This Weekend

To those who have been asking for a post from Mark…I’m working on him!

It’s currently noon in Germany, though I won’t be able to post this for several hours. We’re on a train from Prague to Berlin. The train is a Czech train and is 45 minutes behind schedule….that would never happen in Germany. Germans are known for being extremely punctual. Mark is in the dining car drinking a Budweiser beer…not an AB product, but the Czech Budweiser. Remember that lawsuit from last year? He says it is good and lighter than most Czech beers. We learned that the Czechs recently took the number 1 spot in the world for most beer consumption per person.

So about Prague….I’ll start from the beginning. After my last lunchtime post, we strolled around the city for a bit. The streets are lined with majestic old buildings- Prague has never been destroyed by natural disaster or war, one of the only big European cities that can say so- but these majestic old buildings are splattered with graffiti and litter dances in the wind. Not the “most beautiful city” that we had imagined.

Friday evening we booked a river boat dinner cruise. This was about what we expected. The food was good and the people were fun. Our guide was amazing- there were people on the tour that spoke six different languages and she spoke them all fluently! I asked her how many languages she spoke and she just said a lot. Most everyone over here speaks at least two languages. This makes me feel a little uneducated and selfish, but living in the middle of the US there is really just not a need unless you regularly work with people who speak a different language. If people in Kansas spoke a different language than in Missouri, and people in Nebraska spoke a different language still, I am sure I would know more than just my own language. That’s kind of what it’s like in Europe. Anyway, back to the cruise. The views were incredible, and looking at the city from the water at sunset, we began to see its beauty.






Since I get motion sickness easily, I took two motion sickness pills before the cruise. I didn’t feel sick at all, but after the cruise my eyes were as heavy as lead. I could not keep them open no matter how hard I tried. We went back to the hotel around 10:30 and I went straight to bed.

I must have been tired because I got a full 12 hours of sleep! We had no intentions of sleeping so late, but I guess we got some much-needed rest.

Also on Friday, we did laundry at the hotel. This is the second time doing laundry on the trip. I intended to do it in their laundry room, but they did not have one. They did have a laundry service. A laundry service that charged per item, and the cheapest item was a pair of socks….and they were $4/pair. No way in heck I was paying that much. And the laundry had to be done. So we went to a mini-market, got a bottle of detergent, and filled up the bathtub with the detergent, water, and clothes. We jostled the clothes around a lot and let them soak for awhile, then rinsed them off and hung them up all over the room. Not the most glamorous part of our vacation, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
After we got around on Saturday, we walked around town for awhile. I like to learn about a town’s history when traveling and I wanted to do some sort of tour, but none of them really fit our schedule. So I will have to Wikipedia Prague when we get back. I know that until the early 90’s it was part of the Soviet Union and under Communist rule, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge. A little bummed that I spent two full days there and still know very little.

We spent Saturday afternoon at Prague’s castle, which I believe is the largest one in all of Europe. Now when I think of a castle, I think of something like we visited on the second day of our trip. Prague’s castle is like a full city with a wall around it. You would not even know you were in something considered a castle. We could have spent hours here, but it was drizzling and cold, so we cut it short and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night.

They have those guards that don't move:

This is the cathedral that is in the castle.

Before our evening plans, we ate dinner at a nice restaurant called Uno. It was in the middle of a shopping complex and we ran into one of our classmates that is doing some traveling on his own. Small world!

Dad would be proud of me for what we did Saturday night- we went to a classical concert! He loves classical music and I have always given him a hard time for it. I’m not sure why- more Wikipedia research to be done- but classical seems to be a big thing here in Prague. The concert was in a beautiful building called Semanta (Municipal) Hall. I don’t really have anything to compare it to, but it was a nice way to spend a chilly evening and we left the place feeling pretty classy. After the concert we got a few drinks and headed back to the hotel.

Another thing we’ve noticed about Prague is how rude the people can be. I don’t know if we’ve just had bad luck or if that’s their culture. Even the service at our nice hotel was rude. People have not been willing to help or answer our questions like in the other countries we’ve visited. Also, again not sure if this is bad luck or culture, but three times we have tried to order something that is on the menu and they say they don’t have it. Not “I’m sorry, we’re out,” or any other explanation, just “We don’t have that.” Well why the heck is it on the menu then?? There are also more bums than in other places, though not as many as you might expect in a big city. And they are pushy! After the concert we were enjoying some wine on a little courtyard terrace that was separated from the sidewalk by a flower garden. A bum who reeked of alcohol reached his hand over the flowers and begged for money. I like to think that I have a heart for homeless, but I realize the best way to help them is by supporting programs that support them, not by giving them money. It’s a little scary when they’re so pushy. That was a lot of complaining sorry, we really did like Prague, but it was a lot different than Germany.

This is getting long so I am going to cut myself off. Shout-out to my parents for celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary yesterday, and hope you feel better soon Daddy-O!