Prague Code
The other day as I was watching the final hours of my 20's tick away — 48 of them left at this point — Rapi Castillo messaged me with an offer unlike any other I had received up until this point of my life. Rapi must have made such a great impression of Prog Code when he spoke in Germany that the PES wanted to fly us back to another conference a few weeks later. He was unfortunately already committed to a conference in Big Sur, so he asked me to go instead, which I jumped at the opportunity to oblige.
Just a week later I found myself at the SeaTac airport; perhaps the only airport with both a mountain view and live guitar player immediately after the check-in point.
Like any tenured airport vet, immediately after check-in I picked up water and some snacks, then made my way to my gate’s nearest bar. There I enjoyed a delicious Bloody Mary and some freezing cold ice water, while breaking out the new headphones my family just bought me for my now-passed 30th birthday.
Thanks to the power of technology, I was able to jump on a really interesting and inspiring call with several people from MoveOn as well as a bunch of other people doing amazing things in the progressive technology space.
Quickly after the call ended, it was time to board my plane to Germany, final destination: Prague. Fortunately for me, Alberto and my friends at PES hooked me up with the SWAG Economy Plus seats, featuring ridiculous leg room.
And blankets.
And Scotch.
And amazing food.
And incredible views.
Though I don’t really know if they can take credit for that last one. Thanks to a wonderful melatonin and booze and other-legal-things-fueled nap, I was in Germany before I knew it.
This exists as well. Europe does really seem to love to smoke. I guess they aren’t all about the vape yet like we are here. Soon enough, Europe. Soon enough.
After a couple hour layover and a very short flight, I was descending upon an unexpectedly beautiful landscape, interspersed with towns and farmland.
Following a photo-less landing and airport trip, I was on my way to the hotel, where I took probably my least impressive picture of the trip.
The hotel offered a pretty cool view and, most importantly, was positioned extremely close to the conference center. Really useful when the average temperate is around freezing.
After arriving I had a quick call with Rapi discussing the following day’s presentation. It was rather ironic that, preparing for a talk on the tech that fuels the grassroots movement, Rapi had to acquire a calling card and head to a phone booth to talk, due to poor internet at his respective conference in Big Sur. We realized the technical limitations actually lent itself quite well to my talk, as I focused on culture being the driving force to successful grassroots organizing, the tools we use are simply the byproduct. Following our chat because I’d been out of the states for like 16 hours at this point and hadn’t eaten in a while I figured I would satiate both itches with room service: the laziest way to consume calories.
After breakfast the next morning I made my way to the conference center, walking with another presenter I met along the way.
Made my way into the conference building, first priority finding the room where I’d be speaking. I can not emphasize enough how poor I am at directions nor how easily I get lost, so this is doubly critical.
As everyone knows, the most important feature to any conference is the view. Time to figure out how we did today…
So THIS is the beautiful Prague everyone’s been talking about. OK, I get it now. Everything just looks so clean, albeit really, really old. I was still quite a bit early for the first session, however I was able to meet my host, Alberto, and Heather, a former Hillary staff member and genuinely awesome person with whom I was able to spend a ton of time with on this trip.
I took the opportunity to walk around and see the booths. Overall the presenters (and activities attendees) skewed surprisingly much younger than I expected.
After a quick tour of the venue, it was time to start the first talk, taking a retrospective on the US General Election.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of my session, but if you try really hard to use your imagination, you may be able to depict the setting. What you need to do is think about the exact scene from above picture, except with me and three other people instead of the people pictured above. During our session we talked about the technology’s impact on Grassroots organizing (hint: a lot!), wherein I discussed the technology the developer grassroots movement has been developing and what it relies upon to do so, albeit with an unexpected twist.
Following the talk I went to the kickoff, which included passionate speakers and panel discussion from many political leaders throughout Europe representing the PES. Fortunately for me, our host Alberto hooked us up with some prime-time seats reserved for representatives from the states. USA-USA-USA!
Following the session I headed back to my hotel room to catch a quick power nap due to massive jetlag in advance of the party. Coming from Seattle, I was able to catch a rare glimpse of the moon looking awesome and what I guess is one of our neighboring planets. Hopefully a good one.
Following a wonderful nap I headed back to the party, where I met up with a bunch of my new friends, including Martin from Austria, Sebastian from Australia, Seamas from Ireland (from where my dad’s people originated), a group from the United States, and a bunch of people from recent favorite country, Greece! As Martin and I were wandering around the venue, a ruckus broke out near the entrance.
It was astonishing to see Jeremy directly in the middle of such a crowd, quite literally at arms reach at one point. I considered offering him my beer I hadn't started drinking yet, however decided against it. I wonder if he would have taken me up on it. Shortly after the Corbyn hysteria, Martin and I gathered with Heather, an amazing staffer from the Hillary campaign, Erik, a Norwegian politician, and Catalina, a Romanian politician, wherein we decided we would keep this night going by heading downtown.
After we finally got in our Uber we realized that, despite talking about going out for a while, we never actually landed on a specific place to meet. Which was problematic, as we needed to separate into two cars. Heather, Catalina and I picked “B-52” because I thought I remembered hearing something with a “B.” A short time after ordering some ridiculously cheap 13 year-old Scotch, Martin and Erik serendipitously happened to show up at the foot of the bar.
Shortly after arriving Catalina pointed out a sign on the fridge — “Fuck You Immigrant” — which indicated that perhaps this wasn’t the best place for this ragtag group of global radical liberals to convene. Still, we finished our drinks, listened to some rocking karaoke, and plotted out our next move, as the bar was closing at 2 AM, yet the night was still young.
We made our way down the street to an awesome basement of a bar where a couple other small groups were also hanging out. We ordered a round of drinks and made plans with Heather and Catalina to reconvene in the morning to explore Prague, with Heather busting out her MAD advance staff skills; it was seriously impressive. Erik joined us a couple minutes after we sat down, where he sheepishly announced “I’ve been bad…”
Turns out, the being bad was manifested in ten tequila shots, paired with cinnamon and orange (which surprisingly works quite well). Not my regular Friday night any longer, however I figured “when in Prague” I might as well embrace the environment and continue along my college-esque revelry.
Around this time someone put on some really exciting local music, accompanied by another patron joining from the previously vacant drum kit. Despite not understanding a word of one-another’s languages (I tried, it’s hard!) we were able to make some great friends, culminated with a raucous dance party. As we were heading out we shared a huge embrace with the other patrons, a pretty great metaphor for what we’re trying to accomplish. We made our way back to our respective hotels wherein I ordered and then devoured a delicious pizza, then passed out for a couple hours.
The previous night Heather, Catalina and I made plans to rendezvous on the Charles Bridge, which felt pretty romantic in the literary sense. Because Heather is one of those super-humans that only requires four hours of sleep, she was up early, though spent her time stuck in line at some boring castle. I took the opportunity to explore a beautiful nearby park.
I wandered through the park stumbling upon a tiny, frozen lake. Ice isn’t really something we have in Seattle (until this winter, anyway — thanks, OBAM…err, climate change), so it provided quite the throwback to my days growing up in frigid Philadelphia and State College.
Further down the path, I found another childhood staple: peacocks. Albeit, peacocks in the wild instead of the Philly zoo.
I also found these funny statues.
Nearing the time of our scheduled rendezvous, I headed toward our meeting place near the metro. There was this awesome flying lion statue there, which I feel every city should have.
I met up with Heather then we made our way over to the Charles Bridge to find Catalina.
As great an idea it originally sounded, one piece of advice for others planning to meet on the Charles Bridge: probably don’t. While the view was beautiful, there were wall-to-wall people. Fortunately, Catalina’s jacket looked like a pack of animals, so she was fairly easy to spot.
On our way to finding food we made our way past a creepy puppet shop.
Fortunately, next door there was a rather un-creepy restaurant with awesome décor, delicious food and rejuvenating beverages. We also met the establishments awesome proprietor, although for some reason he refused to share his name with us.
Pretty quickly we got a shitload of delicious food, which kept us occupied until some more pizza later on. One rather odd thing they served that Heather and I were NOT fans of was pig fat with bread, as well as cream cheese. Apparently it’s all the rage in Romania, though.
Following lunch we continued our trek around town, en route to the Jewish Quarters. We passed another old building that looked pretty cool.
We made our way past construction and down some alley. Albeit, a super old looking alley.
We finally made it to the Quarters, but, just our luck, seeing as it was Shabbat, everything was closed.
To balance things out, our next destination was the Christmas Market. But first thing we needed to do was visit this clock like seven times.
We found the Christmas Market and, lo and behold…
We were on an unsuccessful mission for chocolate covered strawberries, however we did find a giant Christmas tree.
There was also a set of Christmas themed stairs. They didn’t seem to have any real purpose, but at lest made for a nice photo op.
Making our way out of the market, while continually losing one-another, we found this awesome metal working area.
And probably the most beautiful scene from the entire trip.
After the Jewish Quarters, Christmas Market, the most logical next step: The Communism Museum.
Inside the museum we were greeted by a couple curators extremely true to form of the topic there. And by greeted, I mean chased around the museum with them yelling at us about paying for a ticket (we did).
The giant statue made me feel like I was back in Fremont, a few blocks away from where our Lenin statue lives.
For the last stop at the museum, we saw a piece of the Berlin wall.
Back to the streets, the second-to-last stop on our Prauge tour was to the Sex Machines Museum. So, fair warning that the next few pictures are going to feature some pretty fucking weird shit.
Entering the museum we were greeted with this beauty.
And enjoyed some classic 1920s porn.
Also, this exists.
As well as these stylish-ass shoes.
Then we saw these super sensible shoes prostitutes used to wear, which left an imprint in the sand that basically said “this way for a good time.”
And this animatronic brothel.
And the pièce de résistance.
Leaving the Sex Machines Museum with a newfound appreciation for…something…nightfall had descended upon Prague.
For the final stop on our Prague city tour we visited an Italian restaurant. Because, what more authentic was is there to enjoy authentic Prague than with whiskey and pizza.
Because mine and Catalina’s flights were at stupid-early-o’clock the next morning we decided we’d call it a night rather than hit up the party with Heather and the crew.
We made it to the airport, barely able to fight through the suffocating 4 AM crowds.
Waiting for the plane we found what I assume was one of the Sex Machines Museum rejects.
Finally boarding my flight to Germany I was really taken aback by the frost on the window. Besides requiring a hot water hose down, I thought the interconnected hub and spoke frost was a pretty good analogy to what we’re attempting to accomplish with Prog Code. While everything is independent, all individual parts are also interconnected, creating a network where each piece relies on its constituent pieces.
As the flight took off a fantastic landscape emerged.
As well as a dazzling sunrise.
All in all, my trip to Prague and the PES was a pretty magical experience. It was eye opening to see firsthand how, even though there were so many distinct cultures and countries represented, the issues we are facing are by and large the same. While we have a huge uphill battle ahead of us, it also represents a tremendous opportunity that the community is excited to collaborate on together.