D15 Confession of Prague

12/27 Snowy
Prague

The third day in Prague, I have to confess that I didn’t go to any bars nor drink excessive beer here. I didn’t go up to the Astronomical clock to see the city or spend time in famous cafe pretending that I were Kafka. I spend time in shops after shops and waiting my friend to shop. Christmas after sale seduced us. Sorry, the lorad of Prague, we were wrong, but we were happy.

Shopping in Prague is not an easy thing to do, the main reason is that you have to divide Czech Kc to Euros and then compare the price difference between them. It’s not a good place for poor-math kids to shop, like me, always divided 50 instead of 25 so that I thought everything’s so cheap, then spend all the penny in my pocket.

Traditional rolling bread

Like Indian, use your hand to eat!

To be honest, foods in Prague are much cheaper than Western european countries, for instance, I bought a beef burger from street vendor cost me 25Kc, approximately 1E for a burger; If I were in France, this price may caust chaos. But sadly the same price level is not applicable to tourist restaurants, like diners near the old town square or nearby area.

50Kc, approx. 2E

Accroding to Tomas, we gotta try baked duck with dumplings, so that after a quick search on the Internet, we decided to a underground basement restaurant for the famous Bohemia dish.

Entrance of the restaurant

The restaurant is decorated with dead animals and their skins. The animals were so close to us, as if they’re interested in our food. They use old oil lights and played folk Czech music, made the hole room fulfilled with joy. The truth is that, the heater worked kick ass hard so that we were so happy.

Wide diner

We ordered 3 dishes: 1 Bohemia style duck, 1 garlic soup and 0,5 liter of beer. What’s wrong with you? Ming? 0.5 liter is enough for you? Like I confess in advance, I didn’t plan to get hammered or drunk in Prauge cause my travle mate’s a lady, so that I have to take care of her. Since she’s not that interested in alcohol drinks, we didnt spend much time for that. (Lesson learned: Prague is a place for beer-buddy for sure ;P)

Garlic soup

They served the soup first. The soup was served hot and a slice of oil floating on the surface, beside the soup with a slice of fried bread and a garlic. Nobody told us how to deal with the garlic, should we eat that or not? how to eat? put it in the soup our bite directly? We created our own way to have the soup: sink the bread in the soup, have the bread and bite garlic. Anyway, we finished the soup, and I like its flavor, a little bit salty but enjoyable, the garlic flavor was strong, made our body warm. They put a special herb in the soup, so that even the soup was oily but the flavor was freshing.

Combination of light and dark beer

Bohemia buck

Bohemia duck? A duck wear ethnic skirt? Open-minded to everything? I’ve just watched “Rent” the musical on television, so that I was quite interested in understanding what is Bohemia spirit? Anyhow, the duck was grilled or baked with herbs, made the meat taste with fragrance. The long time of grilling made the bones crispy but the juicy meat remained. 3 kinds of dumplings were served together with the dish, so that we could have the dumplings with meat juice.

Cheers!

These dishes were delicious and the surrounding of the restaurant was awesome. But the meal cost us 14E each, which is a little bit excessive to our budget. So that for dinner, we went back to hotel had instant noodles.

I went to Mucha’s gallery after the meal.

City hall in the afternoon

Mucha was a famous painter of Prague, he works are mainly women with surreal long hair and suduced motion. But that’s amazing that almost all the female charaters in his paintings looked like muse or goddess. They are elegant, graceful but so real. The gallery provide some postcards and stamp collection of his work, and some posters. Mucha is not an aloof painter but publish or commercialize his work to make a living, so that we could see most of his works were mass producted to many kinds of publishers. This is the enchantment of mass production—everyone can enjoy the beauty.

Astronomical clock in the afternoon

I saw many things in Prague, and I felt the city got its own charm to attract millions of tourists every year. Though the city center is full of expensive shops and restaurants for tourists, the vendors did not kill the beautiness of the city. But the next time, I’d prefer visit the city with a local friend, and avoid all the commercial activities, explore some small path or streets in the ancient block. Tereza or Tomas, do you hear my call?

BTW, I didn’t get wifi in the hotel, so that could not post my blog on time…:(
Tomorrow I will visit Dresden and stay in Berlin, hope I got the wifi there!!