WRITTEN FROM A EUROPEAN KEYBOARD WITH ALL THE LETTERS MISPLACED:

I'm in Vienna right now. I tell you this because I want you to think of me as a sophisticated jet-setter type. However, this afternoon, I proved that I am every bit the Ugly American everyone thinks I am.

So I'm driving by myself near the border of the Czech Republic this afternoon when I decide my passport doesn't have enough stamps in it. This whole EU thing really stinks if you're a stamp whore. Back in the day, you could go to Europe and hop from country to country and collect all sorts of stamps and then return home and show them to your friends and use them to prove that you are a better person than your friends because... well... you're better traveled.

But now they've torn the borders down in the name of a free flow of goods, services, and information. So now you fly into some airport, you get some lame looking EU approved stamp, and get nothing else for your troubles, even if you went to many different countries. How am I supposed to prove that I went to Hungary? Pictures? With the state of Photoshop these days, pictures are easily faked.

So yesterday we went to the CZ (that's what cool people call the Czech Rebpublic), and the guards at both the Austrian and Czech borders didn't even want to glance at my passport. I thought there was a chance, what with CZ being a EU nubie and all.

But I was back at the border today to take some pictures (that could have been faked) of this hideous duty free store. It has a King Arthur theme, but there is also an old Soviet-era passenger plane with a naked lady painted on the side. Clearly this is the kind of memory I want to take home with me.

To get to the store, you have to cross the Austrian border, but you don't have to cross completely into the CZ. When I got to the Austrian guard, he takes my passport and furrows his brow. 'California,' he says. He then notes that I had flown into Frankfurt, then... wait for it... stamps my passport! Oh what joy filled my heart!

I take a few pictures of the vegas-like store, then glance north toward the CZ. Could I? Should I try again? I decide to try again.

Sure enough, the woman at the border closely inspects my passport, walks into a building, then presents me with my newly stamped passport. That's two new stamps! Yahoo!

Once across the border, I understand why I may have received more attention today. Yesterday, I was traveling with my wife. Today I'm alone. The town directly across the border from Austria has pretty much one thing, and one thing only... whore houses. I imagine the border guards thought I was slipping across the border for a bit of fun, and wanted to make sure my passport was so marked, just in case my wife wanted to check where I had been.

So now I want to go back across, but I figure that might raise suspicion that I was up to something naughty... even more naughty than sleeping with strange women. So I don't know what to do. I decide to drive off into the countryside, just for the heck of it. How long will it take to be over here until they don't think I was sleeping with prostitutes?

After a while, I realize the guards will think I'm sleeping with prostitutes no matter what. So I head back. But then I stop again. If the guards think I just spent some time with some Czech 'working women,' and I come back 15 minutes later... well... I don't want them to think I can't go the distance. That's almost as bad as being with hookers.

So I wait. I drive through a city with a name like Zypkzpzynomr Krpyzznptrbwq and then park at a gas station. I figure enough time had passed after I had been across the border for 90 minutes. That's a respectable time.

I drive across the border with a satisfied grin and present my passport. Both the Czech and Austrian guards don't even glance at it as I thrust it out the car window.

Bastards.

But I did get those two stamps, so it was all worth it.