2006-09-26 - 9:46 p.m.
Well, despite our best efforts, we survived Prague. What a great city, I think that it has been my favorite so far.
We arrived in Prague mid afternoon from Nuremberg. The first thing on our list was to find Czech money, since they use the Krona, or crown, not the euro. We spent twenty minutes looking around the train station and found lots of money changing places offering absurd rates, but no ATMs. This prompted a search of the area outside the train station, with similar luck. We finally noticed a sign for McDonalds, and we figured that there would be some kind of ATM there. It was a good half kilometer walk, which is a joke to us by this point. The upside to getting lost with frightening regularity is that our stamina is getting pretty we ll developed.
We finally found an ATM, and used McDonalds to get enough change for a phone call. We had brochures from two hostels. They looked to be about the same distance from the center, and one had a kitchen, so we called there first. Luckily enough, they had plenty of room, as well as a deal that if you stayed for seven nights, you got it for the price of six.
We set off to find the hostel, and managed to make a wrong turn. By this point I wouldn't call it lost, but we did go out of our way, walking up and down hills in what looked to be an increasingly sketchy looking part of Prague. Twenty minutes later we finally found the hostel.
The hostel is called the Marabou, and it was incredible. Far and away the best hostel I've seen in the last two and a half months. There was a kitchen, with a big table. There were also two common rooms, one upstairs, and one downstairs. The one downstairs had free internet, as well as Jenga blocks, a pool table and a foozeball table. The whole set up worked out really nicely. If a guy wanted a quiet place to read, there was always somewhere that was fairly quiet. There were one or two bigger groups there, but they would just take over one of the common rooms, leaving the other for everyone else. Much better than when there is just one, and every one is trying to find somewhere to sit.
The dorms were really nice as well. There were seven bunk beds and two single beds in the room, but it was very big, and very nice. The beds were comfortable, with nice big lockers attached. One of the nicest things was that there was a shelf by each bed, so that you didn't have to leave your glasses or book on the floor. It was a very nice hostel.
There was a bar in the hostel as well, and they gave you a free beer when you checked in. That, for me, was the sign that we were in a nice place. Beer is cheap in Prague, and it didn't cost them much, but the beer was sure appreciated on my part after our walk from the train station.
We spent the first night wandering around, looking for an internet cafe and supper. Oddly enough, we were successful in both our ventures, and headed back to the hostel happy at about nine.
When we got back to the hostel we met some of our roommates, who turned out to be really cool. There was Anna, the Texan girl who was on a short trip before studying in Madrid, Nicola, the Scot who was on a twelve day trip through Prague, Poland and Hungary. We were talking to them, when we met Vince, who is another Texan. He had been teaching English in India for a year, and had decided to come to Prague and try to find a job teaching English. Both Vince and Anna were staying in Prague for at least as long as we were, and all of them were really nice.
The next day we did not get up early, which was nice. The other nice thing that we realized is that we had a little bit of extra money. The hostel worked out to under ten euros a night each, with the free day worked in. Prior to this the cheapest we found was in Wittenburg, which was not an exciting city, and that was twelve euro fifty. So with our accommodation working out to less than half what we sometimes pay, and the surprising cheapness of beer and food, we were in a good way.
We spent the first day with Nicola, Vince and Anna, walking downtown, and seeing the old city. Prague is really beautiful- most of the statues have some gold on them, a scepter, or crown, or something. The statues themselves are often black, which makes the gold really stand out. It's a beautiful effect. We went and saw Prague castle. There was a church there, but if you wanted to get in past the back of the nave you had to pay. This was irritating, as I still feel that churches should be free, but you could get in part of it, and there were pews, so I supposed you were still able to go pray for free, which is the important thing.
We had a late lunch/early supper at a little Czech Italian restaurant in the downtown. After supper we wandered around some more, and found one of the weirdest things that I've seen in a city. We had noticed this giant orange thing on top of a hill, and climbed up to get a better look at it. It was quite a ways up, and there were nice steps built in. It was obviously a park of some kind, but it looked a little run down. The orange thing we had noticed turned out to be a giant metronome. I don't know why they had a giant metronome in Prague. Maybe to keep the beat of the city? Who knows. Great view of the city from the top of the hill though.
We made it back to the hostel eventually, and decided to take advantage of the bar in the hostel. Vince bought a couple pool games, I began to realize how nice it was to talk to someone that wasn't Jesse. Prior to Prague, we hadn't really met anyone since Wittenburg, and that was pretty brief. It had been at least since Berlin, which was at this point a good three weeks ago since I had other company. It wasn't that I was sick of him, or anything like that, but it was sure nice to talk to other people. The other nice thing was that they (except Nicola) were staying for a week as well, so we could get to know them beyond the one night talk about your trip conversations. We ended up that night in a Czech bar down the street, where the girl didn't speak any English, and we didn't speak any Czech. It was pretty interesting trying to get our point across, but I guess bar sign language is pretty universal.
Despite a fairly late night, I woke up really refreshed in the morning. I don't know what it was, but I was cheerful. The last week we had moved every two days, which is a lot of travel. I like being able to spend a few days in a place, and to not have to repack every couple nights. I think it was the feeling of being a little settled for a while, combined with meeting very cool new people that did it. My whole time in Prague I was feeling better than I had for a while. In Nuremberg I was starting to get sick of traveling, and wanted to go home. Now I'm all energized again, and can't wait to see more things.
Anyway, the next day Jesse and I spent wandering around downtown, just seeing the city on foot. We saw a little more of the river, and quite a bit more of the downtown area.
We went for supper that night in a Czech restaurant next to the hostel. Czech cuisine seems to be a lot of dumplings and garlic, and they also have their own spin on other food, notably "Chicken Gordon Blue" which nearly every restaurant had. Jesse got a chicken breast with a peach on it, covered in cheese, and I had some kind of really good Czech stir fry. It was definitely a different sort of cuisine, but I loved it. The other nice thing? Less than fifteen euros for two appies, two meals and a two beers.
When we got back to the hostel we found that everyone was going out dancing. Despite the fact that neither of us is a huge dancer, we decided to come along. We went with a couple Portuguese guys, Julio and Bruno. We were having a drink before we went out, and Anna made us tell Vince and the Portuguese the Morocco story. American that she is, she figured that we should make money off telling the story, so she made each of them pony up twenty crowns, which is about eighty five cents. The deal was, she told them, that if they liked the story, they would let us take the money, and if not, they got their money back. We told the story (for the millionth time) and everyone liked it enough to let us keep the money. I suppose it's only fitting that Morocco is starting to pay for itself.
We went out the clubs after the story. Bruno told Jesse all about how to bargain in Morocco (would have been nice to know that before!). We went first to a club called Duplex. It cost three hundred crowns to get in, which is about eleven euro. The beer there was expensive, at eighty crowns a pop. Despite that though, it was worth it. It was the strangest club I've ever been in. It was all disco style, with the lights etc, which is fairly common. The weird thing is that they had this mime,right near the front, who was sort of half miming, half dancing. He was incredibly creepy, and I mean nightmare inducing. He would stare at girls as they walked past, and make weird gestures at them, and his whole shtick was just bizarre. They had a couple girls around him, on platforms, but they were only sort of half dancing, and they looked incredibly bored with the whole thing. Up stairs they had girls on high platforms, doing the same half dance. Every now and then one of them would just stop for a bit, look around vacantly, and start dancing again. One girl was getting her hair done on a stage, after which she started doing a chair dance. There was even a girl on a swing. It was very, very weird.
We left, due mostly to the undiluted weirdness of the joint. We found another club that had a few floors. This was more to the general taste of the group, although I was not feeling that well for some reason.
It was another late night, but I woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed after not too much sleep. I managed to do this nearly the whole week, which was nice. Normally I wake up tired no matter what, but Prague was an exception.
We spent that day with Anna downtown. We went to see the Communist museum, which was interesting. It seemed like a museum for people who have lived through it. There was some good information, and lots of artifacts, but it was the type of museum that I picture Czechs visiting and saying "hey! I used to have one of those!" or "Hey! I remember that!" Kind of like when I went with mom to a sixties exhibit in Edmonton, and she was so excited, because she remembered having and using the things in the exhibits. This didn't make it a worse museum, there was an excellent film on the spring of 1968 when they sent in the tanks, and 1989 when they had the velvet revolutions. It was interesting to walk out of the museum into the square where all this had taken place. Definitely gave you a feel for the city.
Owing to massive overspending at the clubs, we spent a quiet night at the hostel, picking up valuable tips from Vince on how to buy cars. He used to be a car salesman, and told us some of the tricks of the trade.
We also made good use of the kitchen that night. It was sure nice to have hot food that wasn't from a restaurant. We met a couple Australians who were in the hostel as well, Jess and Charlie.
That night was the halfway point of our trip. We felt that it was only right to mark it in someway, so we, along with Vince and Anna, decided to go out to a jazz club. The awesomely helpful girl at the front desk recommended a couple, and we even managed to find one. There was a cover for the jazz club, but the bar was free, and you could hear the music. It was a bit of a surreal experience, drinking in a Czech basement bar arguing politics with a couple of crazy right wing Texans. Surreal, but really fun. All in all, it was a great way to mark the halfway point of the trip. I would say that it's all downhill from here, but the trip has pretty much been all downhill.
The two Aussies, Jess and Charlie had told us about a Church made of bones that was somewhere around Prague. After a bit of confusion, and some judicious applications of Lonely Planet, we realized that it was an ossuary, or graveyard chapel in a little city called Kutna Hora about an hour from Prague. The still awesome desk girl told us where to go, and even looked up train times. Vince was still sleeping, so Jesse and Anna and I set out. The Aussies were going to come,but we couldn't find them.
We got our tickets, and found the train. It took an hour or so, through the lovely Czech countryside to get to the little town. Once there, we found the graveyard with little trouble. It turned out to not be a church made of bones, but to have bone sculptures in it. There were four big pyramids of bones, and a very ornate chandelier made with at least one of every bone in the human body. There was even a family crest made out of bones. It was very, very odd, but I liked it. Definitely a different way to think about what to do with bones!
Bone church duly seen, we headed back to Prague. We tried to catch a train, only to be told, once on board that we were on the wrong train, and would have to catch a different one. We managed this, but it was the roundabout route, that took forever. We did, however, get to see a great deal of the area around Prague. It looks a little like Alberta, in some places.
We went for supper at a little Czech place down the road from the hostel. It was the best cultural experience I've had in a while. This was not a tourist place, at all. The only sop they had to tourists is one English menu. Jesse ordered something Czech. He just picked a dish off the Czech menu where he didn't recognize any of the words. Anna tried to order soup and roasted potatoes, but they would not let her order the potatoes, which were listed as a side, unless she ordered a main dish. The waitress got this across with some fairly huffy pointing at the menu. She left us for a good ten minutes, I guess to let Anna decide what to have. When she eventually reappeared Anna tried to order the soup and something else. I got garlic dumplings with chicken. She brought the soup, which was garlic soup- more garlic than soup, which we shared. When the food came, I swear that Anna got something other than what she ordered. It turned out to be chicken, with pineapple and cheese on top. Jesse ended up with some sort of weird flat bread with lots of veggies and chicken. It looked like it was maybe meant to be vaguely Asian, but with a Czech twist. My dumplings were awesome although the garlic was nearly over powering. When we got the bill, the waitress wrote down all these numbers and toted them up, finishing by scrawling a number none of us could read. Jesse eventually handed her a thousand crown note, and from the change we deduced that it was less then fifteen euros for the three of us. Once again, the cheapness of the local food astounded me. The place was definitely local though- the next table over had a big group of giant Czech men, who all looked like construction workers. A couple of them had brought their dogs.
That night was Anna's last night, so we didn't go out. It was really nice to have a hostel that was amenable to hanging out for a night. Some are so uncomfortable, and make it hard to just sit around. This one was much better for this.
Anna left early the next morning, and we had to switch rooms. The hostel had a big group coming in, and so they shuffled us around. We spent the day downtown, buying souvenirs, and seeing Prague for the last time. I liked the city, but I think you could definitely do it in under a week.
We weren't expecting much from that night. A farewell drink with Vince was the farthest I had expected. We had train reservations booked for seven thirty the next morning, so we didn't want to stay up too late. Yeah, that didn't work out as well as we thought. We ended up drinking and talking to Jess (the Australian, who is also a Canadian) and another Canadian, Andrew, and a few other Aussies and Americans. It was really cool, and a great way to spend out last night.
I went to bed latish, making sure the alarm was set for ten to six. At ten to six, the alarm went off, and, kind man that I am, I turned it off so it would not bother anyone else. Then I fell back asleep. It was seven thirty, seven minutes before our train left that Jesse woke up. There was a brief moment of panic before he checked the tickets. Turns out, we had reservations for seven thirty, but the tickets were good for any train to Bratislava. A little more sleep later, we woke feeling surprising well for the night we had had. I think, despite sleeping past the alarm that this was a better way to leave Prague. We were able to have breakfast, and say good bye to people properly, none of this sneaking out in the middle of the night.
We caught a train to Bratislava. The scenery was really beautiful, and we shared our compartment with an old Czech man who reminded me of no one so much as Grandpa Sivak. Not really in looks, but in general demeanour. It was interesting.
We made it to Bratislava, and found a guy at the train station handing out flyers to a hostel here. I had read about this on the internet, and it looked pretty good. They even gave you a free taxi ride here!
I'm looking forward to Slovakia. I guess it is sort of a pilgrimage of sorts. We are going east, to find the village that Grandpa Sivak grew up in. I'm really looking forward to seeing this, and seeing a little of where my family came from. With a little luck, I may even meet some distant relatives. I've heard about Slovkia quite a bit, and thought about it more. I think this is the one country besides England that I really wanted to see. When I was younger I had a Slovakian flag hanging in my room- it's weird now to see them flying from buildings.
Anyway, Bratislava for three nights, and then out east. If I don't update for a while, I'm just having too much fun with the ancestors!
