Alone in Prague for the weekend, I set out to find rent-a-friends as best I could. Saturday night I decided to go on a pub tour--advertised as a three-hour walk to local pubs complete with a traditional Czech dinner. Just show up at 7:30, in the old town square and drink with like-minded people all night. Perfect. . . until I showed up to find myself thoroughly alone. I felt like I was on a blind date--looking around to see who else wasn' t sure whom they were meeting. By 7:45, this had netted me two women from Spain who also wanted the pub tour. But no guide.

Luckily, the women had the company's phone number and so I called up and got the owner, a man named Peter with an english accent who apologized profusely for there being no guide and said he'd come down right away and take us on a tour himself. Except of course, he didn't usually do the pub tour, so he was really just taking us to bars he liked, and he wasn't sure of the usual protocol. It was quite fun, actually, we talked about Czech things and had a generally good time. . . but he didn't seem to understand the dire need we women had for FOOD. The Spanish women kept nudging me, giving me looks, and telling me in Spanish that I could understand but Peter couldn't how hungry they were. I kept suggesting we stop for dinner, but we kept finding ourselves stopping for another "quick beer! just ten minutes!" at additional -- albeit interesting -- pubs. By 11, we were nervous. Prague's kitchens have a reputation for closing by 8, but our guide insisted it wouldn't be a problem. So at this point we began to search for food, and Peter would say: "I know this place will have food this late," but then it wouldn't. So we'd stay at the new bar and have a beer, while he promised us the next place would have food. Finally at 12:30 we found a pub that still had some soup left for us, and let me tell you, it was FANTASTIC soup, the best I've ever eaten ever. All in all, I actually had a great time, though I'm not sure the Spaniards did, and I don' t think they really ever wanted to see anyone on the tour ever again. So much for finding friends there.

Sunday night, I planned to make friends at a sports bar that showed American football. They advertised they were going to show the Dallas game, and only the Dallas game, but I decided to make do. I figured in the absence of the Redskins game, I could at least root against the enemy with what I was sure would be a bar full of ex-pats. No such luck. First, they didn't show the Dallas game at all, they showed the Giants/Falcons game and the Packers/Patriots game, so mostly I just killed time waiting for the little foxbox to show up with the Redskins score. Second, of the ten people in the bar, half of them were there to watch the soccer game. (Soccer! I ask you!) There was in fact a table of 21 and 22-year-old Redskins fans, but after I talked to them for a few minutes, it became clear they were a male klatch that watched games together every weekend and had little use for an extra. So no friends there either.

Which brings us to tonight, Monday. I went out to dinner at the restaurant across the street, and settled in with my book. I had just ordered my food, when a woman walked over to me and said: "Karen?" My slow brain took about 10 seconds to process what was happening: there in front of me was Merrin Slocombe, a classmate from high school whom I hadn't laid eyes on in 15 years.

A friend! I have a friend in Prague!