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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!!
12/27 Sunny, snowy freezing cold
Prague
Pony and I spent our first evening in Prague in Christmas market near Astronomical clock and the old town hall. Different from the other markets, the vendors in Prague sell key chains, T-shirts or fake crystal crafts to tourists, but the price level were much much more friendly than the other western countries. We had some local dishes together, like fried potato with ham, wurst and Christmas cake, which were extremely delicious! The mixture of ham, potato and pickles were a blend of blessing. But while we took off our gloves to eat, we felt our fingers became stiff and unconscious. Pony said that it’s just like walking in a fridge, even the mineral we took became iced water. Lesson leaned: Don’t under estimate the cold weather, it was not even snowing!
We stayed in a 4 starred hotel as well, the heater and shower were awesome, and the decoration of the room is modern and edgy. Glad we choose this hotel instead of hostel, I remembered the last time we stayed in one hostel of Florence, the heater was broken so that we gotta hide in our blanket all night!
The snow waked us up at 11am, and after a brief meal we headed for the castle, a must-see in Prague. I like the atmosphere in this city, while we took the tram way and rush through the streets, I felt that this city has a lot of stories, and so adorable, couldn’t wait to hear what she’s going to tell us.
Whie we transfered the tramway, we found that there were many people stared at the river and seemed like waiting for something to happened. And the small island in the middle of river were full of people.
There were more and more people waiting for things that are going to happen, and we heard the broadcast of speeches delivered from the island. Out of curiousity, we stayed on the bridge for a while and asked a pass-by of what’s going on.
People are going to swim in the river!
The temperature were estimated minus 4 degree, and it kept snowing and snowing. We’d doubt that people were crazy to swim in the freezing water! Those Czechs are crazy! I took a video of them in the water, I will upload later.
The Prague castle, or Prazsky Hrad is located at the north-west hill of Prague city. It is the number one attraction of Prague. The highlight of the castle is St Vitus cathedral, a prestigious spot.
We bought a short tour ticket (125Kc, 5E) to visti 4 attractions in the castle area, which were the Old Royal Palace, Basilica of St George, St Vitus Cathedral and Golden lane. I do not recommend the audio guide which cost me 300Kc, 12E with British accented guide and a huge stick of device, not letting you to plug our own earphone but holding the big stuff all time. The explanation was vague and basically long and complicated historical stories, it might help with your history report but no fun while sightseeing.
For the rest of the attractions, which were merely normal but with rich historical meaning. The Vitus cathedral outshine the other spots. Except for one thing…
There is a statue of teenage boy in the front of the Toy museum in the castle, and the penis of the staute is outshine the rest part. Because people couldn’t stop to touch the little thing for luck? Who knows?
Our one and the only spot of the day was finished at 5pm, we spent 3 hours sunk in the ancient history of Prague, and I was a little bit tired of listening to British accented historian and practicing my English listening skill.
We decided to do some shopping!
Pony need pairs of new socks since the old ones worn out for some days, and I need a underwear for keeping my legs warm. It’s cold and unendurable to walk outside with just jeans.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad, most of the stores were closed until tomorrow, so that we had no choice but window shopping for a while. Thanks to the cold weather, we were even lazy to find a proper local restaurant but visited Tesco and bought instant noodles. Staying in warm room was the only wish.
Sorry Tomas, I don’t want to let you down. We will try local restaurant tomorrow, if it’s not that freezing!
I bought this ruler from a souvenior shop, it teaches you how to drink beer in Prague. I remembered Lukas and Karol taught me these steps in the Irish bar. I found that in every place I would recall some good old memories in Lyon. Maybe the meaning of travelling might be telling you that cherishing your life and friends surround by you, enjoy the moment and the memory will never gone.
Straying in Europe, it was the 14th day of the journey.
