Prague

And finally, prague. We got dropped off at the main train station and milled around about stupidly trying to figure out how to get to our hostel. We also became aware of how czech has a totally different currency, so we took out some crowns and carried on. the metro was 24 crowns [which we figured to be about one euro] each, though i didn't really know what to do with the tickets so even though we bought them, we didn't actually use them to get into the platform. there are zero barriers blocking you from just entering. once we figured out where the hell we were meant to be, getting to the hostel was pretty easy. Prague is a really cool city with some interesting architecture and a much cheaper existence when compared to italy.


When we got to the room i was absolutely knackered and did very little aside from emptying my belongings and splaying them allover the place while liam went to do some washing to deal with his mouldy clothing. The recenption sold beers so of course we did all of this with the assistence of some cold cans. when he was all done and i cleaned up my space we went for a wander downstairs to check out the hostel. There's a pretty nice kitchen and lounge area and i decided to try to make some coffee. I totally thought it was instant coffee. It definitely wasn't instant coffee. A mound of grounds at the bottom, but i worked through it a bit because i needed some energy for the day. There were also sugar cubes there, kinda cool, but i'll get more into those later when absinthe is the story. We chatted through the end of the dryer cycle and then asked the czech lady at reception for food recommendations. We hit up this place, Lokal, which was like two doors down, even though we thought we ought to travel further. it was some really quality czech food, something that i had never had before. We went with a bunch of starters to try out including a sausage with mustard and horseradish slaw or something, bread dumplings, fried cheese with some sourcream ? dip, and whipped horseradish with prague ham slices. the flavours were really weird, but expectedly eastern european like. I quite liked all of it except perhaps for the bread dumplings which i found to just be like the worst part of the most flavourless bread. It was like if you rip the crust off after you forgot a few ingrediants. Shaped like gefilte fish. The beer was good though and the place seemed extremely authentic which was a super good find. There was a little card at our table to mark off the number of beers we had, which you would ten pay at the end, and all the beer was brewed there. This restaurant also had a pretty cool interior with light being passed through wood paneling that was cut out to create interesting lit up designs. The bathroom was filled with patchwork cutouts from magazines and pictures and cards and stuff too [though the men's bathroom apparently was filled with images of boobs and transportation]. After filling ourselves completely [all for only a few euros] we headed across the bridge to go for a shop and find liam a jacket.

Crossing the charles bridge, which was right next to our hostel, was a sight. Such a huge bridge with great statues across it, and such a different but still religious feel as compared to italy. We could see st vitus cathedral poking up over the prague castle in the distance. it was such a harry potter like world and awesome sight. We wandered through and stopped at a few shops, realising that everything is actually quite a bit cheaper on this side of the world. we were hit and miss with the stores and started heading towards this massive mall. we stopped in old town square for a while to enjoy the amazing music from buskers/performers. Everyone in this area was extremely talented and the style of playing, as well as the instruments of choice, supported the feel that this city was already giving us through the cobblestone lanes and gothic architecture. Accordians, harpsicord sounding pianos, and violins all about.

Whilst walking around we were offered a few times from various cracked out looking human forms to purchase some drugs. Such a sketchy operation but it's always interesting to get a view into the drug culture of different cities. I suppose our horrific dress made us seem more likely to purchase herbal remedies than knock off designer bags anyhow. Eventually we obliged and i would say that it was a worthwhile purchase.
We walked in circles a while but then got to the mall. Something in my backpack was setting off nearly every sercurity alarm as we walked in and out of stores. so niggly. Liam settled on a jacket that was reasonably cheap and then we went to the bathroom wehre i prepared my purchases from earlier.

We were both pretty fucked after our massive night on the train ride over so were into the idea of calling it quits reasonably early and tuckering away while watching a bit of a movie. We passed through the old city square again for some serenading by a guitarist and made our way back towards the hostel, enjoying our purchase.

So as with most purchases of that variety, we then wanted a feed and found this awesome little restaurant hole in the wall. With tacky awnings similar to the shitty pizza places all around we didn't expect too much but it looked reasonably priced. We each got a house beer, which were sooo good, and I really wanted a food, even though LIam wanted to wait and get a kebab on our way back. I ordered this bread bowl filled with cabbage soup. It was massive. I've never had a breadbowl before, and I've also never paid for cabbage soup before, but none of it disappointed. Amazing bread, flavourful soup, huge quantity. We shared it as we sipped our beers and listened to an older group of men, clearly intoxicated, screaming czech happily to a couple seated nearby. They were all enjoying their evening and ended up sitting together after a while, but not decreasing the volume at all. It was a loud spot, but definitely a great food find in prague. I wish I remembered the name, But I could probably explain a location.... The st vitus side of charles bridge if you stay on that road and move towards st vitus... it's on the left side, after a pizza store. dunno. That's the best I can do.

On our walk back we stopped for kebabs which LIam had grown very accustomed to eating whilst working in Greece, and he got one on a wrap and I got one on a pita, or something. It was actually really weird bread and neither of us liked hem too much. We brought them to go.

When we returned to the hostel we decided to make some tea, to go with our kebabs, and chat with one of our roommates, this smelly irish man who was super difficult to understand. He was so awkward and it was really hard to figure out how to get away from/handle his presence. Liam had definitely opened the floodgates of conversation first, but once it's open it's so hard to close. I felt bad not engaging but I was way too fucked to control my mean filter, and couldn't really handle this dude. Eventually we went up and watched a bit of 3:10 to Yuma before passing out around 20 minutes in. A well needed sleep was had and we awoke around 10am the next day, ready for some quality adventuring and looking around prague.

We woke up and hung out in our now empty room for a little while before making moves. I knew the main changing of the guard at the prague castle was set to happen at noon, so there wasn't too much of a rush. With enough time we began our trek upwards, climbing a while towards the top where the castle was resting. We got these donuts on the way up that were kind of weird, but I'll explain further below. 

So when we got to the castle we finally realised our blunder from the day before, and saw that what we thought was the castle was actually behind the castle. The castle was okay. Reminded me of buckingham palace. We got lost a little and then found the holding pen to hang out in until the changing of the guard began. 

Yeah so I'm still not entirely sure what was happening at the changing of the guard, and I'm not sure I'll ever be, but it seemed like the most unsafe notion ever, as for a complete hour, the castle is barely protected at all. All the guards in existence are just having a wee swap for who's going to watch the queen next. It's super ceremonial and well rehearsed with practiced commands and movements, but I reckon they absolutely hate to do it. I couldn't imagine doing that same repetitive garbage once a day, let alone once every hour. The other times may be less intensive and shorter, but who knows. 

When that venture was well exhausted we continued on to the st vitus cathedral. This haunted looking gothic cathedral, which we had thought to be the castle earlier when seen from Charles bridge was phenononally medieval. Everyone in the area seemed to have the same goal, so we were part of a large crowd when moving in. With no whines about backpacks we travelled inwards. 

This place was some serious game of thrones shit. I was only surprised to not see a throne of swords at the front. It was dark, austere, and mainly lit through the wonderous colours leaking through the massive stained glass works of art, painting the sides of the building. Daunting, to say the least. Like all things in travel, actually getting a proper look around was out of the question because of course 2/3 of the cathedral requires a pay ticket to enter. Oh well. 

update: We got little donut things that were really good as well as a potato that was sliced the way my apple-peeler-corer-slicer slices apples, but thinner, and then fried. sorta like potato ish chips on a stick. i think these happened somewhere around this part of our existence, but i'm not sure. just wanted to add.

later update: Okay I've uncovered a little more knowledge after looking through a few cheeky photos last night. The donut thing was really cool actually, and we got that on our way up. So, they take this maybe two inch diameter metal cylinder that's slowly rotating and spiral the dough around it, so after it cooks and is sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, you get a weird pipe-like spiral of dough. I'll put a picture when I start adding pictures.. if i start adding pictures. It was awesome. Seems like they like their food in spirals in prague. What a bunch of weirdos.

Next as we travelled down the absurd hill we had to venture up to catch these sights, we walked past, and then entered, a toy museum. All collected over the ages the museum was filled with cases and cases of antique toys. We did have to pay entry to this museum, but it seemed to fit our weird requirements for what we were and were not willing to pay to see. There was this crazy bent aluminum (or tin?) mountain medieval scene that was really cool, as well as hundreds of other items making the necessity and effort exerted into the creation of toys so apparent. Both of our favourite parts though, and the main reason I was itching to go to the museum, was the ridiculous Barbie collection. Cases of themed barbies and regular barbies lines the walls and the information cards told us the story of the doll, created in Prague and deemed too inappropriate and sexualized to be fit for a child's toy. It was then purchased by Mattel and turned into Barbie as we know her. 

In a few of the cases I could easily point out dolls that either I or tali had growing up. The first one I noticed was ny nicks Barbie. 

After we were done feeding our inner child in this bizarre multi storied (like aggressively vertical, and not so horizontal, nor deep) museum, we continued down the mountain and were heading towards either some palace or st nicks cathedral. Following the offline Google maps was proving to be a bit of a struggle though as it looked like there were no paths available between where we were, and where we were trying to head. By the time we were spit out into familiar lands, we were quite by the cathedral, but decided that heading back to that tavern where I got the breadbowl was probably a way better idea. 

We trekked to the basement depths of this restaurant, further below where we had sat before and ordered up some more Czech food. I went with another breadbowl, but this time filled with goulash, as per the Facebook recommendation to try some whilst in Prague, and Liam got some sort of smoked meat stuffed dumplings, if I remember correctly. They were both obnoxiously good, and paired with some more of this spot's delicious dark beers. We also ended up getting one cup of grog to split, mostly out of interest for what grog is. This pirate drink is apparently rum with hot water, and sugar. Pretty good, but I'm much less of a rum fan than Liam was so I had my sips and focused on beer. This room was not quite as loud as the other, but still featured a large variety of Czech yelling and drinking ranting. 

We stayed there quite a while, leeching off of whatever wifi we could squeeze to plan more of our adventuring. Eventually, we checked the time and decided to move on to the rest of what was about to become a huge night. 

I'm pretty sure our next move was heading to the Lennon wall, but based on how dark it was outside, I could easily be wrong. I'm writing this from our train to Brussels right now, a good 5 full days, and two full cities later, so unfortunately my memory is a wee bit foggy. Take note of that, feeble humans. If you wanna do this writing shit ever, do it as its happening. That's why there's such fluctuation in my level of detail, level of story telling, and level of just plain out listing the garbage that we got up to. 

We definitely stopped to get some beers to drink while we walked; and I want to say that this was also when I started to look at souvenir stores and more aggressively tried to find one of the horrifically touristic 'prague' Pom Pom hats that I was craving. I tried on a few but couldn't commit, so we got some beers and continued to walk. 

Yeah so we got to the Lennon wall, the like epitome of cover photos made from people who studied abroad in Prague. It's this pretty awesome stretch of mural work/street art, mostly about peace and love, with a focus on the Beatles. There's one main Lennon head, which I'm sure has been painted over a million times, but that's why it's the Lennon wall. On this day Lennon was decorated with a lighting bolt scar. Lennon potter. We snapped some shitty night time selfies and carried on. 

We stopped at a McDonald's for some highly unnecessary, but highly delicious snacks. Burgers and fries, and apparently you need to pay for ketchup in this godforsaken hell hole part of the world. Only 6 crowns though. Then I gave in and we went back to get the hat that I was unsure of before. To be honest, I didn't realize it was the same shop that we were walking into, but after Liam informed me, I pretended not to care and found a good white red and blue one. Liam was convinced and we got matching hats, as well as a cannilolly that we have yet to try. Next stop, more beer, and the first major/maybe minor injury of our trip occurred. So I'm real shit about opening bottles with anything other than a bottle opener or chopsticks (shout out to auntie Cheryl and auntie malea in Hawaii), and Liam is pretty savvy about usually nearly anything to open them. Today's suggestion was to try to open on a nearby street sign. One was opened with the assistance of the other, and then the street sign was tried out. Blood spurted out from his left hand's pinky, ring finger, and middle finger, as the pressure cut them open pretty bad. We were thankfully quite close to the hostel so headed back in that direction, leaving a breadcrumb path of blood behind us. My doctor skills were tested, trying to wrap up the flaps of skin hanging off, and though the blood didn't stop so well, it was enough to get back out and head to tesco, the kind of nearby supermarket that we figured would fill our absinthe needs the lovely man who sold us our tacky tourist hats gave us directions and suggested that going there would be much cheaper than finding absinthe in a mini market or liquor store. 

A 16 minute and 37 second walk later, across Charles bridge, tesco. B-line to the liquor aisle. I picked out a few nice (read: high abv) beer options as well as this absurd looking plastic 1.5L bottle of shifty beer. They sold a few like this, in this silly size, and then a few that were a whopping 2.5L. I don't even see soft drinks sold in that quantity ever. 

Liam was educating himself on the absinthes so when I got over there we were all set with a 20euro 750ml bottle that proved its worth by having a back label say it has some of the hallucinogenic, wormwood like ingredients. Thul something or something. I'll check. 

We took a free trolley ride back to the hostel because neither of us could figure out how to pay, a growing theme so far in Europe, and faced no barriers. It totally also looks like most people don't pay, to be honest. Amazingly it went to where we pretty largely guessed it may be going, and we settled, changed Liam's bloody bandages, and started to get on the piss for the evening. 

We went downstairs to the lounge kitchen area and watched a YouTube video on how to best drink absinthe. Two cups were filled with maybe 2 or so drinks of our 140 proof absinthe, and a third with water, a metal spoon, a lighter, and an armory of two sugar cubes each. Light, camera, caramelization. YouTube told us to soak the sugar cubes briefly in the absinthe, and then ignite them for about 2 minutes, or until the sugar is well melted and there's some caramelization. Then, the spoonful should be stirred into your poison and about a 1:1 amount of water should be added on top. Then, watch the temperature of the top of the glass, and enjoy. Somehow, weirdly delicious. The burning of the sugar surely did wonders. A sweet blonde German girl entered the room and we dragged her in for our next drink while trying to convince her and the friend she was waiting for to come out on a bar crawl wth us in a wee bit. Timings didn't work so well so we all finished our drinks and then Liam and I ventured quickly and sloppily to the bar where we were meant to leave to get involved in the bar crawl. Twas 1000 crown to go, something like 20 euro, for unlimited hour of drinks and then entry shots at a few bars, free entry to this club we had been planning on going to anyway, and a wonderfully tacky tee shirt with shitty clip art stencil art, and a poor font choice. 

The rest walks a very foggy line. I remember talking with a group of American girls and one kiwi girl, I remember being given many shots of absinthe, and I remember vaguely going to the night club. The bar crawl was supposed to go to 4 spots, but I swear we only went to 2. Who knows though. Overall it was a fun and messy night, which is always the goal. 

I awoke with Liam also in my tiny bunk bed, alarm screaming. I thought it was cute that we woke up there together, albeit a bit strange. These beds are so tiny, and our setup at this hostel was that we were the tops of two bunks, vertically pushed up against each other. Apparently he climbed over as I slept through my first alarm. No surprises.  We missed the train we had initially wanted to take, but would easily make the next one. 

Easy subway back to the station and we jumped onto a reservation-less train to Berlin. 

With the eurail pass, which we were now using for our journeying, many trains have reservation compulsory, so you need to tack on a few extra euros and book it in advance. You have an assigned seat though, which makes for less confusion and disorder when boarding. This train to Berlin was our first with no reservation so we weren't entirely sure how we were supposed to find out seats. 

All te little 6 person compartments seemed full and we were absolutely hung over and knackered, carrying a shitton of food from Burger King, with a bag of fries slowly falling apart due to an unfortunate small spill of diet coke on the platform, so we finally settled on tuckering in with a little old lady traveling alone. She seemed sweet and spoke probably zero English, but was all good with our state and not bothered when we started to conclude our viewing party of 3:10 to Yuma. She got off not too much later. So again we had our own compartment. We made trips to the dining cart for waters, and then for water and beer, trying to get rid of the last of our crowns. 

When the movie was done we switched to black books, a tv show. Only part way into an episode though, the power stopped working. Bye bye computer. It came back a little while later, and Liam was sleeping so I used it to write a bit, which explains my inconsistency with detail.