Well I disputed the shitty $78 phone charge for me using the phone at airport with credit card.  it seems to have gone from $78 to $4 which is much more reasonable.  Hopefully that will stick as the dispute went through really fast and it seems like my bank gave it to me before the company could respond. 

If it sticks I am stoked.  It was totally bullshit before and I was not happy at $25 a minute for local phone call. 

My craigslist ads still will not become searchable, so I can only assume I am not supposed to sell my god like computer, as it will come in handy to work on my giant website(s) when I get back.

Not much new today.  Battery on laptop sucks and I am sitting in hall using internet, gotta go back inside.  Ciao 4 now.

I am annoyed as I write this because my computer isn’t selling, so I just went and looked at craigslist to lower price a bit, however using search and exact post title I could not find it.  Grumble, I have wasted 2 days trying to sell it with it not being searchable.  WTF Craig!? It exists and I have just edited it so perhaps it will be searchable soon. 

Oh well, I’m off.  glad to not have to stay at Starbucks all the time. 

I am starting to make connections around town.  I went with Susan whom I met at Starbucks a few days ago to some little wine bar for a drink.  I wouldn’t have gone if she hadn’t offered to buy me a glass of wine since I am getting very poor. 

So there is this park I keep walking to.  There are stairs there that you can climb up extremely far on.  I may be losing weight, but I can’t imagine walking from bottom to top of these stairs without stopping at least a couple times along the way.  It’s super far and steep. 

As far as I can tell it goes to highest point in city since there is a tower there and I don’t see anything higher on horizon. 

So I wanted to get to the top as it’s even further up than the monastery I went to last week.  Decided at a certain point to get off the stairs and go through the foot worn trails a bit further from where I was. 

On the way up that way I was surprised to see so many people laying on the ground and making out.  I was trying to ignore it but this one couple was very close to the trail and she was very clearly giving this dude a hand job.  Yes, Europe is very different. 

Took some pictures about half way up of the view.  Sorry no pictures of the hand job, you will just have to take my word on it.

Well it was worth the continued climb as when I got to the top there was a line for food.  There was an initial line to buy a ticket for something.  I bypassed that line by saying excuse me and walked straight to the food line.  I question if the ticket was to get the cheap prices on food.  Oh well, nobody said anything to me. 

It only cost 30 CZK ($1.50) for a cheese burger, or a brat, or a beer etc…  Anyways I dig the crazy long climb to get the cheap food.

All new roommates today.  Last night my roommates were amusing and we were all giving each other shit.  Tonight nobody’s talking to anybody, grumble. 

Also it seems that every couple nights I snore and if I do it’s pretty bad, so I try to go to sleep later than everybody else so that I won’t piss them all off ;)

Anyway, another day bites the dust.  Thanks very much to Kevin for going through and testing games that were reported broken on the site, it was getting really clogged up.  So now I can try to add some more new stuff… Though I do grow tired of sitting in basement of starbucks.

Absinth(e).  Tis one of my vices.  I dig the very bad for you liquor.  Over the years I have tried many different types and have decided that I like the Czech absinthe the best overall.  I do not have money to spare but I don’t figure I would live it down if I didn’t buy at least a little absinthe while I was here.  So I bought a tiny sample bottle of some Black Absinthe (80% alcohol).  Haven’t drank it yet, not sure when I will, so at the same shop I purchased that from I also purchased an ice cream cone made with absinthe herbs.  Haha, it was actually pretty good… Must not have been made with very potent absinthe :)

Anyway today I put some google ads on my site directly under the games and movies.  I know, ads are ugly.  However I am very much in need of funds and if a bunch of people would be so kind as to click an ad once a day (it won’t count more than once per IP) it would go a long way to helping me survive Europe. 

Also if the zillions of people I made admins could check broken links that are reported that would be fantastic (though i won’t hold my breath).

Found some super cheap Chinese take away near me.  I can get a full meal for $3 with tax… that’s better than Taco Bell :)

Tried to go to the US Embassy… It’s right behind my hostel, but they were closed (and out to lunch a different day).  I have emailed them inquiring about employment.  I figure that would be legal employment in America while I am in Europe.  Not that I really want to work for the Government, but it’s unlikely they will have positions to fill either.

I really want to make some phone calls via skype since I am paying for unlimited calls worldwide for the month.  However it’s only 5:30am in Phoenix and I am sick of sitting in Starbucks.  Don’t feel like waking everybody up, so I think I will go try to find wireless somewhere else. 

So I mentioned that a phone card ate my money and an ATM machine ate my debit card.  So I used my credit card to make a LOCAL phone call to my friend martin (the one who didn’t pick me up), which was mostly just arguing about why I couldn’t stay at his place for even a few days.

I’m advertising for web design now, so we’ll see how that goes.

I got to the hostel and paid for 3 days.  I would pay for more, but I would like to wait a day and see how nice it is, really hard to tell with a hostel.  Especially since I am sharing a room.

I got up and 3 of my roommates were from America and were just going out to see the castle.  I tagged along and after climbing to the top we discovered that in order to go into the buildings you had to pay.   They failed to believe that we were students with no student ID’s so everybody had to pay 250CZK each ($13.25).  It was worth it though, I got some beautiful pictures.  Though the most beautiful ones were from a Catholic Church that clearly has more money than any other human beings I have ever heard of, and I suppose it helps that people have to pay to get into that church…

I have all the photos posted on my facebook account.  I will probably put them on here sometime, but my internet time is now limited. 

We left the castle and decided to go to some Monastery that brewed their own beer.  Well that was a massive uphill hike.  I’d hate to be a crappy car trying to get up the hill to that part of the city.  Still, once we got to the top and ordered some Saintly beer and since I had not eaten since breakfast I also got some goolash and dumplings.  All of which were very low priced in my opinion. 

I had been told Prague is expensive however I had a very filling meal and 2 big dark beers and it only cost me $200 CZK with tip, though that was included in the bill at 19% ($10.50).  My hostel which seems very nice and has 24 hour receptionist, and key coded door that changes the code every single day for each room… It only cost me $15 a day.  It’s also right by the castle an art district and a beautiful bridge to the center of the city. 

A very fancy tourist area at crazy low prices.  That’s not to say that having low prices gives me a lot of fundage.  I will have to be very careful with what I spend and will have to find some work to get by. 

I don’t have wifi in my room, hostel said they were putting it in but it wasn’t ready yet.  So i have to go to Starbucks for internet.  However the Starbucks right around the corner here doesn’t charge for the internet access at all, though they do close at 6pm.

The view from my hostel is gorgeous, inside and out.   I took pictures from my room outside, and towards the rest of the hostel from my 3rd floor room.  Worth checking out on facebook if you get a chance.

If this is somewhat expensive for Europe, I cant imagine the prices in Poland where I am told it’s cheap by somebody who said Prague is expensive.

At night I took another walk across the bridge and took a couple more photos.  There are amazing statues on so many buildings.  The area where I am staying beyond the bridge is really nice though, no graffiti either which there was tons of graffiti in the center of the city.  So tourism here must encourage business owners to clean it off, or else it’s just always too busy for people to tag things.

Well I was paid through the end of day 2 at the pension (a little family hotel more or less).  Totally expensive, but it was needed.  So today I went for a walk around the center of Prague.  I ended up walking probably 10km since I somewhere got turned around an angular street and kept walking, no longer in the right direction.

I had a lot on my mind or I would have been more observant of where the sun was.  I had to stop out to the chemist (pharmacist) and buy some skin cream since I am now pealing from sunburn that I got before leaving.  So I dropped 140 CZK on some lotion and continued to walk around until it was late.  Every single building in Prague is beautiful… except in the center of the city all the walls are covered in graffiti.

Today when i wasn’t walking my time consisted of paying to fax in court information for an expired registration ticket I was given right before leaving.  Since I already sold the car it should really be a non-issue.  So hopefully they will dismiss it with the info I sent them, or at least give me a continuance for sometime in September.  It would really suck if they started fining me and took away my license for not appearing in court for this.

I decided to wash my clothes in the sink of my pension.  However there won’t be enough time for them to dry before I leave tomorrow.  Hmm, the microwave is super clean.  Okay, why not.  Uncle Buck style laundry night. 

UPDATE:  This worked great for everything except my t-shirt, which I used to test the length of time I could leave things in for.  After a minute and a half at 700watts burn marks started to appear in a couple places.  Oh well, it gives the shirt character and is on the backside where nobody will notice it.

Tomorrow I have a hostel booked so I will walk there in the morning.

Not really a taxi, but a shared ride van I suppose.  So when my friends stopped answering the phone I gave up on them coming to pick me up.  Since I didn’t have a hostel booked in advance I went and talked to the cab drivers to see if they could find me one. 

One of the shared ride vans said he knew a hostel that would take me tonight.  It was $480 ($25) CZK for the ride unless it was split, but I said I was willing to wait until there were people to split ride with since that was the rate for up to 4 people.  So I waited till there were 3 more people and then he proceeded to drive while i tried to talk bad Spanish to the other passengers (they were Mexican… how funny).  He then dropped them off at a hotel, and then took me to a pension (not a hostel) which is basically a little family hotel since he said the hostels were booked up or closed (which was specifically what I asked about when I wanted ride).

He then informed me it would be $480 CZK, since I went somewhere different than the other people.  Bastard. 

So I go in and agree to stay for the night which cost $1440 CZK ($76).  Fine whatever, just for tonight right…

I’m f’n tired.  I hadn’t slept in a couple days and the crap with having to wait for my luggage and then wait for my friends who didn’t come sucked.  It was only 10pm something but I just passed out happy to have a bed to sleep in. 

Woke up and looked at the clock, it said it was 8:30, but the clock was wrong and it was 8:55.  I had to be out of the room by 10 and they were bringing breakfast at 9:30.  I took shower and as soon as I got out breakfast was there since it was later than I thought it was.  This place had internet but they hadn’t given me the password so I go to get it and see what time it actually is and know that I don’t have enough time to book a hostel by 10am.  So I have now paid another 76 bucks for another night here. 

It’s now 5am in America.  I found some hostels near me that have room to stay for tomorrow and Thursday however I have a big issue and that is that I have suitcase to carry around with me. 

My intent was to leave suitcase with at my friends place with all non-essential stuff and take my backpack and laptop with me.  I have once again emailed Martin (person who will no longer let me stay at his place), asking if letting him use the router and converter I brought him is fair trade to let me keep suitcase at his place for duration of stay. 

I am right in the center of town and i really want to go be tourist guy
today and view the sights and take pictures and chill, however this is bad situation I find myself in as I figured I had 2 weeks to find free / cheap places to stay and that I could leave my suitcase with friends.  I mean I did travel 6k miles to see them. 

I just booked a hostel for next 3 days which should be at super cheap rate in shared 6 person dorm.  However hostelworld screwed it up.  That will be just $783 CZK ($47) for all 3 days, which is much better than the $160 or so I paid for 2 nights here as long as my stuff doesn’t get stolen.  I will cuddle up with my laptop at night.  haha.

Need to find work or something ASAP because my first 2 days here have been über expensive.

Arrived in Prague, ATM ate my card, then lost 200CZK on phone card since it considered that $8 out of $10 euros and won’t give refund.  Luggage got lost, and friends won’t give ride or place to stay due to some strange email confusion that I still don’t understand, cheapest hostel I can find has tons of reviews about theft in the night, bed bugs/lice and bad staff that pretends they don’t know English.  Haven’t slept in 2 days.  Glad I sold car and flew 6k miles 4 this.