Prague. A large pilsner.
OK, Mom got on my second-to-last nerve about 90 minutes ago. It's really not that bad, and it's not entirely her fault. The 500ml Pilsner Urquell sitting next to me is sure to help.
Mom caught some sort of cold or something, and it started getting to her this morning. By 4:00, she was pretty much done with the day and looking for Benadryl. We had tried a pharmacy in the morning, but the guy didn't have any. Tesco, the giant department store/grocery store, didn't have anything remotely related to anything that might resemble drugs. "Pharmacy," they said.
For those of you who have never been to Prague, let me explain something about the pharmacies here: They're not like back home. There is no equivalent to CVS or Eckerd or Rite Aid. Nothing that resembles medication is sold over the counter here, not even the vitamins. Centrum, for example, is behind the glass behind the counter. Everything, in fact, is in glass cabinets (even cough drops!), which means you have to ask specifically for what you want.
The ladies at the pharmacy down the street from the hotel don't speak English. Not much anyway. And they had no idea what the hell Benadryl is. First, they tried a nasal spray. Then an anti-allergen. But there's a catch: Mom reacts weirdly to just about anything other than Benadryl and ibuprofen, so she's scared to death to take anything else. Anything. Else. At. All. After twenty minutes of their pulling out practically everything they had that might stop a runny nose and our trying to figure out what the active ingredient is, we gave up, even after finding an antihistamine with ibuprofen.
That was at 4:30. Mom wanted to know what I was going to do while she rested. What the hell can I do at 4:30? By the time I get anywhere, they're closing up shop.
So Mom is upstairs in the room, reading a new book she got at a bookstore on Wenceslaus Square (they had The Golden Compass, which I finished this morning, but not the next book in the series). I'm down in the hotel bar getting a little tipsy on a pint of beer because I haven't really eaten much today. I mentioned beer is cheaper than Coke, right? So is wine. It's a dangerous city, Prague.
I've booked a tour trip to the Terezin concentration camp for tomorrow. They pick up at 8:05 am, God help us. We'll go have dinner somewhere in the next hour or so and then call it a night. Hopefully, since the tour is only five hours long, there will be time for me to visit a little bit of Prague Castle and the area below it on our last day here.
That's right: There are perhaps three Things Tourists Must Do in Prague, and we haven't made it to the castle. It's, like, Stop Number One for every tourist in this town. Except us. Mom's just not interested.
Mom caught some sort of cold or something, and it started getting to her this morning. By 4:00, she was pretty much done with the day and looking for Benadryl. We had tried a pharmacy in the morning, but the guy didn't have any. Tesco, the giant department store/grocery store, didn't have anything remotely related to anything that might resemble drugs. "Pharmacy," they said.
For those of you who have never been to Prague, let me explain something about the pharmacies here: They're not like back home. There is no equivalent to CVS or Eckerd or Rite Aid. Nothing that resembles medication is sold over the counter here, not even the vitamins. Centrum, for example, is behind the glass behind the counter. Everything, in fact, is in glass cabinets (even cough drops!), which means you have to ask specifically for what you want.
The ladies at the pharmacy down the street from the hotel don't speak English. Not much anyway. And they had no idea what the hell Benadryl is. First, they tried a nasal spray. Then an anti-allergen. But there's a catch: Mom reacts weirdly to just about anything other than Benadryl and ibuprofen, so she's scared to death to take anything else. Anything. Else. At. All. After twenty minutes of their pulling out practically everything they had that might stop a runny nose and our trying to figure out what the active ingredient is, we gave up, even after finding an antihistamine with ibuprofen.
That was at 4:30. Mom wanted to know what I was going to do while she rested. What the hell can I do at 4:30? By the time I get anywhere, they're closing up shop.
So Mom is upstairs in the room, reading a new book she got at a bookstore on Wenceslaus Square (they had The Golden Compass, which I finished this morning, but not the next book in the series). I'm down in the hotel bar getting a little tipsy on a pint of beer because I haven't really eaten much today. I mentioned beer is cheaper than Coke, right? So is wine. It's a dangerous city, Prague.
I've booked a tour trip to the Terezin concentration camp for tomorrow. They pick up at 8:05 am, God help us. We'll go have dinner somewhere in the next hour or so and then call it a night. Hopefully, since the tour is only five hours long, there will be time for me to visit a little bit of Prague Castle and the area below it on our last day here.
That's right: There are perhaps three Things Tourists Must Do in Prague, and we haven't made it to the castle. It's, like, Stop Number One for every tourist in this town. Except us. Mom's just not interested.