I know over the last dozen posts or so that people have issues with gifts and the holidays (which I totally understand and empathize with) but to me the gift was thoughtful and appreciated as I wear it not just at those shitty themed parties.
Think of me as you will if you see me out in it. 
What town?
Oh that’s different I specifically mean non peers I. E. relatives. And of course I stuck my work/boss with 2 beers I had for our “holiday” happy hour yesterday.
Little town of Fennimore, also the name of my long time cat who I adopted when I was in med school at Northwestern. Sadly, he lasted only 22 years.
MM MD
22 years is really impressive longevity for a cat. Our Oscar is closing in on 18 now, and I am very hopeful he hangs on another 4-5 years.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I shed some tears for #3 as well. I was 32 I believe.
I was talking to my mother about the place she lives and she mentioned that she wanted to move out. I thought that she couldn’t because it was owned by somebody. But apparently, she owns the house but some co-op owns the land.
Now, she can’t sell her place to a person unless the person is approved by the co-op board and fulfills requirements like credit checks, criminal background checks, and gets three references from people currently living in the community. And that’s when it hit me:
My mother lives in The Villages.
Sure, it’s not the exact place and is nowhere near as large but they are politically and demographically the same place. They might as well have a sign that says “No Blacks and Mexicans” at the entrance to this place. No wonder why everybody’s white and most people are oldish. As a matter of fact, the racial demographics are 98.2% white according to the census. The Villages is only 0.1% ahead in this category. It’s why there’s a Roman Catholic church but no other place of worship in the neighborhood.
So yeah, I am related to somebody who pretty much represents the people who are mentioned in this article which Chapo just died laughing about in this video
Makes me wish I had a driver’s license and the money to afford to stay elsewhere in the city.
What hits me as I come back from overseas is the shallow showing of nationalism that exist in America.
I was at a barber a few days ago and the back wall had an American flag tacked to it. The barber’s gown put on me had an American flag design. If that existed in nearly any country in the EU, it’d be mocked.
To most people from outside of America, this is just a weird quirk. For people who live here, this type of shallow nationalism along with heavier stuff like pledging allegiance to a national flag every morning in school creates an air of superiority that to anybody outside of the bubble is completely unearned and unjustified.
I’ve taught at schools in several countries and none of them required any pledge of allegiance or national anthems to be played before classes. The closest I’ve seen is that one of the classes in my school has a picture of Czech playwright, activist, and the first President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel above a chalkboard. It wasn’t a huge picture. It wasn’t something people pledged to. It was just there.
The longer I stay away from America, the less I know what it feels like to be American. Or maybe what it means to be American has changed and I’m just behind the times. I just don’t fit in here anymore.
Yeah I know I’m filling up this thread with a lot of long posts, but when you only visit your home country once a year, you observe things a bit more close up.
Because of that, my connections with deplorables are less intimate than yours. I live thousands of miles away from the deplorables in my family and almost never see them. When I experience and observe is probably stuff most of you have experienced on a regular basis. So it might not be news to you but it is to me.
I had dinner with my mother and her boyfriend last night. As I stated, my mother basically lives in The Villages. Her boyfriend is the personality of a villager on steroids. Anytime the Chapos mention an older, small business tyrant who thinks they know everything because they’re self-employed, they’re referring to this guy. First time I met him, he dropped the n-word multiple times and a few ethnic slurs for other groups. Why I have dinner with him is that I rarely see my mother and am willing to accept spending time with him as a price to pay to spend time with my mother. He also picks up the bill. Thankfully, he’s become much better with the bigotry and has toned it down at least around me.
We were talking about travel. He and my mother have been to Europe both as a couple and with their respective families. They discuss what they like and dislike about various places they’ve been to with me and what struck me was their complaints. Sure they enjoyed all of the typical things that every other tourist enjoys but it was their gripes that stood out.
When they visited Prague, there was a heat wave and none of the places had air conditioning because it’s expensive to use and rarely, if ever, used in the first place. Sure it sucks but acknowledge it as part of being in the country. I visited during a heat wave in 2015. I spent a week in a youth hostel with 7 other people in my room and dealt with it.
Customer service is definitely less of a thing in most of Europe compared to America. People don’t wait on you hand and foot because they get a proper wage and aren’t as overworked. It’s not like America where they work on a wage so low that they practically need to beg for tips by asking if everything’s good every 10 minutes. You’re treated like a person by people, not like royalty by servants. If people don’t immediately respond to you in Spain, it’s because culturally speaking, eating is meant to be a pleasant experience shared over a long period of time. You don’t rush through your food and leave ASAP. You slowly enjoy the sangria and the company of others around you and accept the service as it is.
They complained about the food in the Czech Republic. Now I actually agree with them there. It is genuinely difficult to find a good restaurant serving decent Czech food in Prague since eating out is very uncommon among locals. Restaurants, especially those in Old Town, are targeted at tourists who often don’t know good Czech food because they’ve never had it^. This is made worse by the fact that Czech food in general tastes terrible which isn’t surprising. After all, they didn’t control the spice trade at any time.
But the thing is that Prague has every type of food you can find anywhere else due to the free travel throughout the EU. Sure you might not like Czech food, but take a trip off the beaten path away from the beautiful architecture and go to Sapa for the best Vietnamese food in Europe east of the Berlin Wall. You can food of all kinds that isn’t some knockoff cuisine from nearby countries.
The thread that runs through all of these complaints is: Why can’t these places be like America? America is their frame of reference because it’s where they’ve spent nearly their entire lives. It’s not necessarily their fault for thinking of things that way. It’s what people ignorant of the rest of the world do. But try pointing that out to them and they can’t acknowledge it. They view themselves as cultured because had a baguette 20 years ago. It’s why people get angry at them. It’s why they end up complaining. It’s the ugly American attitude.
I was surprised at how disdainful and rude some of my students admitted to acting towards tourists. But when I talk to some of them, I think that they might be onto something.
^Restaurants in Old Town are for suckers. Any time I see a place with a large menu in multiple languages, I run for the hills. Go to Vinohrady and don’t force yourself to eat Czech food because you happen to be in the Czech Republic. Also, fuck Vietnamese restaurants anywhere but Sapa. It’s way off the beaten path for tourists and pretty ugly but it probably has the best Vietnamese food in Europe east of Germany.
Solid advice in most places.
If I went to the Czech Republic, I’d certainly want to try Czech food. I can get Vietnamese food in Westminster. (it’s in Orange County, south of LA) I guess I’ll have to get myself invited into someone’s house.
Once only.
They gotta have something good. I’m ok with just bread and cheese most of the time. Some chléb and abertam maybe. They’re famous for beer too.
This one of my favorite threads so go nuts
If you like dumplings you’ll be just about ok if you avoid cheap gristly pork cuts, and the beer is some of the best anywhere, but otherwise, no. The national aversion to adding herbs and spices to their cooking renders everything banal. It’s like food for a nation of depressives and isn’t that surprising when you look at the last 80 years or so of their history. Even my niece who is Czech says the same things.
They’ve taken to Vietnamese food in a big way, as the Brits did to Indian food a few decades ago (and the Dutch to Indonesian), and for much the same reason.
Haven’t been to the Czech Republic for years, but I was a vegetarian at the time and always enjoyed the fried cheese.
I was there in 93 and didn’t think the food was terrible. Just a bit plain. We mostly ate in these big unattractive looking cafeteria style places which were crammed with Czechs and incredibly inexpensive. I don’t mind potatoes though so maybe that made things easier. Possibly also the amazing beer took my mind off the food.
I was there at the start of the Poker boom in Britain when my mate won a £1,000 ticket to the main event at the…
Where I sat and lost €100 at blackjack to Thomas Kremser’s wife who dealt on the show…
And after he got knocked out in 9th for a tidy sum of €1,500 we headed to Prague with a taxi driver who offered us a cheap ride and stay in Prague and the drive back the next day.
It was a good trip to there overall even though we went from Vienna 
And at that time we could by beers for around 50c when the beers in Vienna were £10 
Was that at a bordello?
Some night club round the corner from the lamborghini showroom… 
Vienna was a beautiful place tbh… The Hansel cottages that are there in a park are amazing… 