Bohemia

The Charles Bridge

 

The rest of my time in Prague is a bit blurred, considering I was there for about a week and a half total, and got a bit behind on my writing. I stayed with B&T for another couple of days before they left to go back to the States as well. We still did a lot, like hiking up to Petrin Hill and going up the Eiffel Tower look-alike to see 360 views of the city.

We also crashed some sort of University Battle of the Bands going on nearby, with cheap beer and those cinnamon cuffs that Prague is apparently known for. They were kind of awesome. Soft dough with a crisp cinnamony outside, yum.

Then that night for my birthday, we went to this amazing gelato place that I'd found online. When we got to the doorstep, it didn't look like much, but luckily I knew to go upstairs, where the real goodies were. Gelato scoops were only an American dollar for us (which is about 20 Czech dollars) so we took full advantage. Their specialty seems to be a cookie flavor, which is amazing, but their fruit flavors are fantastic as well. B wanted to come back again to get the lime he had, and I did come back a couple of times to try the orange and watermelon, which were also lovely (wow, that's really British of me). They also had really cheap little sandwiches, which made this my favorite hang out spot in Prague.

Birthday yummies

B&T left early in the morning, and had an interesting adventure when they were trapped in the corridor between the stairs and the sidewalk. Luckily, the car sent to pick them up to go to the airport was driven by a Czech spy, who sprung the lock with a spare pen without much trouble. Which was a good thing, because I was totally oblivious to all the drama happening downstairs until I woke up a few hours later.

The Changing of the Guard

I checked into a hostel for the remainder of my stay and got to know Prague pretty well. I found most of the tourist sights I'd read about by accident just by walking by, including the amazing tower of books in front of the Prague library and the building painted and carved to seem to be in 3D. I saw Don Giovanni performed by marionettes, saw the changing of the guard, visited the Lennon wall, watched the Astronomical clock circle around on the hour and strolled through parks and the town, soaking up the culture and the people.

The Lennon Wall

I noticed a few interesting things while I was here. For example, everyone has a dog and goes walking it at night.  That's just what everyone does.  They also wait really patiently for the bus.  There's very little messing about with phones, mp3 players or books - most people just stand and wait for their bus, and stand and wait to get to their stop once on board.

Another thing is that during the week, the kids are always out on field trips.  I don't know if it was just the particular two weeks I was there, but it seemed like wherever I went, there were little kids in school uniforms invading.  I wish we had so many field trips when I was at school.

The Prague Library

People in Prague do tend to speak a lot of English, which is great, but I still always feel badly when I have little or no knowledge of the native language of a place.  It does make it difficult when at stores too, because the labels aren't always totally clear.  I bought a bottle of what I assumed was chocolate milk, with a happy cow and a block of chocolate on it, only to taste it and find that it was a horrifyingly sour yogurt.  I didn't find any milk the whole time I was in the country, though at restaurants they did continually try to ply me with bread baskets that weren't free, something sneaky I'd read about in the guidebook and knew to refuse.

Marionette Opera

The checkout line at the grocery store takes forever.  They haven't yet figured out what to do if an item doesn't scan or isn't in their booklet.  Which astonishes me, seeing that it happened to someone in line every time I was waiting to buy my groceries.  But there doesn't seem to be a set practice to solve this widely occurring problem.  Also?  Coke Zero costs more than Coke.  I don't know why.

The Astronomical Clock

One thing that I was surprised at was how often people lit up their cigarettes in the middle of a room, be it a restaurant or a museum.  I thought that I'd become pretty accustomed to there being smoking and non smoking sections in much of Europe, but it still felt odd to be in the middle of a museum presentation and smell smoke.  It's just different.

Overall, the people of Prague are polite but distant.  I did get into a few good conversations around town, but for the most part, people were very reserved.  But that also might have been due to my lack of ability in speaking Czech as well.  It'll be a bit of a relief to be back in London where I won't have to worry about picking a restaurant that has a menu displayed in English.