Starbucks, being a loser and a 'how to'...

I have decided on a theme for blogposts this week, in a sort of attempt at trying to spice things up a bit, as a cunning distraction from the current turmoil in my life. (More on that topic later...) 

As if to make matters worse in my desperate grief over having to leave my lovely flat, I discovered today that a Starbucks cafe has just opened up almost directly opposite Paul's bakery around the corner.  It's as though it wanted to point out to me how much this area is gentrifying and I am now too much of a loser to live here.  

I have resolved that if no new meet-ees respond to the many adverts I've put up over the last couple of months in the next week then I will have to accept that I do not have enough money to afford to move into another flat on my own and I'll have to move in with the cowboy.  Which fills me with dread because I need lots of support when I'm losing something as significant as my privacy and work and living space all at once.  I need extra support if I'm forced to move to a more suburban area too, which his flat is in, and all this means that I will have to run away for coffees rather a lot because the cowboy is not at his best when he has to be the kind, understanding, patient and supportive person in the relationship.

Enough.  I shall get to the point.  This week's blog post theme shall be...(drumroll) a series of 'how to' articles.  Starting with today's mini-'how to' with a stupidly long title:

'How to survive going to your boyfriend's friend's birthday party in a foreign country where you still don't speak the language very well and everyone is the same age as you but they act 10 years older and all have kids:'

1) Play up your posh British accent by exclaiming, "oh gosh, wow!" when tasting and almost choking on the 'vodka melon' pieces that were passed to you that you didn't really want.  This provides great amusement for everyone else, which means they won't hate you (yet)

2) Speak the foreign language in question so slowly that anyone who sits next to you and starts a conversation regrets it within minutes and uses their child as an excuse to have to abruptly get up and go somewhere else

3) Pretend you like cooking your own food while out at a party and grill some big fat sausages over a fire on a stick just to 'join in'

4) Keep your mouth shut and fake not having understood when an ill-informed guest asks your boyfriend how he met his wife (meaning you) and the thought makes you want to exclaim very loudly, "I'M NOT HIS WIFE!!"

5) Be enormously grateful when you get home that you don't have a bunch of screaming kids who'll wake you up in the morning and take advantage of this by having a 'recovery lie-in' till 10am the next day

Uh, that's it. 

Sunshine, errands and photos

London is awaiting me tomorrow, along with the Faerie Godmother Trainee.  But the sun decided to come out today (I knew it - the one weekend I won't be here in Prague and it decides to heat up and be sunny - typical) and it's amazing what a difference a bit of sunshine makes.  I went on a little walk to get a few last things to bring with me to bestow on friends in London, but I didn't have time to enjoy much of it.  So I took some photos instead, to be able to look at them and marvel at the lovely weather later.  

While I was out, I stupidly decided to try a bit of light-hearted banter with the woman in Tesco, but she was probably too young to indulge in such things and my comment that, ,,konečně je to léto, že jo?" ["it's finally summer, isn't it?!"] was received with a teenager-like look of simultaneous incomprehension and disdain.  Maybe I was being overly friendly and thus impolite with such an informal phrase as ,,...že jo?" or maybe she was just miserable because people kept telling her what a lovely day it was outside and she was stuck working in an air-conditioned, no natural light to speak of, branch of Tesco.  In which case, ,,takže, chapu." ["I understand then."]  Or maybe my Czech is worse than I thought.  Occam's razor would decree it has to be the latter.

Anyway, I thought I could bypass any further need to attempt to write something interesting, seeing as I'm pushed for time and really should be packing my case instead, with some of the photos I took . There's one extra one from the other day when I realised they'd vamped-up Václavské náměstí with flower beds down the middle, just in time for tourist high-season.  Ah, the vanity...

Looking up to náměstí Míru, the church in the background, this is the general theme of where I live, banks, banks and more banks.  Oh, and a tram.  Of course. 

Then the view from the bank on the corner by the metro station, looking past yet another bank. You can just about see down to the shiny and copper-topped building in the background, which is part of the national museum at the very top of Václavské náměstí:

And here are the roses [um, sorry, you'll have to zoom in and look closely to see them!] in the middle of Václavské náměstí (or ,Václavák' as it's affectionately known to us 'locals'):