Russ McBee

A couple of years ago, a friend (whom I'll call Mike, because that's his name) and I spent a few days in Prague. It's one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.

It's also perfect for exploring on foot. Startlingly, most of central Prague's medieval core is intact (despite all those years living under Communism), which means it's very dense and compact. It's a big place, but there's no better way to experience the place than on foot, wandering from one square to another. Around every corner, some new beautiful site emerges. It's breathtaking:

Prior to visiting Prague, we'd spent a few days in Munich for the opening weekend of Oktoberfest; we thought we'd got to Prague afterwards to detox after the insanity in Munich.

Going to Prague to detox is a bit like going to Florida to get out of the sun. But I digress.

This was Mike's first trip to Europe, so it was the first time he'd had to deal with foreign currency. Germany was relatively easy, since conversion between the euro and the dollar simply meant adding about one-fourth to everything (the exchange rate was about $1.25 or so to the euro at that time). That math isn't too complicated. If it's 100 euros, that means it's about 125 dollars. Not bad.

The Czech Republic hasn't converted to the euro yet, even though they're in the EU. Their currency, the koruna, exchanged at about 25 to the dollar at that time. That means one koruna was worth about four cents. A hundred koruna worked out to about four dollars.

This kind of threw Mike for a loop at first. Our first night in Prague, we had an excellent dinner at one of Prague's many fine Italian restaurants (just like us, they love Italian and Chinese food). We had a beef carpaccio, a pizza, and two beers apiece. The bill came to 400 koruna; when Mike saw the number, he had a look of horror and shock on his face at the amount. I said, "That's only $16."

He said, "Oh."

It still didn't quite sink in.

We stayed at the Pachtuv Palace Hotel, smack in the middle of the Old Town. It's a converted 17th-century palace, and all the original architectural features are intact. It's the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in, and at $240 per night, it ranked somewhere in the middle of Prague's more upscale hotels. This puts it out of range for most East Europeans, which I think is the point. Their goal seems to be attracting West Europeans and Americans to the city, and it seems to be working.

Here's the courtyard of the hotel:

Here was our room:

Anyway, we spent our days wandering Prague's ancient cobblestoned streets, exploring its amazing squares, and finding new and interesting restaurants. One night, we'd been down in the New Town (which dates from the 14th century), wandering up and down Wenceslas Square:

Later that night, around 11:00 PM or so, we crossed a small square on our way back toward the hotel. Two young girls, dressed in hoodies and jeans, approached us at a rapid pace from across the otherwise deserted square. They looked agitated.

One of them started shouting, "You speak English? You speak English?"

Mike and I thought they might need help; maybe they were students or tourists lost in that large, confusing city. Mike turned to them and said, "Yes, we speak English."

The girl who had been shouting stopped and said, "Five hundred blowjob. One thousand sex."

Mildly startled, we said, "Uh, no" and continued walking, giggling to ourselves like we were in middle school.

A few steps away, I said, "Mike, that works out to twenty dollars and forty dollars, respectively."

He turned to me, snapped his fingers, and said, "Got it!"

For the rest of our time in Prague, Mike had no trouble converting currency. Everything from that point forward was priced in blowjob equivalents:

"Lunch was cheap; it only cost half a blowjob."

"Man, our hotel is expensive. It's six sexes a night!"

"Dinner only cost one and a half blowjobs, and that included wine and dessert."

We could go a long way toward smoothing international trade if all transactions were priced that way.

I have more pictures of the Pachtuv Palace here, the Old Town here, and the New Town here.