Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Woke up for the last time in Vienna at 9:15am. Packed up all of our stuff and headed out the door to explore one last part of Wein. First we wanted to make sure we knew exactly where to go to catch out Student Agency bus so we headed there. We found a group of people with luggage in front of a sign for Student Agency in this empty parking lot. Okay, now we know EXACTLY where to go by 6:30pm. Next it was off to the Belvedere Museum to see one of Megan’s favorite artists, Gustav Klimt. Before the museum, we got breakfast at an Anker chain, the equivalent of Panera. We ended up only having to pay 6 Euros for the museum because we were students so that was a nice surprise. To be frank, I’m not a huge museum person unless there is something very specific that I want to see. I found most of the paintings rather similar to one another and not very stimulating. My goal was to find a comfy chair in each room i went into and from that chair take in the art. I did enjoy the works of Gustav Klimt but he only had a small exhibit in the entire museum. The most interesting part of the museum, was this large room that had a sign in the middle of the room that said, “ NOW YOU CAN SCREAM AS LOUD AS YOU WANT” in four different languages. Hmmm, this was intriguing. I wasn’t about to be the scapegoat so I hung around the room long enough for some kids to wonder in and test the limits. They screamed loudly but nothing happened. Some adults gave it a whirl but again nothing happened. I was determined to figure out what was suppose to happen or learn whether or not the sign was some sort of social experiment. Sure enough my patience rewarded me and a group of kids finally broke “the barrier” and after they screamed the rooms lights flicked as it “breathed” heavily in unison with the lights. acting like it was alive. Okay, not worth the wait, but it kept me occupied for a little while.
I found a really comfy chair and just about fell asleep. Art museums make me sleepy. Some time passed and J-M were done with the museum so it was time to make our way back to the hostel. We stopped into an internet cafe to confirm our seats on the bus. Next we stocked up on some groceries because this was going to be our dinner. We picked up our bags from the hostel and made our way to the bus stop. To pass the time we played the game Cliff. You pick three people, if you know each other well it can be your friends, but if you don’t than you use celebrities. From the list of three people you have to pick the one that you would marry, the one that you would have a one night stand with, and the one you would push off a cliff. This game helped us pass the time throughout our trip whenever we had a long wait somewhere.
Sure enough the bus showed up on time, 6:35pm and a mob of people attacked this short girl in order to get onto the bus. My ticket didn’t have a seat assignment on it so I was a bit nervous that I wouldn’t get a seat so I slithered my way through the crowd in order to get on the bus earlier rather than later. Luckily the girl had my reservation so i was all set. the bus was actually really nice. It was big comfy leather seat with a pull down table like in airplanes and an individual jack for your headphones in order to listen to the movie they played. On the bus they offered free magazines and newspapers from a variety of countries, your choice of coffee, hot chocolate, or tea, and a complimentary set of headphones. The channel that was suppose to have the movie in English didn’t work in my seat but the movie was Mr. Bean’s Holiday so I wasn’t to interested in it to begin with.
After two hours we had to change buses in Brun, a smaller city in Czech Republic. Again I slithered my way through the crowd and got my seat on the bus. I lucked out and didn’t have someone next to me so I could spread out a little. Even better, we caught the end of Dirty Dancing, the best part of the whole movie in my opinion, and my headphone jack worked so it made my bus experience that much more enjoyable. After Dirty Dancing they played Monster-In-Law and then some hilarious older episodes of FRIENDS that I had not seen, or at least didn’t remember. FRIENDS ALWAYS put me in a good mood. It was a good thing I didn’t have a neighbor because I was laughing out loud the whole time. Once the episodes stopped, I noticed out my window that it was a frickin blizzard outside. We passed a really bad accident where this car was flipped over in an embankment and we even had to stop once for the driver to chisel off some ice and snow from the window. The lady announced that we were going to arrive in Prague at least a half an hour late because of the snow. The normal response would be irritation but I was ECSTATIC. My first encounter with snow of the season!!!! Was there really a difference between arriving at 1:30am or 2am???
I had checked the weather report in all the cities we were going to and each city it had said rain/snow or snow for almost every day. Well as usual weather.com lied to me. We hadn’t encountered any snow thus far. The only reason I wasn’t upset about hearing that back home my family was experiencing a record blizzard was the prospect that I would get my own piece of snow this winter. I couldn’t wait to get off the bus and catch snowflakes on my tongue. I also knew that our hostel was very close to the train station so we wouldn’t have to lug our stuff in the blizzard for that long. Get me off the bus PRONTO!
We finally arrived to Prague at around 1:30-2am. We only had to walk maybe 3 minutes until we reached our hostel. Along the way we past a few people having a lovely snowball fight. As I lead the way through the fight I was hit smack in the back with a snowball. Oh how I wanted to throw one back, but I didn’t. I wanted to put my bags down before I got in the middle of anything. I also figured that I’d have tomorrow to engage in a proper snowball fight. We checked into the hostel and got our room. The receptionist told us that two boys were already in our room but we could choose from the 7 beds where to sleep. There were 4 sets of bunk beds and one solo bed that looked more like a couch rather than a bed, at least that’s kind of how we used it until it became occupied. We were told about a free tour of Prague that started at 9:30a so despite the late arrival, we had intended to make that tour the next day.
I woke up around 8am and noticed that the two guys had returned sometime after we had fallen asleep. I had a feeling we weren’t going to make the tour when J-M weren’t moving to fast in the morning but it didn’t really matter, we had a good four days in Prague to catch a tour. Our first stop was to take our Kc from the ATM in order to pay our hostel and pay for anything in Prague. After we paid for our rooms we had less than ten minutes to get to the meeting point for the tour. Yeah that wasn’t going to happen. No worries, we improvised. After some breakfast we explored all over Old Town (Stare Mesto). We focused on the Jewish Quarter (Josefov) as well. We found the Maisel Synagogue and bought tickets to visit the most impressive and supposedly the most beautiful synagogue in all of Europe, the Spanish Synagogue. I looked different during the day then it did all lit up for an evening performance, but it was still incredible. We were not allow to take any pictures but everywhere you looked you could find Jewish Stars woven into the architecture, the chandeliers, the paint of the wall, the backs of the chairs, everywhere. The synagogue also had a museum so we read all about the history of Prague and the Jews of Prague. It was really interesting and I got to share what knowledge I had about all things Jewish with J-M. All those years of Sunday school paid off I guess.
After Josefov we meandered around the Prague’s Christmas markets. They had beautiful watercolor pictures of different areas of Prague. I almost bought one because it was very cheap but I decided to wait until the end of the trip to buy my souvenirs. Julia was the first to try the food at the market. She got this apparently traditional sweet/breakfast pastry called TRDLO: it was this gooey dough wrapped around a rotating pole under a fire. Once the outsides got crisp the person would the dough off the rod and roll it in cinnamon, sugar, and almond flakes and then serve it hot and gooey on the inside. OMG it looked so good. I didn’t have my own until the next day but it looked scrumptious. After getting lost around Old Town we thought we’d check out Charles Bridge. Half of the bridge was blocked off because of scaffolding so it was very crowded and not full of artisans like it normally would be. We walked around the area where the famous Prague Castle was but decided to hold off and visit the castle tomorrow. After finally finding our way back across the water we hit up the Christmas market for lunch. I got POTATO LATKES!!! I couldn’t believe they had them, so i just had to try them. For 50 Kc I got 5 or 6 latkes and a handful of cold sauerkraut. It would have been perfect if the sauerkraut was hot but none-the-less the little dish was quite tasty and very filling. J-M decided to test out the sausage in the form of a hot dog in a baguette. It looked very good and they said it was equally filling. My feet were starting to bother me since we had spent almost the entire day walking so I asked if we could head back a little early so I could rest and then we could do our laundry.
We took the metro a few stops away to Andy’s Laundromat. For a very good price we got a washer (w/ detergent supplied to us no extra cost), a dryer, access to tea, hot chocolate, and coffee, and free access to the internet. I was fully willing to pay for the internet so that was a nice bonus. The guy who helped us was really nice and it was great to just relax and respond to a few urgent emails. We all tried to look up ideas for new years. We didn’t quite have a plan yet but we knew we couldn’t afford one of those dinner, drinks, and a show deals. We figured we’d find a area of popular bars near the water so we could see the fireworks and just work our way around the bar scene. Once our laundry finished we folded our clean smelling and warm clothes and headed back home.
Once back home we all showered and talked with our roommates while we relaxed. We met the two boys from the night before, Pau and Saul from Barcelona. They were not expecting people to be in the room when they returned last night so they turned on the light and then saw us sleeping and were like “oh - my - god!” I can’t really explain how Saul said it in words but the way he said it was really funny. We also met the two newest members to the room, Dave and Stephen from New Zealand. Actually Dave was now working in London and Stephen in Glasgow. They were all incredibly nice and friendly. It was nice to finally converse with our roommates. We ended up taking the metro with Saul and Pau to Old Town and we departed ways as we searched for a good pub to grab a small bite to eat while the boys were off to meet a friend. After searching in the rain for a while we finally decided upon a place. Megan and I tried this cheese soup but it wasn’t very good. Megan and Julia ordered some beers and we just hung out there for awhile. We asked our friendly waiter if he had any recommendations for a good local, chill pub. He told us about the pub he frequents and said that once his shift ended he would meet us there.
Julia really wanted to meet some locals and have a good night out but I wasn’t feeling it. I wanted to save all of my strength for New Years, the following night. For me I’ll take one night of heavy drinking and going crazy verses a few nights in a row of medium drinking and staying out late. I’m such a grandma, I know. We couldn’t find the place the waiter told us about so we started to turn around but then we ran into him and he walked us to the bar. It wasn’t very crowded so we weren’t planning on staying long but the rain made us change our minds. J-M ordered this really sweet drink, koskenkorva vodka, peach, and sprite. I tried a bit of it and decided that i really liked it and would try and order it on New Years. Anyone who knows me well knows how the back of my left hand doubles as a notepad, so in true tradition I wrote the drink on my hand in hopes that I could just point to my hand tomorrow night and somehow get that same drink. Our waiter friend invited us to play against him in foosball but Megan and I were ready to call it a night so we politely declined and called it a night. I just wanted to get as much rest as possible leading up to New Years. We were all VERY EXCITED for it. Just in case you didn’t know, Prague is THE #1 Spot for New Years in the WORLD....New Orleans is the #2 (i did that last year). For someone who isn’t a partier I sure have hit the best spots for New Years (London the year before that).
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