The Nail Bar.

It's not actually called the "The Nail Bar", but everybody calls it that.  It's actually called "Near Perfection" in Czech, because a bar down the street is called "Perfection".  But expats, (the majority of people who go there because there's cool stuff on the walls and the beer is cheap) call it the nail bar.  Because there's a giant tree stump on the floor.  And people play a game with a small pick-axe passed around the circle trying to get their nail nailed into the stump first one smack at a time.  After or while drinking. 

It's filed under "Things You Probably Won't See in the States".  Liabilities?  Here?  Naaaah. 

It's where I and my TEFL mates were taken on the Friday after the first week of class.  I remember my nail bar night well.  Surprisingly.  Many of the people I met there I still hang out with regularly, some I hadn't seen until last night.  I was immidiately welcomed into the fold of Sci-Fi night then and there.  The girl I'm always asking annoying questions about jobs and banks and the city was there, as was the Brit I had a fling with.  It all seems so long ago, but enough reminiscing. 

We met about half of the new class there last night.  They have a bigger and more diverse group than we had.  It was really fun to feel like an old pro around them and keep meeting new people I missed at the last meetup or just haven't come across.  I also invited a Canadian girl I met hours before at my school. Anyway, after a while we migrated to U Sudu.  It's a big underground place with multiple rooms connected by windy hallways.  It's cool, but you're going to come out smelling like U Sudu.  Then a lot of them wanted to go to a club, which isn't my thing and if there's one thing I'm good at it's knowing when to call it a night.  A few others went home too so we split up and caught our respective night trams.*

I'm always learning new things about the expat community here.  It's such a diverse group, and everybody is here for different reasons, but we all kind of share the same mind set.  Go places, do things, meet people, have absolutely no idea what is going to happen tonight or next week or in six months, terrified of marriage and children, and barely knowing what the word mortgage means.  Simultaneously self-obsessed and interested in everything and everyone.  Some really seem to have it together and some are a mess.  It's not like the expat thing is anything new, there's been lots of famous artists and writers and teachers and relief workers who spent time working abroad.  And not to project a label on the thing, but there's something interesting about this generation of mine that can't find jobs and wont grow up.  But I do feel like I'm a part of something unique to here and now, and that we could possibly make a semi-interesting documentary or something.



*It's kind of hilarious to use "respective" and "night tram" in the same sentence.