An Irish guy, A Scottish guy, And an English guy walk into a bar...

Recently I took a little vacation to a little town in the Czech Republic called Prague. My Journey Started much the same way that it ended, with me throwing up. You see I'm a nervous traveler when the pressure is on me (I drove) I move really fast, and food doesn't sit well. Add a daily vitamin and a fish oil pill on an empty stomach and Presto, Vomit Viola!

So there I was, 6 a.m. sitting in my driveway with my head out the driver side window spitting up fish fat and water as fast as I can because I know I have a five hour drive ahead of me (clearly I had my priority's in order). When I finished gagging at the fish taste (nothing left to hurl) I put a piece of gum in my mouth, pick up my friend Brandon, and headed off to a country I neither of us had ever visited.

When you visit a new country for the first time there are a few things a person should know.

A: What language do they speak? Maybe even learn some easy phrases like hello, or where is the bathroom.

B: What form of currency do they use? Will I be able to get it there?

C: Do they have any strange traffic laws? Do I need to pay tolls or buy a sticker?

These are all questions two men taking a cross country road trip neglected to ask themselves. On top of all that, when we were about 100 miles from home I realized I forgot my international drivers license. I wasn't about to turn around, so like all great explorers in the face of fear we pressed on.

As we pulled into the Czech Republic for the first time I noticed I had a quarter left in the tank, so I stopped at the first gas station I saw. I walked in with ten Euro and one American dollar in my pocket, looked the nice Czech lady in the eye with A smile on my face and said, "You speak English?". "Deutsche?" she replied. I quickly noticed that there was no credit card machine, and that I was (for lack of a more suiting word) screwed. I also noticed stickers on all the cars outside that appeared to have some form of Russian writing on them, but with no money or communicating skills, we decided to press on. Lucky for us we reached our hotel without having to fill up (God bless fuel efficient cars with giant tanks).

Prague was beautiful. Not to mention the American dollar is four times stronger than the Czech Koron, so we lived like kings. Four star hotel cost me 30 dollars, a steak dinner with coffee and beer (I just couldn't choose) I was living it up.

Night fell as Brandon and I went out looking for a party, and boy would did we find one. We started at the HardRock where we met a Czech bartender who taught us how to say "Go F#@K Yourself!" In Russian, gave us a few free drinks and sent us in the Direction of some good bars.

So we were sitting in a bar when in stumbles an Irish guy, A Scottish guy, and an English guy (I swear this isn't the start of a bad joke) and all of there Czech girlfriends (Czech woman are unbelievably gorgeous). I heard the Irish guys accent, so I asked him if he was Irish.

He replied "Ey, you American?"
Me: "Yep"
The Irish: "Bartender, get my new friends a drink!"

Soon they found out we were military, and as all European/American military questions eventually lead, we wound up on the subject of global nuclear war (They all think we are going to eventually kill everyone). I told them as I spilled some of my delicious Jack and Coke onto the floor, that if it ever came to that I would get them all in an underground bunker (By the way, I can't do that). I didn't pay for a drink the rest of the night.

The next Day came, and with a sharp pain in my head I took a look around my room for the first time only to realize I had stripped and literally thrown all of my clothing and everything contained within them around my room, even the contents of my wallet (I am very thorough). It was at that point that I realized I hadn't spent a single dime the night before, and that there were new pictures on my camera (coming soon).

On the drive home I spent $117 on a tank of gas (clearly karma caught up to my lying ass), and shortly after we were stopped by the Czech police. Freaking out hardly begins to describe the feeling of knowing, A: you don't speak the language, B: You don't have a sticker on your car, and C: YOU FORGOT YOUR INTERNATIONAL DRIVERS LICENSE AND YOUR DRIVING ILLEGALLY IN A COUNTRY THAT MAY OR MAY NOT BE BOUND BY THE EUROPEAN UNION... DUMBASS!!!!

I gave the nice police man my Military ID and Passport. He gave a half smile and said "Army?" I quickly said yes. He the pointed at the window and showed me a picture of a sticker and said "Petrol Station". I nodded my head, and the very nice police man let us go. I bought a sticker, and the rest of the trip home was a smooth ride (With the exception that my buddy Brandon played the video Game Angry Birds the entire time while yelling at the little green pigs).

Egyptian wife, or desert souvenir?

As some of you may know I just returned from a four month deployment to the middle east. If you are imagining me a war hero you are sadly mistaken, as I have never seen combat or been issued a weapon more than a mettle stick and a trusty whistle.

My job in the desert was not to work, but to watch people work. Boy was I good at it, and watch them work I did. You see in the middle east the military hires local companies to work for dollars a day to do anything from build our housing, to clean our shiters, and since they use locals there's no telling if there are terrorists among them. So they put people like me with no real combat experience in a group of twenty or so third country nationals (TCNs) with my trusty stick and whistle to guard the interests of the installation (When I asked for a bobby hat they replied only with a condescending stare).

I became quite good a crossword puzzles and sudoku (HiYa!) and arguing about who would win in a fight between CatWoman and WonderWoman (Insert your hero/heroin here).

On a day to day basis we interacted with the workers, but mostly the foreman. One foreman I worked with was an Egyptian man who spoke nearly perfect English, he would smuggle things to us from the city like McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts (A cold cheeseburger has never tasted so good in my life). One day he was telling me about his niece and he showed me a picture (she was very pretty) So I jokingly asked him if I could marry her and take her home. He then began making real wedding arrangements, asking me if I would convert to Islam, if she would live in the states, and if we could get married in Egypt. By this point I assumed my sarcastic nature in the original question escaped him, so I played along (I was bored). After much deliberation we decided it just wouldn't work because I was a Wiccan (I'm not Wiccan by the way) and it just wouldn't work out. Sorry Mom and Dad, no souvenir Egyptian grand children for you.