Wednesday May 24th, 2011
I woke up and made the executive decision to leave Vienna, I was going to Prague, Czech Republic. And so, I showered, ate breakfast, looked up train times, booked a hostel, and checked out of the hostel. Obviously, I also said goodbye to Eden and thank you for having been such a lovely travel companion.
Then I was off. I took the metro to the train station and took the train to Prague. Once I got into Prague I had to find my hostel, which similar to my first one in Vienna was kind of out in the sticks. I was at the end of the line in the southeast side of the city and had to walk about 10 minutes from there to the hostel itself. But the hostel itself had friendly people. I had booked to be in an 8 person room, but since the room was already booked full of 7 other men they offered me a 3 person room already occupied with 2 Japanese girls, clearly I chose the later of the two options. I had no desire to share a room for 2 nights with 7 other men. Not only that, but I saw them later, it was group of middle-aged creepy men who were pretending that they were still in their twenties and looking to party. Not really my cup of tea.
Once I got all settled in the room in Prague, I decided to do something I had yet to do since I started my travels, I stayed in. I thought it would make more sense for me to take some time and write out what I had done so far in the trip, since I knew the longer I postponed it the more I would forget. And that is where all those old blog posts came from, my first night in Prague. Pretty much, I spent the night in the hostel figuring out what I wanted to do in Prague and just reorganizing myself.
Thursday May 25th, 2011
After having gone to sleep early the night before, I got up, showered, and ate breakfast. Once that was all out of the way, I was ready to start my day. I took the tram to old town and started off my Prague experience by visiting St. Nickolas’s church. Then, I walked up this hill to get to the Praha castle. At the castle, I talked to the Prague information people and got a ticket to all the sites in old town and found out what shows were playing that night.
In old town, I went to………………….
Once I had checked off everything there was to do on my pass, I went in search of the Belvedere gardens. Apparently there was some sort of children’s garden festival happening that weekend, so the gardens were no longer open to the public, meaning I couldn’t see them. Instead, I went to the Loretta church just as the bells were chiming, so I sat and appreciated their harmonious sounds for while, then walked back down the hill of Old Town to Charles’s bridge. Every guidebook I read, told me to visit this bridge. It was ok. It was just a bridge with lots of statues on it. It brought me from Old town to the regular (I guess new part) of town. So after I walked across this bridge, I looked at some of the places in the other side of the city. Then decided that I did indeed want to attend that premiere of the Czech drama at the National Theatre, but since I was all hot and sweaty I walked back across the bridge, caught the tram, and walked back to the hostel. After my second shower of the day, I got all changed and set out to the National Theater.
When I got there and tried to purchase my ticket to the show, all the people working there kept asking me, “Are you sure this is the show you want to see? You know its in Czech right? Do you speak Czech? I really think you’d be better suited to attend the opera; they have little screens with English to help you understand.” After sassing the people about how I just want to see the show without their commentary, I was given a ticket.
The show was weird. It started off like a 1950s sock-hop, then all the teens turned to zombies. They tired to bury this kid who wanted to be like them alive, to “initiate” him to their gang. There was a popular guy who was in love with a wallflower, and I think she loved him? How about this, it was very confusing trying to understand the plot of a Czech drama, not only that but it was the premiere of the drama, so no could really help explain the plot to me. One thing that I’ve noticed is that the further east you go in Europe, the less English the people know. In fact, in general they speak fewer languages than Western Europe. Plus, they use play money. Czech uses the kroner and Hungary uses the fronk. Play money. When I can buy something for the equivalent to 1 euro for something that in western Europe would cost me 6 euros, your money becomes play money to me; simple as that.
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