Last day in Praha

Well, yesterday the castle trip got cancelled due to an unfortunate happenstance, weather. It was really sloppy rain and it was undesirable to sojourn outside. We went to a pub with some of our British friends and tried to catch a cricket game between England and Australia, but it was lunch break when we arrived and thus we missed the game. I had beef fillets and cream sauce for lunch, which has become my favorite native Prague dish. We then stayed in the afternoon and three of us, myself, a Canadian and an auzzie, went out to gather dinner. I got two bottles of wine, a peppersteak, two rolls of bread, two large things of cheese, and desert rolls for under 7 USD. Split halfway with my sister of course. Today it is sunny and we should be making our castle attempt, and then if Sarah has her way she will pressure me into doing a bar crawl. We'll see if that happens, as I have got quite the head cold and airplanes and hangovers are not pretty combinations. Cannot wait till the states,

Boar, the five story club, and pivo

Our first real night going out (in Vienna we drank at the bar in the hostel but we didn't go out). We befriended some brits who were staying in the room with us, and headed out as a group to explore the city away from the touristy areas. Politics and rugby were the primary conversations of the night, but it was fully a cultural exchange on many levels, including pop stars and dispelling popular myths about Americans (i.e. 'Is it true most Americans don't know where America is on a map?' and it also seems to be a widely known fact around the world that only 10% of Americans have a passport, something a European cannot even begin to imagine). We wandered into a restaurant that would take the six of us after much wandering, and I had some delicious gulash after showing the Brits how to eat bread with tabasco and salt. Apparently they're just not used to spice in England. One of our new friends ordered Boar, which the rest of us tried, but I was much happier with my gulash and potato dumplings. After dinner, and more than a few pivos (Czech for Czech beer), we headed out to the club. Five bouncers greeted us at the door with wands (of the security variety), and as it turned out there were three floors active that night, it was Sunday, and they were rap/hip hop (which as an American from D.C. was very funny considering it was all northern European men dancing to it, so many Eminems), techno, and my favorite: 80s oldies. The techno floor was cool because of the usual fog accompanied by lasers... very trippy. My sister had a shot of absinthe, which I didn't think was real because it was relatively cheap. She said it was not tasty, but she only had one shot so no green fairies for her. I had a 'long island ice tea' which despite being labeled as an 'extra strong' drink, was quite weak. Also lots of Pivo and vodka redbulls (aka 'heartattacks'). All in all it was a good night, can't say we met or talked to anyone outside of the group, but I for one just wasn't feeling it, and Brits, at least the ones that I've met, seem to lack the self confidence that is needed at clubs to meet strangers. All is well, the castle tours are today, and I'll be home in three...

Day one in Praha

Day one in Praha, it has been very good. Today my sister and I started off with a trip to the harbor and did a boat tour around the river. There are many interseting sights to see in Prauge, but one of the most interesting that we saw from the water was a red pendulum, that apparently had started off as a statue to Stalin. It was 30m high and was the tallest Stalin statue in the world, until, after Stalin left power, it was revealed that he was not so much a hero and more of one of the lowest criminals in earth's history. It took them three tries to disassemble the statue, they ended up blowing it up with dynamite. Then, a few years ago after the fall of the wall, Michael Jackson decided that he wanted a statue to himself when he heard the story, and so they built a large blue plastic statue... I didn't really get why, but apprently they felt that it was important enough, but it was eventually taken down and sent to Neverland Ranch.
The next stop was the Jewish Ghetto, which had the oldest intact synagoge in Europe, built around the early 1300s. It wasn't archetecturally impressive, but it was amazing that it had lasted so long. The sad story is that the reason why it survived World War II is that when the Germans first occupied Cezchoslovikia, they were convinced by a local leader to make it into a museum. The Germans called it 'Cradle to the Grave, the museum of the extinct jewish people.' Thus the Ghetto was preserved, but despite this, almost 160,000 Jewish people were massacured. The Ghetto in Prauge had 180,000 Jewish people before WWII, and today only has about 1,000.

After that we went to one of the main squares, and had a rolled up cinnamon pastery, and listened to a cajun jazz band, from Praha, which was quite strange but highly entertaining. The rest of the afternoon was spent in idle walking, but tomorrow we head out to the castle.