Somehow I made it back alive.
Actually, Prague was a wonderful city in every way except the temperature. Well, and that whole part where I can't speak or read or function in Czech and now between Czech money, Spanish/Portuguese music, and Japanese habits I can barely function in English, let alone Dutch, but that's beside the point. (From yesterday: I've been awake since 4am (not counting several 3-20 minute travel naps)
and have a bit more work to do, so this is going to be (somehow)
concise.) Wait! Concise... with pictures.
We met up at 7:45 in the courtyard to walk to the 8:00 bus. At 7:53, Chris B remembered that he'd forgotten his passport in his room. Strike 1. Then it was 40 minutes on the bus (minus Chris) to the Venlo train station (turns out I was in Venlo after all!), for breakfast (mine was a bag of sliced apple and a small coffee) followed by 45ish minutes on the train, 15 minutes on the bus to the airport by 10:40, negligible but annoying passport drama, then takeoff at 12:20. We arrived in Prague at 1:45 and went to meet the taxi driver, but while we were all getting our crowns out Stephanie realized she'd left her wallet somewhere. Strike 2. About a half-hour taxi drive later (complete with Adele, Michael Jackson, and Moby on the playlist), we landed at Sir Toby's - only to find that everyone had actually made their reservations separately, which I hadn't realized. Strike 3. Fortunately, I was able to make my reservation that day, so no harm done.
While we were waiting for the Wallet Party to arrive (they stayed an extra 15-30 minutes to recover the goods), I divvied out the cookies I had oh-so-cleverly bought and packed the day before from my favorite bakkerij ever. Turns out, the second group's taxi driver was super cool and told them about cool spots in the city, such as the pizza place next door to us (actually one of the best in Prague, go figure). We saw the very happy Happy Hour sign and finally sat down for food: Mine was ram's horn, egg, sort of hot pepper, and basil.
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| I ate the whole thing except that giant pepper |
The whole thing was about $8 with water and tip. WHAT
Our receptionist, whose name I don't think we ever got, mapped out directions to the city, sold us the (1-time, weird) tram tickets, and off we went into the 9 degree cold.
We stopped at Dojna's favorite bar, Coyotes - Chris said it was "basically Coyote Ugly," but I honestly wouldn't know. The drink menu was absolutely incredible, but I didn't really love my selection much. C'est la vie.
After debating (and unanimously agreeing against) going clubbing, we stayed at the hostel, loitering as a group in the downstairs lounge (with 2/€5 wine, cheapest ever) until 2:30am. An organizer from the local pub crawl tried to get us to come, but we were all exhausted and rainchecked for the next day. For the rest of the night we talked, played the Sticky Head Game, met travelers from Utrecht, Ireland, and Rome, and generally chilled out; I discovered my new favorite drink, B-cola (Becherovka with Coke and lemon; unfortunately, Becherovka is going to be pretty hard to find in the US, and I'm not allowed to look until June anyway), and we had a sudden Hallelujah jamsesh when one of the other hostelers started strumming from across the room. Chorus throwback!
The next morning we all woke up starving (at about 10...); our receptionist told us about a restaurant nearby with good options, so we scurried through the cold, complete with police directions, to the spot in question. It took about an hour for the food to get to us, but god, was it worth it. Michelle and Stephanie split the 2-person Czech meat skillet, with about 8 different kinds of meat (duck, beef, ham, pork knuckle, chicken etc). I had " Holešovický flák z vepřové krkovice " - Traditionally prepared pork neck, with bacon-onion roasted potatoes on the side. AHaekfna;slkdfma
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| This one's for you, Dad |
After lunch, we went out to face the cold (Stephanie lent me her extra beanie, so at least my ears were managed). 7 hours of walking later, we'd seen:
A Mucha/Dali exhibit in the Staromestske Namesti,
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| I was on my own for Mucha but it was so worth it. I also got my (own) hat here! |
The Charles Bridge,
The Lennon Wall,
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| Not to be confused with Lenin |
A view from Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle),
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St Vitus Cathedral,
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| We went inside the next day, but my camera had died. The stained glass was stunning though. |
And a lot of absinthe shops.
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| Absinth ice cream, that's a new one |
The next few hours were recuperating from the walk with a 2-hour sieste (sorely needed) and surprisingly fantastic pasta from the restaurant a 40 second walk from our beds. None of us took pictures of the food this time; by the time we remembered, everything was already gone. Oops.
We finally got out at 9:00; the seven of us doing the crawl sprinted back to prep for call time at 9:15. At 9:20, the receptionist took our Before picture and we headed out to the Mosaic Hostel to collect the other crawlers.
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| Chris B, me, Erin, Michelle, Chris M, Stephanie, Bryan/Big Papa |
The lineup:
1. Mosaic Hostel
2. U Sudu
3. Heaven
4. N11
5. Karlovy Lazne (5 story club)
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| U Sudu, the first bar - Robbert's favorite in Prague, and for good reason. Get Mojitos here!! |
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| On the Oldies Floor (3) of Karlovy Lazne |
All in all, it was a pretty fantastic night - we met crazy boys from Dublin who knew Jersey Shore better than we did, one of whom rooted for Giants, and somehow stayed until 4:30. The only bad parts were that 1. I didn't get the True Prague Experience of "go out all night and buy a street-vendor sausage for the trip back" and 2. We got back at 5am and it looked like someone had been added to the empty bed while we'd been out. (As it turned out, Kleoniki and Katie decided to have their own fun and stuffed the bed to prank us. Needless to say, it worked.)
Sunday morning arrived (well, re-arrived) with Stephanie screaming "GIANTS WON GIANTS WON SUCK IT BRADY HAH," from the bunk above me - one hell of a way to wake up, just saying. It was with a heavy heart that I headed out to Old Town again for breakfast; however, my schnitzel, for whatever reason, came with a surprise beer. Unexpected but delicious.
Next year, Brady. Next year.
On the way, I found an old friend.
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| It's so much better here though |
We explored some more, I bought a replacement hat (the pink one from Saturday is now roaming the streets of Prague on someone's head), and we avoided the snow flurries - yes, snow - with frequent dips into cafés, trams, a street-corner food stand with chocolate-drizzled waffles on sticks (messy but so good; we had chocolate smears for hours), and eventually a Starbucks. Yeah, yeah, I know. At that point on a Sunday, most of the museums were closed and we didn't want to walk outside much anyway. Back at the hostel, we packed up, got dinner at the pasta place again (I had a Stella Artois and it was magnificent), and went back to U Sudu to show Kleo and Katie, despite the horrendously early morning Monday was going to be. The mojitos (and my caipirinha) were just as good tonight as yesterday, if not better.
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| Everyone (well, Erin's taking the picture) on the way to U Sudu |
None of us were tired by 12 when we got home, but the lights were out and we were all trying our damnedest to fall asleep without laughing - somehow we all finally fell asleep, then within hours we were all up again at 4am to journey home.
From 4-11:50am, we taxied, bused, flew, bused, trained, bused and walked back to the Kasteel.
Things that I missed about the castle:
1. Horizontal surface
2. Free water
3. Hot showers
By now (now being Wednesday the 8th), my poor immune system is so shot. I moved from a slight post-smoky-club cough to a full-blown cold, but it already seems to be ebbing off. My Stalin presentation for history class this morning went pretty well, then directly after lunch it was three-hour-naptime. Maybe when I was little I was too cool for naps, but those days are gone now. Naps are where it's at. At this point, I have a day and a half to continue healing before Lucca on Friday - something tells me it won't be quite the same experience as Prague, although it's supposed to still be pretty cold.
In the meantime, someone's singing Cinderella and Beauty & The Beast upstairs and it's almost dinnertime. Maybe it was a quiet 7-hour break this week but it was well spent.
So much for concise, right? HA.
-Bekka
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