Halloween kinda sucked

I was really excited for Halloween this year. Coming from UC Santa Barbara where Halloween is an epic, week-long event I wanted my first (and last) 'ween in Prague to be awesome.

It started off with a great costume idea. You see, in Prague there are no parking meters anywhere, and in the old Communist spirit of giving everyone a job even (or especially) if they are useless, there are parking attendants everywhere. They usually sit on the sidewalk on a folding chair or in a nearby pub waiting for someone to come along and park their car. The attendant then gets up, takes the driver's money and puts a ticket on their windshield, then resumes either his newspaper or beer. Is this the noble working class that was once so well regarded under Communism? Either way these guys wear some snazzy clothes. Big, bright colored overalls not unlike those that the Mario Brothers wear. Passing an attendant on the street one day inspiration struck and a great costume idea was it's fruit.

I first pitched the idea to Michelle who said that "couples costumes are lame". Fair point. I then suggested the idea to my friend Nikki who agreed on the condition that she be Mario. I agreed and the hunt for a store that sold those uniforms began. It took only a few hours but since we had put it off til the last minute, there was a certain degree of suspense. Seeing the genius of our costume others tried to jump on the bandwagon. There was talk of Toby being Toad and Katie being "that Raccoon dude" from Mario 3, who we later learned was named Tanooki (file that gem of information away). These ideas fell apart and the only one to really embrace the idea was Michelle who made a great Princess Toadstool.

We had a surprisingly crowded Halloween party at Nikki And Katie's flat and after everyone was sufficiently trashed, wandered down to Nebe, our favorite hangout. Nebe (heaven in Czech) was having a Halloween party of their own. A half hour into the party we realized that Katie was missing. I went to look for her and found her swaying on the stairway. I helped her down stairs but then decided she was too drunk to stand and I suggested that we head outside to get some air. She protested and the bouncer noticed her and told us both to leave. With some difficulty I got her back upstairs where she kept demanding be be let in again. We sat outside for half and hour or so in the cold where Katie decided to try to make out with me.

Seeing this night spiraling out of control I enlisted the help of a friend and we tried to get Katie into a cab to take her home. This was interupted by Katie breaking away and trying once agin to get into Nebe an once again being kicked out by the bouncer. We got her into a cab and were told by the driver (in gestures and Czech) that if Katie puked the ride would cost 1000 crown. We made it to her flat without incident and somehow got her upstairs and into bed. The whole process was exhausting and by the time I got back to Nebe I was sober and pissed off. Not my ideal Halloween, babysitting a friend and losing my buzz in the meantime, but certainly not an uneventful one.