Praha the dva
Prague day Two.
I get up late, eat some breakfast and hit the town, attempting to do a guided walking tour. We start the tour about 25 people strong, but not 5 minutes into our walk down Wencelas square, the skies open up and the rain comes belting down.
It lasts the entire 4 hour tour.
My shoes, socks, backpack, and even my journal get soaked. Our guide tries to carry on as we stoop under archways and anything else we can find. We make our way up to the jewish quarter where we see Euope's oldest synagogue (complete with counter-clockwise clock!), a really neat astrological clock and some of the history of this fairy-tale like city. The architecture here is amaying, and a real mix of everything from gothic, baroque, art nouveau and modern styles. During the tour I hang out with a couple of English girls (studying in Aberdeen), a Scottish couple and a rather loudmouth Albertan. We stop for a traditional czech lunch and I order the beef goulash with dumplings. Its really good, but a bit too oniony (they must chop about 1 whole large onion for each serving).
After lunch we head across the tourist-packed Charles bridge and up towards Prague castle. The views are amazing as we climb up towards the castle, looking down into the city below. Due to the rain, our tour takes extra long and we only get about 15 minutes inside the St. Vitus cathedral. While inside, they actually flick the lights on and off ala last call at a bar in order to kick everyone out at the end of the day... quite amusing. The church is quite beautiful both inside and out, and we hear our guide give us a quick story on one fellow who helped build the gothic cathedral, but fell to his death, and his co-workers erected a small statue of him hidden away on the side of the cathedral.
The tour ends and some of us head down to a local bar for a pint. Beer seriously is cheaper than water here (as we found out), and we make plans to go out that evening. Unfortunately, I'm the only one in the group staying at my hostel so we tentatively say to meetup at their hostel after dinner. I head back to my hostel to change my wet clothes and eat, but it takes longer than I expect to get back to their hostel on the other side of town and they are nowhere to be found. Undaunted, I walk the 5 minutes to the place where we were planning on going to drink thinking they just went ahead, but upon arrival, I walk into a completely empty bar. I have one of the girls mobile numbers, but spend 15 minutes trying to track down a payphone, only to finally get through and reach... voicemail!
Totally frustrated, I decide just to walk around for a bit and make my way all the way back out to my hostel, what a bust this evening turned out to be.
Prague Day Three.
Finally some nice weather! It cheers me up from last nights let down, and I vow to only make plans with people from my hostel from here on out. First order of business, is purchasing a train ticket to Berlin, that after jumping from information desk to information desk, I eventually succeed in doing. I still have to book hostels for Berlin and Cologne, so I trek back to the hostel to take care of that.
When I get there I find that the office is closed with a sign saying that they will return at 4pm. Another waste! So I hop on the tram and get back into town and decide to check out the Franz Kafka museum. I enjoy the exhibit quite thoroughly, though I felt a little unprepared having never read any of this existentialists works (there was naturally a bit of background, but the exhibit was designed to capture the nature of his work, and lead to a very unorthodox and interactive display of things to look at, walk through, and touch). Well worth it. I take a few snapshots of this really neat building shaped in glass and curves to look like Fred Astaire and Ginger dancing, then get back to the hostel for internet hostel booking and dinner.
Hostels booked, weinerschnitzel consumed, I chat with my american roomies (one's a philosophy major who has read and really digs "Godel, Escher, Bach" and I'm quite taken aback by that). They and a couple of canadians and one aussie had bought a couple bottles of 3 euro vodka and were planning on hanging out round the hostel that night. I tag along and we play several different drinking games. The vodka is called "boris" and tastes dreadfully awful, so I'm really focused on not losing. I teach them the infamous "yeehah" drinking game and everyone has a good laugh. Its quiet time at the hostel so we all make our way out to the golf course to chat and polish of the rest of the alcohol. All the girls have to get up early tomorrow to catch trains, and one of the Aussie girls looks really rough as she heads to bed. I too have to catch a train the next day, but fortunately its not until 1pm. I bid my american buddies goodnight and doye off to a really restful slumber.
I get up late, eat some breakfast and hit the town, attempting to do a guided walking tour. We start the tour about 25 people strong, but not 5 minutes into our walk down Wencelas square, the skies open up and the rain comes belting down.
It lasts the entire 4 hour tour.
My shoes, socks, backpack, and even my journal get soaked. Our guide tries to carry on as we stoop under archways and anything else we can find. We make our way up to the jewish quarter where we see Euope's oldest synagogue (complete with counter-clockwise clock!), a really neat astrological clock and some of the history of this fairy-tale like city. The architecture here is amaying, and a real mix of everything from gothic, baroque, art nouveau and modern styles. During the tour I hang out with a couple of English girls (studying in Aberdeen), a Scottish couple and a rather loudmouth Albertan. We stop for a traditional czech lunch and I order the beef goulash with dumplings. Its really good, but a bit too oniony (they must chop about 1 whole large onion for each serving).
After lunch we head across the tourist-packed Charles bridge and up towards Prague castle. The views are amazing as we climb up towards the castle, looking down into the city below. Due to the rain, our tour takes extra long and we only get about 15 minutes inside the St. Vitus cathedral. While inside, they actually flick the lights on and off ala last call at a bar in order to kick everyone out at the end of the day... quite amusing. The church is quite beautiful both inside and out, and we hear our guide give us a quick story on one fellow who helped build the gothic cathedral, but fell to his death, and his co-workers erected a small statue of him hidden away on the side of the cathedral.
The tour ends and some of us head down to a local bar for a pint. Beer seriously is cheaper than water here (as we found out), and we make plans to go out that evening. Unfortunately, I'm the only one in the group staying at my hostel so we tentatively say to meetup at their hostel after dinner. I head back to my hostel to change my wet clothes and eat, but it takes longer than I expect to get back to their hostel on the other side of town and they are nowhere to be found. Undaunted, I walk the 5 minutes to the place where we were planning on going to drink thinking they just went ahead, but upon arrival, I walk into a completely empty bar. I have one of the girls mobile numbers, but spend 15 minutes trying to track down a payphone, only to finally get through and reach... voicemail!
Totally frustrated, I decide just to walk around for a bit and make my way all the way back out to my hostel, what a bust this evening turned out to be.
Prague Day Three.
Finally some nice weather! It cheers me up from last nights let down, and I vow to only make plans with people from my hostel from here on out. First order of business, is purchasing a train ticket to Berlin, that after jumping from information desk to information desk, I eventually succeed in doing. I still have to book hostels for Berlin and Cologne, so I trek back to the hostel to take care of that.
When I get there I find that the office is closed with a sign saying that they will return at 4pm. Another waste! So I hop on the tram and get back into town and decide to check out the Franz Kafka museum. I enjoy the exhibit quite thoroughly, though I felt a little unprepared having never read any of this existentialists works (there was naturally a bit of background, but the exhibit was designed to capture the nature of his work, and lead to a very unorthodox and interactive display of things to look at, walk through, and touch). Well worth it. I take a few snapshots of this really neat building shaped in glass and curves to look like Fred Astaire and Ginger dancing, then get back to the hostel for internet hostel booking and dinner.
Hostels booked, weinerschnitzel consumed, I chat with my american roomies (one's a philosophy major who has read and really digs "Godel, Escher, Bach" and I'm quite taken aback by that). They and a couple of canadians and one aussie had bought a couple bottles of 3 euro vodka and were planning on hanging out round the hostel that night. I tag along and we play several different drinking games. The vodka is called "boris" and tastes dreadfully awful, so I'm really focused on not losing. I teach them the infamous "yeehah" drinking game and everyone has a good laugh. Its quiet time at the hostel so we all make our way out to the golf course to chat and polish of the rest of the alcohol. All the girls have to get up early tomorrow to catch trains, and one of the Aussie girls looks really rough as she heads to bed. I too have to catch a train the next day, but fortunately its not until 1pm. I bid my american buddies goodnight and doye off to a really restful slumber.
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