THE BROTHERS ARE GONNA WORK IT OUT !

Goodbye Fall Semester 2007 of the godforsaken ECES program in Praha! It was over before it began, it was all a blur the last few weeks. After the Chemical Brothers concert on Nov. 26th it all spiralled fast and was quite awesome to say the least. From Nov. 26- Dec. 14 , I probably went out as much in that 2 week period as I did in the 2 1/2 months prior. I haven't even written about the Chemical Brothers Concert. Here goes!

Bratislava, Sibemac Arena,11/26/07 WE ARE THE NIGHT!
- this show i have been looking forward to since about June when I knew I would be in Prague in the fall and CB would be in the neighboring capital in Slovakia. Things seemed desperate , as per usual no one wanted to accompany me to this concert for one reason or another. Olivia agreed after scraping up pesos concerting to euros, czech crowns , slovakian crowns! The price was a little pricey but do-able! $ 70 for the ticket and $30 for the roundtrip bus ride to Bratislava. Olie and I arrive in at noon so we can have the whole day to explore Bratislava, the famed area where in Hostel tourists were kidnapped and in Euro trip you live like a king for a few dimes. Well it was neither, a quaint little center, Christmas markets about like in Salzburg. Very dull and no selection of pubs and bars like we are used to in Prag, the slovakian crown is only a bit lower than the Czech crowin thus everything was still pricey. We overpaid for below average beer after I spent about 2 hours looking for a bank that would allow me to withdraw money from a teller without my atm card since I was still waiting for mine in the mail after my wallet was stolen at the Florence bus station when Jen & I were going to Karlovy Vary.
The sky was fluroscent, clouds like Alice in Wonderland we messed around took pictures, followed the basic for a day tour in Olivia's guidebook. It was only 4 and apparently we had walked through the main historical sites and streets in Bratislava, nothing special AT ALL. We finished the anti climactic tour and decided to find this Sibamac Arena. After being told wornf directions at least thrice we stopped at the mall to ask someone. "Take the bus back 2 stops" We waited for the bus and finally a cute Slovakian decided to help us , probably after he heard me whine in English. He was excited wanted to practice his English, he had seen the Brothers in August when they played Prag, fuck me for missing that. He led us to the stadium, in reality a tiny venue. We would never hd found this place ourselves, off the main street , down a one way dimly lit alley , if you will. We asked him where we could get some candy for the show, he said ask someone inside. This is where things start getting a little shitty, not counting the 1.5 hours of quasi- ecstacy when the visual where imprinting themselves in my brain,blowing up my cranium- the blue eye was blinking furiously and Do It Again euphonous beats played in my cochlea.

I've seen it pumped electric
Oh my God, what have I done?
All I wanted was a little fun
Got a brain like bubble gum
Blowing up my cranium

All insane

Take my face and take my drug
Hold my bone up to the sun
Bang my drum and paint my face
On my plane to hyperspace

Slovaks pregaming outside, its dark, dank fog emanates from peoples mouths, some of it smoke, some breath. We run to a mini mart to pregame- I think we bought some vodka to split, we are quick to drink since we cannot bring the bottles in. Olivia is ready to roll, the trunk of the car is ideal! Or not! As she dexterously begins, the wind sweeps everything out of the paper and all our weed is all over this random car,s trunk, ok so we are a little messy but we r drunk and sooo exicted that we finally made it to Bratislava. I am so grateful that Olie let me drag her on my riduc journey. We gather the remnants of the weed and rush to the show. We decide to finish rolling later, now we will try to find some E. Olie asks these guys and they respond in exasperation and shock. " NO , we are clean!" OMG what kind of people are these? Is this a fuckin Chemical Brothers show or what!

Im getting into the dj opening stuff and Olie goes to the bathroom to roll us a joint. As soon as she leaves it gets insanely crowded, the Brothers enter the stage, the green streams of jagged light flood the audience, flashes of pink light bounces of everyone faces. Hands and fist waive in the air, in my face, short little me cant see very well behind these taller Slovaks. I wait ,I dont move becasue Olie should be back soon. Then I realize that the crowd is so dense that she will not find me afteralll! Im lost, oh crap my favorite song, I begin to search for Olie always remaing somewhere enar where she left me! Shes gone! I get direty looks from these Slovak, the rest are jumping, knock into me. I start to worry, bad. Olie has my bag, all my shit, money and cell phone. WHat if I dont find her, wtf then? OK i chill I enjoy the songs, although I widh I could already find her. The visuals include neon orange robots- FADE out - oranage cockroaches scattering up and down with a black background. The light show is sick, green strobe rays penetrate every dimension and the fog between it creates a harddrive jungle ecstacy play land. Then a clown with yellow teeth laughs and looks at me with insidiuous eye, yellow whites! I decide to get closer to the front, some Slovak girls grill me and push me and start saying shit in Slovak to me. BUt then I see her, Olie! In her 80s , tight fitted hoodie sweater with neon ribbons streamers! We hug eachtother and start jumping, OMG OMG! We start to enjoy the show finally! The blunt is ready and these tight ass, square Slovaks yell at us and shake their heads when we smoke. Fuck em! We dance and jump! It felt great to finally be there, to have this goal accomplished. Higher, higher HIGHHHHHHHHHHH-er... no finish. Where is my orgasm? Nihil!The stage booms with silver blair! Boom, the stage goes dark! Its over!!!!!!????
The lights come on, stage crew began to unplug stereos and pack up eqipment! WTF! WE cheer for the brothers to come back! Oliva yells at the top of her lungs, with her Mexican accent." Hermanos Chemicos! Una otra, una otra" We realize this was the end! Just as we started to enjoy it and finally founjd eachtoher. Im a little upset, I really,really wanted to hear Where do I start, Where do I begin, this song, was what got me hooked in the first place!
We start to talking to the sound guy and complain about why they ended so early. I came all the way from NY , Mexico,Prag! His name is Ricadilly, like Picadilly, he says that he has been with the Brothers for 10 years and they dont really need to be doing this anyways! Also the ghetto arena has a 10pm curfew! Oh man.( We have the whole night ahead us- our bus doesnt leave till noon the next day ) The security guards are kicking everyone out. The arena is blue and silver, I'm dazed,drunk and sweaty and want more! We stand behind the stage and Ricadilly offers us some wine, and invites us backstage! WOOT! We met the Chemical Brothers!! except we didnt even know it. We went for the food and booze first, guacamole. The Chemical Brother who always rocks the dark shades - Tom Rowlands sat on a couch across from us, we mingled in a small circle and met some others... these blonde German, press or whatever media bs bulshit reps started speaking in German, we stood there completely left out from this Deutsche exchange. Then it was time for them to go, they had a show in Bologna the next day... it was the wee old hour of 11:30pm ... I started to feel anxious like what the fuck were we supposed to do ALONE IN nightime BRATISLAVA 4 the next 14 hours??? We didnt know anyone or know any places to check out.
I was so thankful to Ricadilly, he said to friend him on myspace and said he could hook us up for VIP passes for the summer tour! WOOoT!! I met ( sort of ) the Chemical Brothers. Well now I know Beth Horton is the angelic, passionate and sensual female vocalist in Where do i start, where do i begin!!!
OK so we started walking to the bus stop, according to reccomendations. It started to storm as we walked. 10minutes pass, 3 inches of snow on the ground, wind wind windd long abandoned streets. We bundle and keep walking. Then we see a taxi and tell him to take us to some joint we were reccomended.

We had some fun dancing in this bar, then we met some weird Slovakian guys , while we dance with them . He whips out his id , which identifies him as police! Wtf. He goes I am police, we today we are friends. creeepy! They buy Olie and me some rum and cokes. Mine tastes pretty nasty and i get this weird feelings like i should have my guard up and be extra cautious. I felt like Oliva might be too drunk and it might end up being me to take care of shit tonight. My head throbbed and I needed to get away from the loud bass, we left this place and walked toward this bulding behind the white trees. The cold was so refreshing and clear, i needed it to soberize myself. It ends up being some university housing for a nearby college. Its broken and the cafeteria has broken glass all over the floor and some passed out men, def. not student age. We start talking to these Slovakian boys who are deranged... "Bratislava is better then Prague" he responded after we said how we enjoy studying in Praha...
The next few hours suckkkk -

Its only 3am by now and I rush out of the cafeteria place to vomit- except Ive never vomited this much in my life. For the next 5 hours I vomit every 10-15 minutes. I was so exhausted I had nothing left but bile, then amidst this projectile vomiting, head pounding chaotic pain, head smells of that funky rum and coke I realize i must have been roofied- those Police Slovakian guys?? It had to be, after being a human vomiting machine for hours I was sure because the last time I felt this chemical taste, those motherfucker. I had only drank a little but it was enough for this.
I felt so alone and Olivia and I started argueing, where would we go- the boys she met invtited us to their place but i was this vomiting nightmare and i didnt trust anyone. Lets cab it to the bus station... so we did.
5am-6am we are passed out and sleeping but the guards wake us up eachtime we doze off, apparently there is a law against sleeping in bus stations.
Fluorescent lamps above, putrid, tinsel and jolly decorations, a red bus turned coffee shop to our right- time goes so slow. I finally stop throwing up!

I really just want to get back into my bed in Prague. Olivia probably regretted coming to the concert- we are out of money and she discovers that her cell phone is gone- what a shitty night. Then I get an idea that maybe we can exchange our noon tickets for earlier ones. Its 7am now, people begin to populate this forsaken bus station...This ticket exchange ended ebing a bad idea b/c they took our tix and returned half the money- we didnt understand! Customer Service and asking to speak to a manager in Eastern Europe - neither exist. SO now we dont have a ticket back to Prague and not enough cash to get another one. they stole our ticket we knock on the windows and they tell us to fuck off!!
Olivia was about to freak out, we hated Slovakia at this point. Collectively, we had been robbed, roofied and cheated out of our ticket home!
We jsut barely scrounge up enough crowns to pay the bus driver after waiting for an hour in the cold for this bus. One woman threw us a few crowns and anothers, then witht the student discount we finally can get new tickets! I was so relieved not an atom in my organism could bare remaining here for another moment.
Never was I soo happy to see Florenc bus station in Praha , walk across the bridge to Malostranska climb into the futon bed in the Kolej! We had survived!