichov, etc) have multiplex cinemas inside. So you can kill an entire day in air conditioned comfort eating, drinking, and watching flix.

Why Don't Europeans Just Put AC Everywhere?

Good question. They never needed it all these years. Even in the Mediterranean countries, temps rarely got as hot as they do nowadays. And if they did: jump in water. But Central and Western Europe never saw such heat. Especially in June. This week broke all Czech records for heat. 39C temps for days in a row. Normally, the hottest temps in Prague would reach 35-37C for a couple of weeks in July. And then it would cool off at night.

Last night I ran my portable air conditioner (dubbed My Own Personal Jesus) from 10pm to 10am. It barely lowered the temp from 39C down to 29C. Something has to give. Give us that sweet thunderstorm that normally follows a heat bubble. Give us torrential rain and winds to blow that heat right out of the valley. Because if not, Europe needs to get ready for a lot more heat-related deaths. They're happening, they're real, and they're not going away as the summers grow hotter each year.

Stay cool, my ninjas.

Prague Pizza Putsch

Long ago in the Roaring 90s in Prague I had a blogger gig for something called Pell-Mell: CyberNews for Expats. I had to churn out a whopping two (2) blog posts per week in exchange for rent. And I could choose whatever twitching topic fell out of my pivo-addled brain.

When I completely ran out of grist for the mill, I once wrote an article with the title Prague and the Great Mango Chutney Shortage. Of course there was a mango shortage; nobody here ate tropical fruit in the 90s. There were only about a half dozen Indian restaurants in Prague at the time, and only one of them offered mango chutney on the menu. And it was a Pakistani restaurant. One day they ran out of mango chutney. The shortage lasted for weeks. Imagine my expat rage.

20 years later. There is now an explosion of international dining options in Prague. Now that these ex-Commie fuxes have had 30 years to get with the program, I wonder why, in 2022, you can hardly find a pizzeria or Italian restaurant in Prague with garlic on the menu. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Italian food without garlic is like a day without sunshine.

Pizza Everywhere

As Capitalism slowly oozes over the former commie soil and replaces everything with rampant consumerism, pizza restaurants popped up everywhere in Prague. In fact, I believe that there are nearly as many pizza restaurants in Prague as pubs—and that's saying a lot in the beer drinking capital of the world.

At first the Chinese restaurants starting taking over the failing Czech pubs that only offered warm, flat beer and tepid food with botulism sauce, served by a drunk with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. No wonder the Asians took over. At one point I remember seeing my old street in Prague with up to 15 Chinese restaurants on one street, sometimes two of them were right next to each other. They all had the same photo menus in the window, dishes M1 through M19, all exactly the same chow at the same prices.

Clearly this was an immigration scam. Nobody wants Chinese food in Prague THAT badly. But one thing about the swill: it rarely gave you food poisoning and the staff were always Asian. And courteous.

The Prague 'pizzeria' of today is filled to the rafters with Czechs, and they bring all of their hideous, flavorless, peasant food habits to the table. Sadly, this includes pizza with saltine cracker crust, ketchup for sauce, lumpy Czech cheese in thin, see-through strands, and almost no flavor whatsoever.

You would think that with thousands of pizza joints in Prague, some of them could carry garlic, right? They've got garlic in Czech restaurants; it ain't a stranger.

Czech Food: Bring a Guide Dog for the Bland

I remember a Frenchman on a Prague expats forum wrote “When searching for Czech food, bring a guide dog for the bland.” It was his forum signature and it appeared on every post. Maybe he was trying to tell us something. Every time he posted. Fair enough; the French found a way to make snails edible.

But Frawnchy wasn't far from the truth. Czechs have very bland taste, and rarely use any form of spices or herbs stronger than oregano. Ketchup is too spicy for them, as the markets offer 'mild ketchup' for those who cry like babies at the thought of normal ketchup. So it is quite normal for the Czech interpretation of pizza to include sauce without any herbs, and pizza without garlic. Without oregano, basil, and garlic (and any decent amount of cheese), you might as well take that Czech pizza and throw it like a Frisbee. If only because it tastes like one.

Paltry Prague Pizza

I've given up on finding 'American style' pizza in Prague (No. American pizza is not just thicker crust. It's thicker cheese, thicker toppings, and thicker flavor). Now I search for the hole-in-the-wall joint where some pizza chef spent time not only in Naples but also in New York or any other American city. Sure, Naples may have invented pizza, but it was definitely not perfected there. Its thin, burnt cracker crust, paltry toppings, and weird greens on top ain't cutting it in my Wide World, friends.

But one thing Italy has in buckets: garlic. You can smell the pungent smell of garlic wafting out of the window of every single restaurant in any Italian city you visit. So why, for the love of all creatures great and small, do the Czechs forget to offer garlic on their pizza?

Some Prague pizzerias offer one pizza with garlic on it. And there ain't much more on there. Or worse, the damn thing has eggs on it. Or corn. MUH?!?

Garlic isn't for everyone, granted. But it should be offered as an added topping, like the dreaded anchovies in American pizzerias (Which baffles me. Nobody eats anchovies). Just in case some weirdo wants pizza with flavor. Garlic costs nothing and keeps well. Just sayin', Czechies. Lose the corn, the tuna, and the eggs. That shit don't belong anywhere NEAR a pizza. Get garlic, bitches.

Ironically, Czechs Eat Garlic

What makes the Great Garlic Gastronomy Conundrum even worse is that Czechs are no strangers to garlic. In fact, two of their most famous dishes have enough garlic in them to vaporize a village of vampires.

Topinky: fried slices of bread with 3 or 4 RAW garlic cloves on the side. You take the raw garlic and scrape it across the surface of the fried bread until it becomes a smooth paste. Then you eat that stuff, shake your head, and yell YOWZA!

Bramboráčky: (potato pancakes): grated potatoes with garlic, green herbs, flour, and eggs, fried in a shallow pan. These Czech staples often come so loaded with garlic that you reek of it for days. Delicious!

Too Complicated for Czech Palates

Czech food is simple food, handed down for generations. It's hearty, heavy, and hefty enough to fill your belly on a cold winter day. Maybe the flavor fell out of the food during communism, when gray banality ruled the day, and thin gruel was paradise to the poor bastards. I dunno, I wasn't there.

Perhaps having a combination of pizza crust, rich, flavorful sauce, gooey mozzarella cheese, and a fistful of fancy toppings is a bridge to far in Prague. It's quite rare to find a Czech pizza with more than 2 toppings on it. A typical pizza will have mushrooms and ham, or ham and olives, or ham, ham, and ham (they dig on swine). Perhaps adding such tongue teasers as garlic and oregano to their pizzas would cause their dumpling-shaped heads to explode.

Big Sir's Favorite Prague Pizzas

Johnny's Pizza: Boo-Yow!

If I could combine the fantastic crust of 360Pizza with the brilliant pies of Johnny Pizza Bar, I would be in heaven. Johnny offers garlic on several of their pizzas and you can always add garlic to any pizza. Sadly, 360Pizza offers no garlic on the menu. Which is a shame, because that pizza dough is the closest thing to American style pizza dough in Prague: crispy on the outside, soft, fluffy, and chewy on the inside. It's the only pizza crust I actually eat all the way to the edges. I usually throw the Czech dried-out-cracker pizza crust to the damn pigeons.

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If you have any Prague pizza perfection to share with me, let me know. Even if garlic ain't your thang, let me know about the place, the pie, the toppings, and the dough ray me, muchachos. Don't worry if the place has no garlic on the menu. I will soon start wearing garlic garlands around my neck like jewelry just in case I need to break off a clove or two and flavor the shizzle out of my next pizza.

I will scrape that raw garlic right then and there on the thin, crispy crust. Don't make me. I'll do it.

They Smited Me With Science!

Spinning the Wheel of Vaccine Side Effects

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There I was, safe in the assumption that science has got my back. When my number was called (age group), I marched to the vaccination site in a parking lot next to a cemetery in Prague. I should have known that this was a sign. I should have known that even though I had chosen the LEAST likely brand of vaccine to cause nasty side effects (Pfizer), that things could always go tits up.

Maybe I shouldn't have made the remark about hideous side effects like infected bumps in the junkal region. Am I CRAZY? Am I a PROPHET? Am I just tempting fate?

Oh, yeah. Side effects followed. Like hell raining from above instead of below, I got smitten in the biblical sense of the word. The fifth seal of the viral apocalypse was opened, and infectious bumps rained down upon me, dangerously close to my junkal region.

Science decided to smite me. Or maybe it was the god of the rednecks, smiting me for being an unapologetic atheist. What a god! If the fecker exists, why would anyone follow a monster like that?

Angry Boils

Have you seen the classic cult movie How to Get Ahead in Advertising? Oh, it's a doozy. It's a classic formula flick: Man gets boil on neck, man screams at boil as it grows in size and anger, boil literally comes to a head, and replaces the man's head and takes over everything.

A few days after my intramuscular injection of untested hard drugs (aka corona vaccine), I started getting weird pimples in weird places. Left buttock, right buttock, chest, left thigh. One after the other, they appeared, angry enough to cause me to pop them rather than give them a second thought.

I've had plenty of experience dealing with pimples as an adolescent, and now that I'm in my second adolescence (middle age), I know EXACTLY how to deal with the feckers. At first I attributed the sudden appearance of these nostalgic reminders of pubescence as a side effect of working at home and ordering KFC bucket deliveries.

But then something strange happened: the angry boil on top of my left thigh grew in prominence. Pissed off that I would try to squeeze the life out of the fecker, the oozing chancre decided to try to take over my life. And for the last 5 days, it did.

Nemocnice Bulovka

Every city has a medical institution that is so subpar that it gets a bad reputation. And nicknames follow. Way back when I was a feckless yoot with a low-paying post-high-school job, I drove Ford Escorts carrying packages of nuclear medicine to hospitals up and down the California valley. I loved the rock music blaring on the speakers, windows down, wind in my hair, 70 mph on CA highways, carrying unknown isotopes in needles waiting to be injected into unknown people.

One of the hospitals on my route was the UCD Med Center, a teaching branch of the University of California, Davis Medical degree program. Part of the program was an outreach for indigent locals, meaning, poor people without insurance.

The waiting rooms were full of them as I rushed past with my radioactive payload waiting to be delivered. They coughed, sweated, stank, and pissed themselves as an introduction. We soon began calling the place the UCD Wretch Center. The name stuck. Oh, the humanity.

Cut to: Act 2 in Big Sir's life, middle age, living in Prague. After a week of cursing my growing carbuncle, it got REALLY painful. Like making-me-limp-all-day painful. It grew to the size of a golf ball, so I went to the nearest emergency room.

Sadly, when you are Libeň La Vida Loca in an industrial Prague suburb, that emergency room is at the infamous Nemocnice Bulovka. Bulovka Hospital is not just a dilapidated, confusing sprawl of crumbling buildings with the accessibility of a hostile foreign country, they built the fucker on several hills. Because they wanted the shuffling, moaning, staggering, limping fucks to WORK for their treatment.

Cabs can't park inside, buses don't take you anywhere near the building you need to go. And you need to go to several. Just for one problem. But on a Friday night, it's the only place you can go if you fear that the oozing, infected, black-and-crimson-red, golf-ball-sized blight on your thigh just might possibly be slowly killing you.

The Evil Eye

I waited outside the night emergency room entrance at Nemocnice Bulovka. It seemed like the back entrance to a library rather than a building of medical treatment. I asked a young couple in front of me just in case. “Yeah, this is the emergency room entrance,” they said.

“Are you in the line?” I asked. They answered 'yes' and I joined them, standing. No seats for the wicked.

Soon they went inside and I was next at the outside entrance. Then a carload of loud yoots listening to mindless disco music pulled up and dumped its payload of babyshit onto the sidewalk. I call them babyshit because they were so green that they had no idea of the rules of ordinary, well-formed, solid shirtbird adults like me.

So they cut in front of me, barged through the door, and took their place right behind the kindly couple who had previously advised me. Then I heard them laughing and speaking Russian. Da. Da-hahaha.

So I looked through the window and gave them the Evil Eye. The same type of Evil Eye that was burning inside the angry boil dangerously close to my junkal region. It was an eye raised during the Cold War, watching the Russians and Americans scoff, threaten, cajole, and abuse each other nonstop. Fortunately for mankind, the Russians ran out of credit first. End of Cold War.

But Fuck the Russians anyway. They STILL wanna take over the world. That's how I was raised, and these sons-of-Stalin whores just Pushkined past me like a piece of American trailer trash (how did they know?).

I began the hairy eyeball routine with the weakest of the group. As they tittered and whispered, an older one would look out the window at me to check the threat. They found the burning Evil Eye watching them. Yes, I am old, fat, and hobbled from a leg infection that burns like a white hot knife wound. But I am ANGRIER than my boil. And in the immortal words of Ivan Drago: I must BREAK you.

They must have seen me channeling Dolph Lundgren, because the oldest one soon came out with younguns in tow, and said 'we go after you.' Or maybe they saw my tiny role as a Russian General in the casino commercial. Mad respect. You don't fuck with that dude.

That's right, bitches. Age and treachery before youth and ambition.

Another Ring of Hell

After my referral from the emergency room physician, I hobbled uphill to the next ring of hell. It was the surgery center, and I was in for a fine Friday night indeed. At first I was pleasantly surprised. The long, dimly-lit hallway only held a half dozen people waiting for treatment. So I checked in with the medical receptionist, who told me to take a seat at the end of the hall.

I plunked down on one of the rows of cold steel chairs lining the hall of the basement in the Bulovka surgery center. It was exactly like sitting at a bus stop in a ghetto. Why did they make the seats out of steel? Easier to clean? Durable? Or just another ring of hell the poor wretches must work through to receive their treatment.

After three hours I wondered why I had not brought a book. My phone battery had died, there was no reception in the basement anyway, and I had been to CZ hospitals several times before. You always wait at least 2 hours, even when you have an appointment for a specific time. It's the commie way. You must wait long enough to earn the right to be called a patient.

Finally, the door swung open and they called my name. I limped in, and they told me to take off my pants. They must have read my file from the previous doctor. Rarely do I have that effect on people otherwise.

On a side note, I remember reading a sales pitch for a private medical clinic disparaging ordinary public Czech health insurance. “They are cold, impersonal, and will command you to unceremoniously undress in front of a room full of people.” Hmm. Maybe the expats expect them to play Pomp and Circumstance first? I'm sure the finer halls of medicine have disco music and stripper poles for the money-grubbing whores. #dieyuppiescum!

Those of us who live in the real world (aka American refugees, non-yuppie-scum, etc) take the public health insurance offered by the employer. So far, it has probably saved my life a few times. So when I bitch and moan about Czech medicine, it's only the natural reaction of a sick person with a finger suddenly thrust up the buttockal region. Yes, it is abrupt, invasive, sudden, and stern. But it is fair.

Nonspecific Abscess

After my unceremonious disrobing without music, I proceeded to receive the diagnosis: nonspecific abscess. After some brief interrogation (are you gonna kill me cuz I'm American?), the doctor told me that I had a nonspecific abscess possibly due to my COVID vaccination. What? B-B-but. I got the PFIZER. Ain't that the good jab?

She smiled the knowing smile of someone in the medical profession who pretends to know everything. But just practicing.

So she wielded the metal tools of her trade dangerously close to my junkal region, looked down her nose at me and said nothing. She didn't speak English. And my Czech is bad on a good day, when there's no evil boil burning on me like hellfire.

First came a small sting. She then said 'lokal.' I got it. Local anesthetic. Cool. Pop away, doc. Then came a scalpel. Ooh. This is getting good. I expect a right proper gorefest to follow. My hand slowly covered my junkal region, just in case. I never know if the night doctors have exceeded their 5 cocktail maximum.

I kept looking over my belly at the progress of the wide-awake mini surgery. There was blood. There was pus. There were weird colors of both. Suddenly, the attending nurse pointed to the doctor's name tag. She stopped cutting and swabbing blood and pus to look.

Aw Jeez. Did I spurt some on ya, doc? My bad. I'm embarrassed. It was an awfully angry boil on an awfully angry dude. So sorry.

But then she laughed, and the nurse tittered. They pointed to each other's name tags and compared them. I understood from bits and chunks of Czech convo that the doctor's name tag photo was new, and that the nurse was jealous. Hers was old and outdated, just like her and the hospital. This exchange went on for a minute.

In case you may be questioning the nastiness of my particular ailment, right when the two ladies were comparing badge photos, an elder nurse walked by and glanced at my open wound. The grimace on her face said everything. In her 60 years of service, there was still something that could twist her face like a pretzel. Not a comforting thing when you are on the surgical table.

Um, hey? Sucking leg wound down here? Ladies, will you please mop up the gore, give me some pain meds, and shove my ass out the outpatient door? Compare badge photos later, if you please.

The Aftermath

I finally got home after midnight. I slammed down some wine and antibiotics, limped to bed, and got up the next day to repeat the process. I had to go back to the Bulovka Hellspital. Four days in a row. Each time a 3-4 hour wait followed.

But I remembered to bring a book. And water. And a snack just in case. I was always told to sit at the far end of the hall at the third door. It's what they call triage. The most serious cases go first. And as angry as my boil and I may be, others have it worse. But everyone in the hallway in Bulovka looks like they're in the same degree of suffering. But I had to wait 6 hours on Friday night, 4 hours on Saturday, and only 2 hours each visit on Sunday and Monday.

It wasn't about the time of day I arrived, it was about the random spinning wheel of fate. It's a bit more obvious in the U.S. Gunshot and stab wounds go first, followed by heart attacks, overdoses, and trouble breathing. But in CZ, you can't tell. A surprising lack of violence here. And zero crack or meth. Just a bunch of people suffering in silence together in a dimly-lit basement hallway of a decrepit old hospital on the side of a suburban Prague hill.

But sometimes a gurney full of fresh pain would come rolling in with ambulance personnel pushing. And I would get pushed to the back of the pain bus again. Such is the nature of probability. Open book, shift buttocks on steel seat, soldier on. Be patient, my patient.

On Monday I got the good news: my wound was healing (they had slashed, sliced, drained, and re-bandaged it 4 times by then). Better yet, this doctor spoke English. He said that I didn't have to keep coming back to Bulovka after this. I could choose the closest clinic to my address.

Now I have a day off from the hospital for the first time in 4 days. I had previously taken Friday and Monday off from work just to relax, pre-boil. But like the man said, man makes plans, God laughs. Fecker.

The last doctor I visited at Bulovka was so friendly that I almost expected him to ask 'Can I do anything else for you?'

I should have replied: Yeah. After 14 hours of sitting on your hospital's cold steel benches, I have a new side effect. Can you kindly treat the angry 'roids which are now festering and burgeoning and brimming with anger inside my angry ass?

Yes, gentle readers. I went into the Bulovka hospital for a four-day treatment of an angry boil and left with a burning ring of fire.

The Takeaway

I don't want this to discourage anyone from getting the vaccine. It's how we beat this thing. But if somehow, somewhere, somebody crawls out of the primordial ooze (alt-right fux) and says: See! Vaccines don't work! They give you the same angry boils I got when I went to that Tijuana Donkey Show!

I can't tell those type of people anything. It's like talking to a wall, a rock, or a religious person. Same stony stare. They might believe that Bill Gates is inserting microbots into the vaccine to take over their minds. And that aliens took their cows and themselves up for a brief whirl around the planet with a side excursion of bonus anal probe.

Weird how rednecks don't believe in science, but they do seem to believe in science fiction.

I'm vexed my damn self. I'll still continue to believe in science, even though the pharmacy business has so tainted the process that profits supersede results.

In the meantime, take some time to read up on the various flavors of vaccines out there, including the long list of side effects. Keep in mind that the side effects are usually much milder than the short and long term effects of the actual coronavirus. That shit could kill you, regardless of age.

Me, I've just got angry boils and a case of the old bum grapes. Like Gloria Gaynor and my Sactown homeboys Cake said, I Will Survive.

Getting My Jab

Spinning the Wheel of Vaccines in Prague

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Sorry I haven't written sooner. COVID didn't kill me, but all the lockdown restrictions surely beat the hell out of my joie de vivre. I've had a full-time writing gig for the past 2.5 years, so my blog posts have been few and far between.

It's like when I was a photographer and I never had time to take 'fun' photos in my spare time. Or no creativity left. It's like that with writing, too. Recently I've been moved to a new project at work which is much less writing and much more image-oriented work.

For the past year and a half, I've lived under the shadow of a pandemic reportedly so serious that Czechia was rated as a 'red state' in terms of emergency status. Not commie red or redneck red, nothing so sinister, mind you. But I couldn't travel. And for a Wide Body Jetsetter, that's almost as bad as taking away my beloved fried cheese.

The Wheel of Vaccines

There has been a shortage of vaccines in the Czech Republic as well. While the government 'leaders' (I use this term loosely; more like a gang of former commies caught with their hands in the cash register of Capitalism) hemmed and hawed about 'what to do' every other week, the rest of the world began inoculating their peeps.

But in a country with an unapologetic drunk for a president and a parliament full of smarmy used car salesmen for politicians, it's a wonder we got a vaccine in Czechia at all. But we finally did.

And then the vaccine ran out. So they had to order more from other countries. And in came the flood of unknown, never-before-heard-of vaccines that would put a Prague knockoff shoe salesmen to shame.

There was no Pfizer, so they had something called Moderna. Followed by Johnson & Johnson. Then Nano-Bio-Something. Then AstraZeneca. Then the Russians had to ooze out from beneath their radioactive tombs and dump something called Sputnik on us. Nyet, privyet.

The difference between the vaccines is probably like Coke & Pepsi. They each do the same thing: quench your thirst, rot your teeth, and make you morbidly obese after 40 years of drinking the stuff. Mind you, I am not morbidly obese due to Coke or Pepsi. Smažený sýr and pivo are solely responsible for my morbid obesity.

Each vaccine ostensibly protects you against COVID, but each one has its own unique side effects. How much of this is based on actual research and Facebook memes is uncertain. But you get the idea.

I've heard that Moderna might kill a small number of people. Or wait, was that BioNTech? I do have it on good authority that a woman who works with my wife heard about some women from another neighborhood who got red bumps all over their junkal regions after receiving the AstraZeneca jab.

Gimme the Pfizer

I did the usual amount of reading up on vaccines till my eyes glazed over and I needed a drink. Then I started listening to all the recommendations proffered by the hearsay of third-party old wives tales.

The Czech government said we don't get to choose our vaccine flavor, but I got the inside scoop on where they were serving up the cool vials full of Pfizer. And THAT was the place I registered.

As it happens, the Vinohrady hospital set up a special vaccination site not far from their main block of clinics, conveniently located near a massive cemetery. Nothing like walking a kilometer past a sprawling cemetery to get in the mood for your jabs. And if an American has a bad reaction from the jab, they can just chuck 'em over the cemetary fence for the krematorium proletariat to clean up.

I don't know why I favored the Pfizer. I just hadn't heard any stories of crotch rot or infections of the junkal regions associated with it.

Sputnik? Are the Russians serious with this thing or what? Sorry, I'm not injecting something called Sputnik into my bloodstream. Even if it's 50% vodka and gives out a killer buzz.

The last time I heard of Russian needles, millions of poor malchiks were slamming something called krokodil into their veins. It got them high, twitchy, nervous, and crazy, just like any other street drug. Except that this shit turns the victim's skin into something resembling crocodile skin. Hence the name of the drug.

Somewhere between the Soviet Sputnik spacecraft in the 60s, growing up in the Cold War 80s, to the Crocodile junkies littering the streets of Mother Russia, I lost the narrative.

First Jab

The vaccine is administered in two jabs one month apart. I'm not sure if this is due to lack of supply, safety, or what. So I got my confirmation, went to the site (they didn't even give me a street address. I had to Google that shit), and sat down waiting for my needle.

I finally did my registration, shuffled the medical info, and was sent to an vaccination box. The whole parking lot was filled with what looked like a dozen shipping containers retrofitted for medicinal purposes. It looked like the first scene of your basic zombie apocalypse movie right before the infected monkeys escape from their cages.

The staff members were nice, but one of the questions struck me as odd.

“What country are you from?” asked the nurse with the computer.

“America?” I replied. Suddenly I sounded like a fucking Millennial. You know, how every sentence ends with an uncertainty. 'Um, like, I'm in a hurry? Cuz I'm like, going to work now?'

Upon hearing me say 'America,' the needle nurse perked up and presented the needle. I rolled up my sleeve and she plunged the needle into my left upper arm. Then she cackled Death to Americans! and began stabbing me with the needle over and over and over and...

Sorry. I've been cooped up too long. And I was sitting in a parking lot full of shipping containers located near a cemetery for fuck's sake. That will get the old imagination churning.

After my injection, I sat with a few dozen others in a special waiting area. If you didn't keel over 15 minutes after your jab, you're good to go. Anyway, no serious side effects so far. The old sore arm routine, not much else. The crumpled sign on the injection box I entered said 'Pfizer' on it. Did that mean that we were getting the Pfizer vaccine, or that the parking lot was sponsored by the Pfizer company?

Well, I'll let you know if I develop any clusters of boils on my junkal region or if I suddenly sprout crocodile skin.

Notes From the Lockdown Part 3:

The Shitty Sequel

I don't know about you people, but I've had just about enough of this fucking coronavirus. Just when we thought we were out of the woods, the crazed corona creature reared its ugly head again. We did the lockdown. Twice. Each time we were released into the wild again, gulping fresh air like a whale who's been underwater too long (Ok. I'm the whale in this analogy), then forced to submerge again.

There was absolutely no problem working at home due to being a writer. Hell, I hate commuting in tin cans full of dismal people going to dismal jobs they hate – only because it adds hours to my work day. Working at home means I get to wake up whenever and take breaks whenever. But there is a downside to working at home.

Apparently, there's a slow process of devolution and entropy inherent in the process. According to the philosophers at The Oatmeal, it's only a matter of time between leaving the office water cooler conversations behind and total loss of personal hygiene and bladder control. Apparently, we need offices to keep us civilized.

For me, I just missed the damn pub and my beer and fried cheese.

Third Time's A Charm

We all know the drill: the first movie is charming, refreshing, and even sometimes, a rollicking tour de force. The first time the virus closed CZ tighter than a frog's asshole (and that shit's watertight. Word.), it was a novelty. Stay home and work? Hells yeah, baby! Wear a mask? Mkay, I can do that.

But in the pandemic sequel, they locked our asses down again for the second time. I started missing the Czech pub. I can't begin to describe the Czech pub experience, but it has to be the single most gratifying pub experience in the world after the Irish pub. Czech pubs possess a certain spirit (hundreds actually), a casual style of dining (greasy yummy gimmeh!), and a calm that borders on the mystical.

Just when we thought it was safe to go back into the water: lockdown part 3. The thing I don't get about this is the fact that during the 1^st two lockdowns, Czechia was the safest country in Europe. While the virus was cutting a deadly swath through Italy, Spain, and France, CZ locked its borders and stopped the flow of incoming people so fast it would put Trump's border wall to shame.

But then they released the lockdown, and we went back to work, shopping, eating/drinking (pubs!), and the rest. And just like in the time of the Spanish Flu in America after WWI, people quarantined, were released, and partied like it was 1919. Then el bastardo Spanish Flu virus returned with a vengeance for the sequel (This time, it's personal) and killed 50 million people globally. All those poor fux wanted to do after forced quarantine was to go out in public, get liquored up, and French kiss random strangers. As one does.

Essential Business

One of the most hotly contested aspects of the coronavirus lockdown in the Czech Republic is the closure of everything except what the government deems 'essential business.' Sure, pubs are considered essential to every Czech who contributes to the global title of Highest Beer Consumers in the World. But not to the government. There was apparently too much laughing and drinking and hugging and spitting in each others faces, even though it is rarely in anger.

So the gubmint decided to close all pubs and restaurants, allowing for food pickup windows and food delivery. But this time, they did not allow people to stand outside the beer window and drink. This time, in their infinite wisdom, They decided to make public drinking illegal. This time, it was fucking personal. One of the greatest charms of Czechia (and Europe in general) is that some random douchebag cop won't walk up to you while you're having a beer on a park bench and tell you to pour it out (as in Mair-Kuh, where I'm from). Oh yeah, Mr. Redneck Cop, yessuh! Then I poured the beer down my throat while he yelled at me to stop. I told him that pouring beer on the ground was alcohol abuse. And to go fuck himself (maybe). I digress.

So by telling the Czech public that they weren't ready to leave their hovels and eat, drink, and be merry, they announced a list of restrictions. Among them, a list of exceptions to the lockdown, which they called 'essential businesses.'

Restaurants and pubs weren't apparently essential businesses. But flower shops were. Mysteriously, flower shops all over Czechia kept supplying lovers and mourners with flowers nonstop. Which is weird. There's still love in the time of coronavirus, but funerals were halted. Nobody could go to funerals. I guess they piled up the bodies in freezers for months (or cremated them), because I didn't see any floating down the river.

The wife told me the flower shops stayed open because the fearless leader of CZ is an oligarch who prospered in agriculture, including flowers and such. Go figure. Corruption in the Czech Republic? Say it isn't so!

Flea markets were apparently considered essential business. Lucky for me, because one of my favorite weekend pastimes is to go walking around vast areas of concrete landscapes in search of wacky items to add to my growing list of projects which I'll never finish. But it keeps the body and soul moving, as it were. Currently I'm working on a home tiki bar and DIY retro/steampunk lamps built from scrap.

The biggest flea market in Prague is the one near u Elektry tram stop in Vysočany. That place is YUGE. It's about 2km long and a half km wide. I like to go there for the necessary walking to stave off atrophy, pursue my hobby as a budding hoarder, and get to the far end of the flea for some fine draft beer.

I don't know why random trash and treasures are considered essential business, but you can be sure there was some serious bribery behind it. While nobody needs to be sitting in a tiny sauna breathing sweat and viruses from strangers, certainly nobody needs to buy second-hand lamps from random Slobs from Slobovia.

And just when I popped my head out for a flea market stroll after the second lockdown, I was caught on camera in the Czech media, which said something like 'shame on these bastards for going to flea markets in a pandemic.' The news rag went on to say how people weren't respecting safe distances, blah, blah, blah.

While I was at the flea, I remember thinking something like 'WTF are all those people doing over there at that table?' Naturally, I wandered over. It was a table full of second-hand electronics you could find in a garbage can: old chargers, plugs, cables, adapters, and various items only a person living in a cave without electricity would find appealing.

Once I got to the table, I knew it was a setup. Seriously? Who would buy this shit? Then my wife sent me the news: my Wide Ass (Inc) was captured by the Czech media at the flea market (must have been a wide angle lens). I'm easy to spot, even though it's from behind. I'm the largest human in the photo.

Darkest Before Dawn

There's supposed to be a vaccine on the horizon. While I just came up for air on Thursday to have fried cheese and beer at the pub, the good news is on the way. We can now go back to all the drinking and cheesing and gallivanting we normally do. But we still wear masks. And we squirt the anti-viral hand gel on our hands when we enter the shrines of CZ consumerism.

Last night I had my first fried cheese and beer in a pub in more than a month. And this is the single most religious experience an atheist can possibly have in pandemic times. Just in time for Xmas.

--

I wish you all my sincere best wishes during these troubling times; and happy holidays!

- Ho ho ho, Big Sir

We Don't Need No Stinking Bridges!

Cruising On 7 Prague Ferry Boats on the Vltava River

A thousand bursts of sunlight reflect off the Vltava's waves like paparazzi flashes amid the smooth gliding of swan starlets. I'm on the river with a beer in my hand and I'm reminded of my river hometown. There, millionaire douchebags sail up to the overpriced river bars. Here in Prague, a solitary ferry boat chugs up to the landing and I climb aboard.

There are 17 bridges spanning the Vltava River in Prague, but other than Chuck (Charles Bridge to the tourists), bridges are like. So boring. Fortunately, Prague also runs ferry boats across the river all throughout the city for those who don't feel like braving the tourist hordes on the Charles Bridge or risking their lives on the many decrepit and crumbling bridges in Prague.

I've lived in Prague off and on for more than 10 years and I'd never even heard of the river ferries. They don't seem to be mentioned in any guidebooks I've ever read, nor do they strive to be noticed in any way at all. Since I spend too much time on my pc and rarely get out like I used to, I decided to ride all 7 ferries in Prague over the last month. Because that's how I roll. Um, float.

So don your most ridiculous sailing attire, get your map app humming, and look for the word přívoz. Don't worry, there's also a nice blue square icon with a white slash through it. This is apparently the symbol for ferry.

P7: Pražská tržnice - Rohanský ostrov: Maiden Voyage

Prague river ferries are part of the Prague Integrated Transport (PIT). The acronym is much better in Czech. The same 32 CZK tram/metro/bus ticket you normally use works on the ferries. If you have a month ticket or daily pass, you can also use the ferries for free. If you don't, just buy a normal ticket on the boat. On certain ferries, the ride is free. You can also take your bike, your kids, your dog and your baggage. But don't do that shit, you selfish fuck. Choose only one of those things. My wide body needs to sit somewhere.

While waiting for the ferry to arrive at the dock, I wondered how a Prague ferryman would behave. Prague transport operators run the gamut from screaming mulletheads (buses) to homicidal maniacs (trams). I was half expecting either a morose Stygian ferryman or a pleasantly-soused rummy. I was surprised to find a jovial man with a blue-and-white striped shirt, 80s shades and beard stubble. He pointed to the rear of the small boat to a white, fake leather couch seat. He threw the stick forward and my wide ass plunked down on the seat. Zappa and Clapton songs cranked out of a solitary speaker as the cool breeze whipped off of the water. I almost expected to be offered a Mojito.

The P7 ferry crosses over to Karlín, with a third mystery stop at Štvanice Island. I have no idea how to get there. That's ok. There's not much there. Instead, disembark and carry out your orders on Rohanský Ostrov. Walk up the steps and veer to the right. Walk a few minutes until you arrive at a bunch of concrete slabs crafted into benches. Sidle up to the bar shack and order a craft beer. Another shack serves burgers and fries. Swing your head from left to right. If the coast is clear of hipsters, sip your beer and munch your burger in peace and relax. There are also plenty of places for the chilluns to run and swing around the place.

P1: Sedlec - Zámky and P2: Podhoří - V Podbabě

The farthest ferry boat trip from Central Prague is also the most fun: P1 from Sedlec to Zámky. The fastest way to Sedlec is an hourly train running from Nádraží Libeň to Sedlec. The trip only takes 10-15 minutes to cross the entire city. Screw trams and the Metro. That shit takes 40 minutes. Hop on the Sedlec train at Nádraží Holešovice as well, or start at Nádraží Libeň if you happen to be Libeň la vida loca like me. The best part is that both the train and ferry are included in your PIT ticket.

A brief walk from the Sedlec station down to the ferry landing affords an idyllic view of country life just outside of the city. While you wait for the ferry, you can already see people on the opposite shore biking, rollerblading, and sitting drinking beer in a little beer garden. You may begin salivating while dreaming of the tasty beer awaiting your river crossing.

Once on the opposite shore (Zámky), you are immediately greeted by a beer shack serving the Golden Stuff of Life in a nice garden setting. You can also grab a snack there or visit a nearby dog shelter. Or you can just take my advice and walk down the bike/blade/foot path along the river back in the direction of Prague. It's only a couple of km's back to another ferry port, with 3 or 4 nice little shacky-wackies along the way for you to stop in and slake your thirst and fill your belly with junk food, all with a nice river view. And if you thought I was just in this for the short boat ride and the walk, you're on the wrong page, Bubba.

Stop at U Sluníčka to cop a squat on a nice terrace with a radio playing Czech country music. The friendly old timer serves two kinds of beer: country AND western. A short walk past U Sluníčka is a smaller shack named Modrá Kotva, which sells ice cream and beer. There is also a little kiddie playground. Now that your beer tank is filled, you're ready for the longer part of the walk. Keep on dodging those cyclists and bladers until you round the bend in the river to the last two stops on the tour. Hit up Stánek u Vody for a great variety of beer, homemade sodas and grilled snacks. They've got a barrel grill with a smokestack on it, yo. And on the hot days of summer, a cool mist from an elevated water hose helps you chill. You can also bounce yer chilluns on a trampoline to keep them away from your beer. Kids have a collective genetic memory stored from medieval times when the water was so bad that they gave beer to chilluns to keep them from dying of thirst. That's why they keep trying to steal your beer to this day. You're welcome.

If you still need to stop for a beer again before you leave (and I would be personally disappointed if you didn't), yet another beer garden awaits a few steps down the path. Kolonial serves the popular Únětické pivo in several varieties, along with food, like my personal favorite gut buster: Smažený fucking sýr. Oh yeah. After your beer and sýr, board the P2 at the Podhoří ferry landing nearby and take it back across the river to V Podbabě. A short bus ride later and you're at Podbaba, where you can take a train or a tram home.

P5: Císařská louka - Výtoň - Náplavka Smíchov

This ferry line gives you more bang for the buck. Three different ferry landings deliver a longer ride than most of the other ferries. Start from Výtoň tram stop, walk down Náplavka toward the rail bridge crossing the river. Right below the bridge is the ferry landing. Depending on which ferry you catch, you'll either be ferried to the opposite side of the river (Náplavka Smíchov) or Císařská louka, a long island with an amazing view of Vyšehrad Castle on its rocky perch. There's also a shack renting boats and selling beer.

The ferry to Náplavka Smíchov is best for taking in the dual farmer's markets operating on opposite sides of the Vltava on Saturdays. It's 90% overpriced hipster bollox and vegan bait, but the beer is tasty. Also, the P5 is one of the only free ferries on the river. Which means it delivers more bang for no buck.

P3: Lihovar - Veslařský ostrov

Another ferry ride with a decent duration is the P3. Most of the ferries plow the river in a beeline for the opposite shore, but this one navigates a diagonal course between Lihovar and Veslařský ostrov, which lets you enjoy the cool river breeze and the hypnotic hum of the motor even longer. It's not the most popular ferry route, so you might even get to ride alone and pretend you are some kind of low rent gangsta with his own boat and captain. Hey, my delusions have no grandeur. Once you reach the island, there's really not much to do there but walk across a bridge to the shore and board a botel moored on the Vltava. That way you can still get your beer/boat combo to make the trip worth it. After a pleasant buzz, I walked back across the bridge to the island and took the ferry back to Lihovar and the tram stop nearby.

P6: Lahovičky - Nádraží Modřany: Goatpocalypse Now!

The P6 ferry drops you off on a desolate shore; scrub brush and tall grass and nothing else. Resist the urge to go straight ahead down the dirt path. That leads to absolutely nothing but a highway you can't cross. Trust me. I walked that bastard in search of a microbrewery called Kail. Never got there. Veer to the right immediately upon leaving the ferry and walk down the river path for several minutes until you see signs of civilization. Here I use the word 'civilization' very loosely. You'll come upon a very bizarre scene: dozens of dilapidated campers, vans, caravans, and old trucks in a junkyard setting. And goats. Dozens of goats staring at you with those evil little devil eyes.

Fortunately there's a beer shack (Stánek u Alexe a Irči) in the middle of the goat apocalypse. After you step over the little clusters of goatshit, have a seat on some very worn plastic furniture and sip your beer. Hey! Look at that! It's Kail beer. Sipping a microbrew in the middle of a herd of goats has got to be one of the most bizarre things I have ever done. This just proves that Czechs will put a beer tap ANYWHERE. But don't you worry about those goats. By this time they'll be back to happily chewing on caravan furniture and bleating merrily. Too bad they didn't serve Kozel beer.

P8: Troja - Císařský ostrov

Last and certainly least, the P8 ferry is just a replacement for the collapsed bike/foot bridge that used to connect the island to Troja. There is nothing to do on that little island except step over heaping mounds of horse doovers and dog piles from the stables and kennels. You can safely skip this ferry unless you enjoy all dogs and horses and no beer. And with that, my ferry guide to Prague is complete.

Waitaminit, Big Sir! You said 7 ferries and I see P8!

You can count. I'm so proud of you! You may have also noticed that I omitted P4. Not because I enjoy messing with you (though it's tempting), but because P4 is so far out of Prague that it hardly seems worth the trip. Also, only one leg of the ferry journey is connected with Prague public transit. You could easily get sucked into sailing out of Prague for 150 crowns down the Beroun River toward Karlstejn...which sounds pretty good actually. But it's not in the scope of this particular blog post. Maybe next time...

This Indian Summer (Babí léto, or granny summer in CZ) is done for, but there are a few sunny days left. You've got until the end of October to get yer butt out there, take these ferries, and enjoy those beer shacks. The ferries stop running and the shacks slam shut (many are open only on weekends now). Then there's nothing left to do but go home and burrow in for the long winter and dream of Spring.

Beat the Prague Heat!

How to Beat the Bejesus Out of This Bastard Prague Heat.

photo via Flickr by ataferner

If you happen to be in Prague right now, this heat wave might make you think about moving to the North Pole to bask in glacial darkness for 24 hours per day. Europeans don't have AC. Even when the last EuroHeatWave killed 14,000 people in France, they did not install AC in their quaint little maisonettes. Non. They just said c'est la vie and ate a snail. That same heat wave killed more than 70,000 across Europe.

So when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof, and your shoes get so hot you wish your tired feet were fire proof, follow these Wide Body Jetsetter tips to keep your hot ass cool.

Heat Follows My Wide Ass Everywhere

Where I come from it gets hotter than a two-dollar pistol. Growing up in the Central Valley in California is like sitting in the waiting room just outside of Hell. And whenever one of those smarmy TV reporters did their weekly How to Beat the Heat report, I wanted to beat them like a red-headed stepchild. Easy for you to beat the heat in your air-conditioned studio, to which you drive to-and-from in your air-conditioned car to your air-conditioned house. All of my working poor life I had to drive 20-year-old cars with no AC to and from jobs with bosses so cheap they only turned on the AC in their offices and let the labor slowly suffocate in the heat. At home? If I happened to have working AC and turned it on for more than five minutes per day, it cost me $300 per month.

I have always hated the heat. Even when I was a skinny bastard. Imagine how I hate it now, with 100 pounds of blubber strapped onto my frame. When the sun bakes down on my skin, I feel like a walrus slowly turning on a spit. Goo goo g'joob. So these are the things I do to avoid heat stroke, heart attack, and heat rashes in my nethers:

Heat-Beater #1: Get a Job in a Modern Building

Prague is surrounded by a sea of gray concrete Soviet block housing and new tech offices in equal proportion. Get your ass a job in one of these tech companies. If you have an IT degree, you're gold. If you're a 'creative' soul (doomed) like me, you'll have to work in the mail room or strapped to a phone line listening to people call you a cocksucker because your company didn't send them their collectible train on time. But hey, these offices have AC, so it's better than sitting at home slowly sliding down your sweaty, faux-leather couch.

Heat-Beater #2: Tramspotting

They now have air-conditioned trams in Prague! Finally! Sure, there are only about 40 of them, but some wise soul at the Prague Transport grew tired of having to scrape dead old people off the tram seats every summer. So they bought a fleet of new trams with AC in them. You will know them by their orange racing stripes on their noses. However, you can lead a horse to water...

The Prague Transport web forum is filled with complaints from Czechs saying 'bullshit tram with bullshit people opening windows so the AC doesn't work. Total bullshit.' Yes, the word 'blbost' was translated on the fb forum as 'bullshit.' I've been lucky enough to have ridden the AC trams without windows opened by shitbirds. That AC REEEEAAAAALLLLLY works, man. It's like stepping out of a desert into a meat locker. I pity the vůl who tries to open the window on my watch.

Heat-Beater #3: Run Behind a Water Truck

The Prague roads get so hot that they get all gummy like caramel, so you will often see huge orange tanker trucks spewing water from all sides on the road around them. When the day is hotter than Georgia asphalt, run behind that water truck and cool your jets. Sure, that water plume may contain chemicals known to Putin to melt the faces off of journalists, but WTF are you gonna do when it's over 95 fucking degrees outside?

These aqua-autos are now being supplemented with misters. Not Mister Rogers, not Mister Robinson, but little misty fountains (mistifiers?) popping up around Prague. Apparently, too many seniors were keeling over in the heat. They were keeling seniors, which is neny dobry. More about the mistification process here.

Heat-Beater #4: Like. Go to the Mall.

photo by Tiia Monto

I view the mall as a necessary evil, a temple to mass consumerism peddling mostly overpriced blbost to rehabilitated commies with too much cash and credit. I call them Czigga rich. Anywho, malls are not just for hormone-addled teens anymore. Grown-ass adults like me go there to slowly putter up and down the frozen food aisles in supermarkets til I get goosebumps. You can even buy cold beer on tap and just casually sip it for hours while watching all the spotty teens and their Czigga rich parents strolling by. If there's a cineplex in that mall (and there usually is), go watch the latest Hollywood blbost and snort up the AC like a Hollywood producer snorts the booger sugar.

Heat-Beater #5: Wake Up at the Crack of Dawn and Open All Your Windows

As much as I hate mornings, as much as I'd rather sleep til noon, my wide ass wakes up stuck to my sweaty sheets at dawn. And I have my number 2 fan on me all night. I stagger to my feet, bounce off my walls, throw hot coffee on my face to wake up, then open up all the windows in my flat. Can't leave them open all night, nosiree Bob. I live on the ground floor in the ghetto and gypos would crawl into my flat and steal my widescreen and my wife. Plus it stays hot all night until about 5 am.

Like a Monkey With a Machine Gun

Czechs have AC but they don't know how to use it. Most of the buildings in Prague were built before AC was invented, so central AC is out of the question. This means overpriced fans and overpriced portable AC units. Don't try to buy a desk fan in a Czech appliance store, the greedy bastards will charge you 50 bucks for a Chinese-made fan that costs 5 bucks to produce. And the portable AC units cost more than a used car. Go to building supply shops like Obi or Hornbach. I got a desk fan for only 300 crowns ($12). It's my number one fan.

Like anything new, it takes time for the monkey to figure out how to get that spark onto the stick pile. Such is the AC learning curve. Take a look around Prague. Anytime you see one of those portable AC units in a small shop, the stupid bastards have the front door wide open, with the AC vent hose just snaking outside. Big Sir's Final Tip: AC basics. Dear knedlikyheads, they've got instructions in Czech on that portable AC unit that cost more than your old Škoda. Here's how AC works: it sucks the hot air into the unit, passes it through a compressor, condenser, and evaporator to chill that air out. Then it spews cold air into the hot space. That big white hose on the beast is not the tail. It vents ugly, stale, hot air. So that needs to be connected to a vent in your window or wall. Anything else is just pissing into the wind. Maybe these are the same idiots who open the windows on the AC trams.

And with that, I'm turning on my number one fan and closing my windows. It's 10 am and already starting to get as hot as fuck. Stay cool, my ninjas.

UPDATE: TRAMSPOTTING PART DEUX

The Czech government is finally caving into the reality of constant, unrelenting, massive heat waves every summer. So they have announced that they are increasing the number of air-conditioned trams over the next five years. They will even retrofit older trams with pimpin' coolio systems. I guess they got tired of scraping dead elders off of melted plastic tram seats.

So the normal way to spot trams is getting easier. In addition to the 2 out of 5 trams with the yellow-gold nose paint (AC heaven), they're adding new AC trams all the time. Since you can't tell from the paint any more, look for the frosty snowflake symbol by the doors. But wait! There's more! At major tram stops, look for the following sign. It contains tram numbers and arrival times. The kicker: the wheelchair symbol and snowflake symbols tell you which trams are modern and comfy and which ones are evil commie rust buckets with steep-ass stairs. Now I can just wait for my dream ride.

Also: the trolley-bus hybrids that snake around the Prague periphery are also AC havin' mofos. And these tasty bastards even have legroom.