Unexperienced Prague experiences

The past two nights I've gone out with my American friend Mark (introduced via email by my Hopkins friend Andrew) and two of his buddies from growing up in South Carolina, John and Justin. The guys were a lot of fun -- I had a great time listening to their stories, and group-reminiscing about our days growing up in the South. :-) John and Justin were actually hear on part of their whirlwind tour of Europe -- 2-3 weeks spent in Dublin, Frankfurt, Heidelburg, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, and Berlin next (I think that's it, that's what I'm remembering anyway). Anyway, lots of fun, and if I can remember the URL of their blog I'll definitely check it out.

Talking to them though, I realized their blog has a lot of stuff that mine does not: scandels and taboo. :-) Not that I would be opposed to including some on mine but there are the problems that 1) my mom reads this, 2) I actually *am* opposed to including really personal things, or things which could discourage future employments :-), and really the most important reason 3) I spend most of my days staring at my computer doing work, and not a lot generally happens to me here.

From what I've learned though, it seems I am missing out on a key Prague experience which all of these guys and others have experienced: midday drug pushes and sex offers. ;-)

Probably a lot of it is because I'm female (esp the sex offers), maybe because I look clean cut (I decided not to experiment with the always popular goth look when coming here), or because I walk through town quickly and with purpose (it's very difficult for me to walk slowly actually... seems more efficient my way!). But for these guys, Prague has a whole different side. Guys walk up to them on the street with heavily accented "Hey, you want the pot?" (or "Do you know where I can get the pot?"), or walking the other direction and whispering "heroin!" just as they pass by. Unbelievable -- this just doesn't happen to me, and based on my experiences here it's hard to imagine that it could!

And this isn't confined to particularly shady areas of town either. Walking town, one guy had a girl walk up to him and say "Excuse me, do you want sex?" and when he said no, she countered "Why not? Why don't you want sex?". Another guy was wandering Wenseslas Square past a group of girls talking, and as he passed two looked at him and said "Blowjob? You want a blowjob? I do for you...". A very generous offer, I'm sure, but he managed to resist somehow.

I'm told just five years ago things like this were much worse, which I believe (and definitely even more so pre-1989). Still, it makes me rethink things a bit. Perhaps when my relatives were telling me to watch out because "Prague is the porn capital of the world" (still no evidence of this so far from my observations), they were more right than we guessed!