6 Prague

Friday, July 19, 2013

Day 9. Prague. 

I got up at a leisurely time, very undecided about what to do today. There are a lot of things I want to do here and some of them are rather hard to find information about so it's kind of tricky to make a call. I eventually settled on a bike tour. 

So I found the bike place a bit ahead of time. It was really lovely to walk down the not so touristy streets. After scouting out I decided to head back to the square and get some - awful as it is - Starbucks for breakfast. Everything else around here is super touristy so at least that has some level of standard it maintains. But on the way I passed a cute little restaurant and thought what the hell. So I sat down and ordered. This was my first sit down meal!!!!!   I had a stunning mozzarella, tomato and pesto salad and a coffee. The one downside to this was that it was kind of a small meal, till the waiter brought a massive basket of bread. Yum yum yum. It was cheap too. 

Well and truly full, I went back to the bike place. And awesomely - I was the only person to show up for that particular tour. 

So whoop. Private tour for the price of a standard. 

My guide Emmanuel, was from Portugal but living here since his government cut all its arts and sports education program's (he used to teach theatre). Here he does the guide business and also a bit of theatre, commercials and voice dubbing for different TV shows. And he was awesome, really informed and interesting plus he chatted to me about so much more, asking questions about Australia and my trip and other parts of the world. Telling me about Prague and Portugal and more of Europe. It was so great. And Prague is so pretty and there was so much to see. 

I laughed. I cringed in horror, my jaw dropped in awe and shock and I laughed. We went to a Jewish cemetery that had 80,000 bodies in about an acre of space. He told me the gory medieval stories about the man who built the astronomical clock and was blinded lest he ever design one for another city. We watched the astronomical clock do its thing, which was comedically underwhelming given the crowd that gathers for it, but impressive since is was built in the 1400s.     

There is a lot of great modern art in Prague, some very funny but classy looking stuff. Like giant babies with barcode faces, men pissing (running water through the dicks in their hands and everything) spelling out Koffka quoted with the pee trails. Amazing. 

We went to the 'Lennon Wall', which was a wall that during the communist days people - if they learnt any - write song lyrics from the west on the wall to share them around. The wall became known as the Lennon Wall. Lennon as opposed to Lenin. 

After the tour sadly ended Emmanuel told me about a neat little bar that is a boat docked in the harbour that never moves but is a good spot with a great view. He invited me to meet him for a drink there after his last tour that day. 

So off I went and met him, we ended up having a really great night talking about everything and getting progressively drunk and falling into D&Ms. Lol. 

We went hipster watching at one of the hipster haunts and he kept showing me little tid bits about the town, like the most haunted building in Prague and the old hall of the alchemists (a tradition based in Prague) above the doors there are carvings of bears in stone and when you take a photo the whole wall appears grey stone coloured but the bears are tinged in gold. Spooky. 

Prague has amazed me how strikingly medieval it is. I've never been anywhere like it.

Late start

Undecided

Relaxed watched buskers

Sex machine museum

Shopped

Three course street meal

Bar crawl

. 

Braved the metro and trams across the river to the strahov monastery. 

So glad I crossed. Much more peaceful and nice on this side

Looked at the library and the museum pieces

Brewery

Restaurant and view. 

Walked the ??? Royal walk ???

Eww tourists yuck

But good buskers

Seven minuet nap

Walked to station to book. Amazing bucket drummers

Resting and packing. 

Dinner with room mate. 

Old time Czech restaurant. Sat down, moved downstairs. Sat down, moved downstairs. Finally. Woah. Dead animals all over the walls. Big stone bunker like thing. Underground. 

Cheap and delicious food. Huge mixed light and dark beer. Delicious. 

Musicians. Rude couple left. Grumpy Russian couple

Grumpy Russian dude snapped and started dancing. Amazing.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY BURKE!!!!!!!

88 TODAY.

Talk soon.