Prague II, 23 May-24 May
This is part 5 in the eastern Europe trip series.
We were going to try to stay at the same place in Prague as we did a few weeks ago when we returned to send me off to Canada, but it was impossible. This time we stayed in Karlín, a little off from the Old Town, and I recall the girl in our last hostel advising us to not walk around in Karlín at night, but we loved it! The new hostel was really cozy, and from our room there was a great view of the Vltava. By the way when I was really confused why Smetana wrote about the "Moldau" and not the "Vltava" and where the hell was this Moldau river, and then I found out that they were one and the same, the former in the official German language and the latter in the vernacular. I felt really great at this sudden mental connection between general history and music history, but it shows my shallow understanding of music history as I was only doing it to get my next RCM certificate. When I took the examination, it was pretty silly, and I passed (with flying colors) with not much real understanding and a cheat sheet. Hey, I was already discreet. When the proctor decided to go take a leak, everybody pulled out the textbook.
The relaxed border customs that come with the EU reared its head again... The Czechs stamped our passports, but no Slovak officials was in sight. However the conductor was always there (multiple times) and he (a "he" 95% of the time, unless we're on a Russian train), never forgot to check your ticket. There's more problems to relaxing border formalities than illegal immigrants... I loved getting stamped all over the place when traveling in a tiny continent packed with countries, and I imagine there must be somebody else who shared the feeling, so had I been born ten years later my Europe grad trip would be a little less memorable. My passport and the bag of coins (which disappeared before those currencies were phased out, ugh!) were probably the best souvenirs, better than any photos I didn't take or trinkets I didn't buy.
Ah, anyway. Had I been born ten years earlier my Europe grad trip would be a couple hundred dollars more expensive, all under the item "visas".
The train arrived at Bratislava late, and arrived in Prague even later, late by an hour (what would the Germans think???). I think there was some problem with the locomotive and we stopped at Skalice nad Svitavou for a while to wait for a new one, and then another while moving back and forth in the vicinity of the station as the new locomotive was being attached. At Skalice nad Svit. we witnessed that it took six Czechs to paint a pole, which Luke couldn't help corrupting as "takes six Czechs for a Pole".
Since this is the end of my Europe trip, it's time to settle debts. I gave Luke some 2000 CZKs, and he immediately emptied his wallet by making reservations for a train to Vienna for Julian and he. Welcome to the land of €€€!
We tried the gyro stand outside of the Florenc subway station. At 30 (if I recall correctly?) CZK it seemed like a good deal, but the quality is over 25% lower than the 400 forint gyro that was roughly 25% more expensive. The spice was lacking as was the vegetable content and the grease content. Luke still deemed it worthy for seconds, although it might be because it's much past lunch time and we haven't ate yet. After getting lost trying to find the hostel, eating gyros, deciphering the Prague subway's fare system, we finally arrived in front of the New Jewish cemetery where Kafka was buried... at 1635, precisely five minutes after the last visitors were admitted. Argh! Another one for our list of things we missed due to operating hours.
I didn't have other plans or ideas of what else I'd like to visit in Prague, so we just wandered around in the general direction of the hostel. Luke and Julian bought and drank more of the grep drink product, and I was just feeling down about missing things even though I already tried to plan for this by taking the earlier train. It sounds bad, but by that time I was getting tired of constantly being around people, friends. I suppose I'm a little anti-social. I like to make and have friends, and I treasure the time I spend with them, but I really need some time with nobody I personally know, for the health of sanity and happiness. But not all the time. So, I was not exactly in a very good mood in Prague, again, even as the city became more beautiful on my second visit.
We sat in a park. Some people brought dogs. Some dogs were free to run around, play with other dogs, beg for food, etc., while their owners relaxed, and some were kept on leashes. Here the dogs were not neutered.
We finally tried a worthy beer. On Julian's 5-point scale where Molson Canadian was a 3, it initially received a 5 but was adjusted to 4.5, because we had it in a bottle and had to make room for the draught version. It's called Velkopopovický Kozel and it's a pretty damn good dark beer. Luke and Julian claimed that they must try the draught, and that evening a guidebook found in our room (published by the British, who were always spectacularly drunk at 7pm in foreign cities, unsurprisingly) listed a pub that served this beer, and another that specialized in dark beers, both in Malá Strana. I had no idea whether they visited after I left, but it's none of my business now.
We ended up back on Charles Bridge. We stood there until after sunset, just chatting. The topics included "Polish phrases Julian should learn" (because he's returning to Poland with Luke afterwards), "that horrible HK movie featuring Twins", "the reason Chinese do that hand gesture when somebody fills their teacup", and "guess the nationality of that group of Asian tourists". Definitely a certain regional influence there.
It's not a very eventful second visit to Prague. It's just a transit stop. The next morning we went to a bakery near the hostel where I bought two cheese pastries and a ham and cheese croissant (the one which half was confiscated at the Canadian border). I decided that the pastries were tasty, but I didn't know whether it really was very good, or if my standards changed a bit in the past month. I stood in line at the Czech Airlines counter the same way Sergey and Marge did three weeks ago. Julian lent me his inflatable neck pillow that I still have, that is really essential to me sleeping on a plane unless the foldable head rests are present. I got stamped at customs, officially exiting Europe. I watched the Czech tourism commercial again. I waited until the last five minutes before the gate closed to board.
I bid my two friends farewell.
We were going to try to stay at the same place in Prague as we did a few weeks ago when we returned to send me off to Canada, but it was impossible. This time we stayed in Karlín, a little off from the Old Town, and I recall the girl in our last hostel advising us to not walk around in Karlín at night, but we loved it! The new hostel was really cozy, and from our room there was a great view of the Vltava. By the way when I was really confused why Smetana wrote about the "Moldau" and not the "Vltava" and where the hell was this Moldau river, and then I found out that they were one and the same, the former in the official German language and the latter in the vernacular. I felt really great at this sudden mental connection between general history and music history, but it shows my shallow understanding of music history as I was only doing it to get my next RCM certificate. When I took the examination, it was pretty silly, and I passed (with flying colors) with not much real understanding and a cheat sheet. Hey, I was already discreet. When the proctor decided to go take a leak, everybody pulled out the textbook.
The relaxed border customs that come with the EU reared its head again... The Czechs stamped our passports, but no Slovak officials was in sight. However the conductor was always there (multiple times) and he (a "he" 95% of the time, unless we're on a Russian train), never forgot to check your ticket. There's more problems to relaxing border formalities than illegal immigrants... I loved getting stamped all over the place when traveling in a tiny continent packed with countries, and I imagine there must be somebody else who shared the feeling, so had I been born ten years later my Europe grad trip would be a little less memorable. My passport and the bag of coins (which disappeared before those currencies were phased out, ugh!) were probably the best souvenirs, better than any photos I didn't take or trinkets I didn't buy.
Ah, anyway. Had I been born ten years earlier my Europe grad trip would be a couple hundred dollars more expensive, all under the item "visas".
The train arrived at Bratislava late, and arrived in Prague even later, late by an hour (what would the Germans think???). I think there was some problem with the locomotive and we stopped at Skalice nad Svitavou for a while to wait for a new one, and then another while moving back and forth in the vicinity of the station as the new locomotive was being attached. At Skalice nad Svit. we witnessed that it took six Czechs to paint a pole, which Luke couldn't help corrupting as "takes six Czechs for a Pole".
Since this is the end of my Europe trip, it's time to settle debts. I gave Luke some 2000 CZKs, and he immediately emptied his wallet by making reservations for a train to Vienna for Julian and he. Welcome to the land of €€€!
We tried the gyro stand outside of the Florenc subway station. At 30 (if I recall correctly?) CZK it seemed like a good deal, but the quality is over 25% lower than the 400 forint gyro that was roughly 25% more expensive. The spice was lacking as was the vegetable content and the grease content. Luke still deemed it worthy for seconds, although it might be because it's much past lunch time and we haven't ate yet. After getting lost trying to find the hostel, eating gyros, deciphering the Prague subway's fare system, we finally arrived in front of the New Jewish cemetery where Kafka was buried... at 1635, precisely five minutes after the last visitors were admitted. Argh! Another one for our list of things we missed due to operating hours.
I didn't have other plans or ideas of what else I'd like to visit in Prague, so we just wandered around in the general direction of the hostel. Luke and Julian bought and drank more of the grep drink product, and I was just feeling down about missing things even though I already tried to plan for this by taking the earlier train. It sounds bad, but by that time I was getting tired of constantly being around people, friends. I suppose I'm a little anti-social. I like to make and have friends, and I treasure the time I spend with them, but I really need some time with nobody I personally know, for the health of sanity and happiness. But not all the time. So, I was not exactly in a very good mood in Prague, again, even as the city became more beautiful on my second visit.
We sat in a park. Some people brought dogs. Some dogs were free to run around, play with other dogs, beg for food, etc., while their owners relaxed, and some were kept on leashes. Here the dogs were not neutered.
We finally tried a worthy beer. On Julian's 5-point scale where Molson Canadian was a 3, it initially received a 5 but was adjusted to 4.5, because we had it in a bottle and had to make room for the draught version. It's called Velkopopovický Kozel and it's a pretty damn good dark beer. Luke and Julian claimed that they must try the draught, and that evening a guidebook found in our room (published by the British, who were always spectacularly drunk at 7pm in foreign cities, unsurprisingly) listed a pub that served this beer, and another that specialized in dark beers, both in Malá Strana. I had no idea whether they visited after I left, but it's none of my business now.
We ended up back on Charles Bridge. We stood there until after sunset, just chatting. The topics included "Polish phrases Julian should learn" (because he's returning to Poland with Luke afterwards), "that horrible HK movie featuring Twins", "the reason Chinese do that hand gesture when somebody fills their teacup", and "guess the nationality of that group of Asian tourists". Definitely a certain regional influence there.
It's not a very eventful second visit to Prague. It's just a transit stop. The next morning we went to a bakery near the hostel where I bought two cheese pastries and a ham and cheese croissant (the one which half was confiscated at the Canadian border). I decided that the pastries were tasty, but I didn't know whether it really was very good, or if my standards changed a bit in the past month. I stood in line at the Czech Airlines counter the same way Sergey and Marge did three weeks ago. Julian lent me his inflatable neck pillow that I still have, that is really essential to me sleeping on a plane unless the foldable head rests are present. I got stamped at customs, officially exiting Europe. I watched the Czech tourism commercial again. I waited until the last five minutes before the gate closed to board.
I bid my two friends farewell.