For a place that used to be highly structured — i.e. communistic — Prague doesn’t have many rules. People cross willy nilly in front of trains and jump off bridges, prostitution is legal and absinthe is sold like it’s lemonade. The Czech Republic was the second stop on my 22-country adventure.

One of the nearby bridges is known for its bungee jumps, there are clubs and pub crawls abound and I watched someone try to outrace a tram — in front of the tram — on a bike. Fun? Yes. His brightest moment? Let’s hope not.

The city of Prague’s claim to fame is being the place where a guy got pushed out of a window and helped start a war. (Remember the Defenestration of Prague from high school world civ? Probably not.) The war was the 30 Years’ War, which is an excessively long time to fight about something even as frightening as falling 70 feet. After the trouble such lax rules about window safety brought them, you’d think they’d be more careful, but no. I saw the window, and they still had it open.

The only real rules in Prague are to try the goulash with dumplings, a pastry that looks like a slap bracelet made of dough called a trdelnik (that’s not a typo, things are spelled crazily here), and don’t fall into the pits that sometimes are randomly in the sidewalk.

As I was carrying my pack on my back like a true Prague backpacker, I almost fell backward into one of these pits (don’t laugh … my pack weighs half my body weight so I’d be like a beetle stuck on its back if I ever really fell), righted myself, then had my hair blown back by a tram that blew out of nowhere with no warning.

My little trip to Prague was a blast, but it did give me an appreciation for some of the rules that I scoff at that come with our wealthy American infrastructure. And it might stink that the U.S. dollar conversion rate is pretty bad right now, but at least it doesn’t take 17 dollars to make a crown (it takes about that many crowns to make a USD).

So, my suggestions for you if you ever visit Prague?

Eat a dumpling, pack light and don’t stand next to empty windows.