Prague Blog: Day 1

Even after nine grueling days of vacationing, touring, hiking, and suntanning, I was not overjoyed to return to Germany. Especially since on our return, it was 60 degrees and raining (and has been about the same ever since). So a few days after we got back, when Tom mentioned that he had another four day weekend coming up, I was definitely up for heading back out on the road. We debated over where to go, how to get there, and which things we really wanted to see. My first choice was Paris-- obviously there are a million things to do and see, plus that particular weekend fell over the 14th, which is Bastille Day. Then I read somewhere about the hours-long lines for things like Versailles, cathedrals, palaces, etc., and thought-- wait. I live three hours from Paris. I don't have to go in July, aka the heaviest part of tourist season. I can go in October and have the place to myself.

And so, after more debate and planning, we decided on the 5.5 hour drive to Prague, Czech Republic. As a total history nerd, I was really, really pumped to visit my first formerly Communist country. I know it's been twenty years since the Iron Curtain and all that, but it fascinated me to think that we could now drive freely into a place where when we were kids, we would not have been allowed to go (that's right, isn't it?) I was definitely curious to see if the cities matched my historical-documentary inspired ideas of what a post-Communist country might look like, to see if Eastern Europeans looked the way I expected they would*, and of course to see the old sights of a very old city that is known for being untouched by the war.
*They prefer to be called Central Europeans now. If you look at the map that makes sense. And if you're wondering what I expected them to look like-- I have this stereotype in my head of the "Soviet Style". It involves oddly dressed people, lots of women with the hair colors I call "East Berlin Orange" and "Russian Red", and people that don't smile much.

It's just a little... bleak, is all.

Driving into the CZ, as I will refer to it, is not any more exciting than driving into any other EU country. No checkpoints or border security. Not even really the remnants of some formerly exciting checkpoints. The countryside didn't change a whole lot from Germany, though there were less piney trees and more leafy ones.  Hills, bluffs, fields, etc. It reminded me a lot of MN. On the outskirts of Prague, I finally noticed some apartment buildings I would identify with my "Eastern European" expectations-- big cinderblock rectangles, sparse and pretty depressing. To be fair, I saw a lot of those in the greater Venice area too, just with paint, and even a few in our area of Germany-- I think versions of it were just en vogue in Europe in the 50s and 60s. Blech. There was a lot of graffiti all over everything. Again, there was also a lot of that in the grungier parts of Venice. We used a park and ride on the outskirts of Prague (about $18 for four days) and took the subway into the touristy heart of the city. The metro was a little scary, as all metros can be. Not like someone might harm me, but it was really crowded and everyone looked grumpy and/or menacing and I felt for the first time in Europe like someone might try to steal my stuff. (I still refuse to clutch my backpack to my chest. That just says "Mug me".) From the metro station we hopped a tram, also surrounded by rather surly, downtrodden looking people, and made it to "our" section of town-- this was the Mala Strana, or "little town", near the Castle Quarter and on the opposite side of the river from the busier Old and New Towns and Jewish Quarter. At this point we were nearing the oldest parts of town, like really old. Many of the buildings had a very Baroque look to them, which Google tells me is 16th- and 17th-century. Most looked like they were in good shape and had been kept up or renovated, though some looked a little worse for wear. There was still a lot of graffiti as well.

See the floor with two windows and the one above it with the round window? That was us!!

Our hotel, the Green Lobster, was very near the Malostranske tram stop and all we had to do was walk up the street. "Up" is the key word here. I'm always getting skunked by how things look simple and flat on maps but in real life involve hills and things that obscure your view of the name of the street two blocks away. The Green Lobster was about halfway up a very long street, the main drag of this section of town, and on an incline we dubbed "The Big Sweaty Hill". There were many beautiful buildings on this street, including the Italian and Romanian embassies (the Mala Strana is also where all the embassies are located). We finally made it to the hotel, which is a small one with maybe 14 rooms on four floors, in a building built in the 14th century. (How cool is THAT?) We had reserved a room with a single king-sized bed, which translates into American as "two twins pushed together", but on check-in they upgraded us to one of two top-floor, two-level suites. (How cool is THAT?) I have to plug Hotels.com here, because we've been having really great luck with them lately. We got this room, in a very ideal location, in a very nice hotel, breakfast included, for about $76 a night. The view from our room was amazing!

A little awkward from the window,
but we could see  everything!

We headed out for our first Czech meal, choosing randomly from one of the many restaurants right on our street. We didn't know what "authentic" Czech cuisine might consist of, but we were ready to try it! I ended up with sirloin in a sweet cream sauce and a vegetable mushroom soup in a bread bowl, Tom had this ginormous thing called a "pork knuckle" which I probably would have called "Sunday family dinner", and Wyatt had pancake-like things with cream and fruit. Everything was served with lots of rye bread, sauerkraut, dumplings, and sliced potatoes with bacon. It was delicious, and it was cheap.

Pigs don't even have knuckles.

The beer in Prague (the birthplace of amazing beer, or something) is also cheap-- the going rate for a .5l mug is 35 koruna, or $1.66. It's the same price as soda. I would say that with appetizers, entrees, desserts, and beers/soda, our meals were averaging $35-$40 throughout the trip--  not bad for seriously overeating in the most touristy parts of town!

After dinner we walked around our little area of town, since the weather was still very warm. We saw the embassies and lots of little shops and cafes. We stopped at a little cafe for a beer (for Tom) and a diet Coke (that's me), and just enjoyed the view from our street and people-watching. Then I said, "I want to check out the absinthe shop!"

The Absinthe Shop Story

Absinthe is sold all over the place in Prague. I don't know the legality of it in other countries any more, since it's not really something I seek out, but I know it's not sold in every shop window here in Germany. Several weeks back, I watched a documentary on Netflix about absinthe and its history, as told by a bunch of old French and Swiss dudes. They made it sound all mystical and fun and totally not evil, like we all know it's rumored to be. I probably should have thought about the fact that it was a bunch of old French and Swiss dudes telling me something was cool... but whatever. You cannot pass this shop--

-- without wanting to stop in. And while you're there, trying one of a zillion different kinds of absinthe or absinthe cocktails. So we did. Now, the old guys in my documentary were talking about how absinthe, which is like 70% alcohol, is way cool because of the ritual involved with the water and sugar cube and fancy spoon, and also because after a couple of them you start to think really deep thoughts or something. (Two glasses of something with that high of an alcohol content and I'm sure everyone thinks they're profound, but whatever.) Tom got a cocktail mix and I got a regular old absinthe drink, both of which were an exciting shade of green, but tasted absolutely awful. Mine was so, so bitter, and Tom's was just kind of gross. But we sat there anyway, choking it down and watching a ton of other English-speaking 20-somethings come into this place to try their first absinthe (there were these hilarious British girls that were terrified of it, like they were going to start tripping balls or something). Tom really didn't like his drink, so I drank most of mine and most of his too. Hey, that's the aforementioned "couple" of them-- would magical, green fairy things start to happen??

Absolutely.

While licking the paper he got
distracted and had to return to
 his mad mixing skillz.

The bartender was this bald tattooed guy and was flinging cups around like he was in "Cocktail" or something. He was drinking heavily, and appeared to be in no condition to be throwing objects that high. He was also evidently an aspiring DJ. Baldy played many, many heavy dance mixes of Adele songs and was super into his music. (Tom and I can't remember now what he was mixing the Adele songs with, to our frustration-- but it wasn't just a dance beat. It was an actual dance track, and they totally did not mesh, except that they kind of did. It was a surreal soundtrack to the evening.) As we're enjoying the musical entertainments, the other customers, and the decor, Baldy ups and takes his shirt off and really starts dancing and cup-flipping. He had this huge kickass tattoo of King Tut on his chest. So we're getting a kick over this and trying to take discreet pictures, and feeling like this is a really strange place, when Baldy starts rolling a joint. That's right, a drunk, half-naked man rolled a joint on the counter of the absinthe shop where he was working. Then he smoked it. It was around that time that a dog wandered into the cafe. It was a very sweet yellow lab who just walked in the door and hung out for awhile.
A little while after that, an old dude with a giant duffel bag came in. He was so drunk he could barely stand, and started talking to the scared British girls (who exited shortly after that). He ended up talking to us, first in German and then in English. Well, I had a conversation with the guy in what I think was English. It was really hard to understand this dude, and he could have just as easily been speaking German while I made up responses in English. Tom couldn't understand him at all. He saw my camera and picked it up, which of course was not really cool, and admired it in sort of a fumble-finger way. I tried to nicely get it back for a second and then realized this guy was not even coherent, so gave up and talked to him like one of my kids: "No you can't hold it! You're not being gentle!" and then took it back. So Oldy reaches over to the giant duffel and pulls out a Canon 5D professional camera and hands it to me. I'm holding this thing like the incredibly expensive item it is as he's yumbling (yelling+mumbling) "this is my work! This is my work!" I handed it back and he starts waving this thing around like it's a Fujifilm disposable. (Shudder). At that point he started punching Tom in the leg as though he was challenging him (I think he disapproved of our American-ness) and doing bodybuilder poses. We decided it was time to head out, and we left Oldy yumbling "Where's my dog?" The dog had evidently gotten tired of the crazy music and was waiting patiently outside on the sidewalk. As we walked by, I told him to make sure Oldy got home okay.

And so, the moral of this story is: If you drink a couple of glasses of absinthe, you will indeed have a "Green Fairy" kind of night.

The End 

(of Day 1)

P.S. The full set of pictures from Prague is here: https://picasaweb.google.com/109948724159677921314/Prague?authuser=0&feat=directlink
if you want to cheat and jump ahead of the story.