Mystery Meat!!!

After another morning of services at the Old New Synagogue, I rushed back to eat lunch and get on my way to another field trip. I should mention that services were quite easy to get into this morning, and even though I showed my passport, I don't think I actually would have needed to do this. Upon returning and eating some tasty bread and cheese, I ate some tasty bread and meat. Food isn't scarce, but my knowledge of what I'm eating sure is. We'll address this topic a little later unfortunately. Still being exhausted from Oktoberfest (I have no other reason to suggest why I've napped 3 times in 5 days, saying I haven't been drinking, going out, or even staying up that late), I napped again instead of going to class. It is possible that the holiday spirit has wiped me out, and that the combination of thinking about praying with praying has actually made me quite tired [which I'm not doubting], I just don't understand why I was tired before the holidays too. Anyways, I am getting distracted and am rambling on about absolutely nothing, so let me try to get back to my day.
After waking up from my nap, I pretty much wasted away some more time. Something about rain just makes me not want to do anything. It's possible this habit started in Alaska, when we either did do nothing or wanted to do nothing, but my guess is I've hated doing stuff in the rain for a while. Anyways. I decided finally that it was time to test out the gulash for dinner.
This may sound unappetizing, and trust me, it looks even less appetizing than the name suggests. Imagine dog crap mixed into vomit and stuffed in a can. Sadly, that is how canned gulash looks. Now give it the pungent odor of old Indian food mixed with Spaghetti-O's, and you can partially describe gulash. The part that I'm not describing is the delectable taste that accompanies 'restaurant' gulash. This contrast of worlds is quite disappointing; as a foreigner who enjoys the taste of gulash [and having no knowledge of how to make it], buying some Chef Boyardee was really disheartening. Anyways, despite gulash never being served with rice here, I figured I'd give it a try.
One mistake that I made was in my measuring. Being used to rice in a bag from NOLS, my standard serving bag was 1 pound. Stupid me to think that in Europe, they would also use pound bags - especially when I know everything else is in kilos. All this really meant was that when I poured myself a quarter bag, I actually got over a half pound of rice instead of a quarter pound. Saying I only wanted to use a half can of mystery juice [with the occassional piece of mystery meat in it] - which I am NOT looking forward to finding out how the rest will be tomorrow - my interestingly flavored 'sauce' was being even more diluted. The only way that I know how to fix it? Rule Number 1 of Matt's NOLS cooking: if you don't like the taste [or have no idea how it will taste], add salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, and a ton of hot sauce. I luckily also have onions to add, a nice addition since the wilderness. It turns out that Czech Chili powder [which I added to the rice] is pretty bland, and that I was too lazy to add even more of the NOLS fix-it sauce, so I ate pretty bland rice in a pretty bland sauce with a little pretty bland meat mixed in. I guess it could have been worse, and at least the onions were decent.
After dinner, Yarda took Robert and I to a bar + bowling alley right near by. Being the worst bowling player most people will ever meet, I figured it was my duty to embarass American bowlers in a foreign land. Sadly, I was not able to accomplish my goal. Prague bowling lanes [I saw them at another place too despite not bowling there] are what Americans might view as 'typically European;' they are 'smaller.' The slight claustrophobia that overwhelms you when you step up to bowl is sort of countered by your confidence in your ability to knock over pins since you're so much closer. I adjusted. A slight side note:
I don't want to compare myself to my Grandma Joyce, because I - like everyone else - know that no one has the same 'eye' as she. I don't go around fixing people's lamp shades in their houses when they aren't straight; I simply get annoyed when I see a picture hanging slanted.
Anyways, upon walking up to the midget-lane, I thought something was pretty weird about it, in addition to the size. Knowing that I suck at bowling, the 1 thing I make sure to do is follow through straight, thus making my shot go straight (often times straight into the gutter, other times straight down the middle and somehow not knocking pins over). I was quite perplexed when my shots down the middle were slanting left, so I stepped over to the right after my third shot. Low and behold, what took me 3 shots to figure out, my Grandma would have told me before I began playing. The floor was slanted. This is hard for most Americans to picture because we are use to pretty identical bowling lanes in pretty identical bowling alleys. Not in Prague. Here, in addition to the lanes being thinner and shorter (and the pins are on strings for getting them erect after you knock 'em down), the lanes are not waxed well, they don't require bowling shoes (thankfully), and the lanes have just enough of a slant that you wouldn't really notice it at first (even though it will mess up your shot). By the time I figured all of this out, our time had expired on the lane, and we were forced to shift over to foosball.
When someone asked me to play - and I saw how there were more than just two of us - I immediately suggested we play teams. I of course suggested that my Czech buddy Yarda be my teammate, knowing that if foosball were ever to become a professional sport, Nike and Adidas would fight over his contract. For 10 krown (about 60 cents) you get 10 balls; of 10 balls, only 2 scored on us. It sure felt great to actually win in foosball for once, saying I'm used to losing 10-2 or so to Yarda and about 10-8 to Dillon. Despite this being a Spanish table (different formation of men, different material of table and men, different slant of table, and different weights of each row of men), Yarda still slaughtered our opponents - with my help. I did score 1 or 2 goals and save a fair share. O yeah.
As I type this, possibly the weirdest movie I have ever seen is on HBO. It is obviously a Czech film - despite being on HBO - and not just because it's not in English. It is sort of a combination of Silence of the Lambs, Saw 2, the movie about time-jumping, Van Helsing, Hellboy, and Minority Report. I'm actually quite thankful I don't understand what the hell is going on, because I think that would just make this a whole lot worse, scarier, and less pleasant. Instead it is just background noise, similar to my professors during the day.