Praha on my mind!

So, despite a certain homesickness that struck last night due to exhaustion and leaving the comforting home of Simon, we hunkered down and saw lots of Prague today.

We started the day walking from our hostel, which is pretty much a million miles away from the center of town, but it’s only another night after tonight, so we’re dealing. We’ve also figured out how the trams work…sort of. We walked for about an hour before we reached the center area of town on the left side of the river. We met some swans on the way who gave us the stink eye and the fluff of anger, but they left us alone after we stopped taking their picture. We stopped at a cafe called the Cafe Savoy, which was very lush, and rather overpriced – but still cheap, this is Prague.

We found a map in the Cafe Savoy which was more useful than the others we had, and figured out we were basically at the base of Petrin Hill. Petrin Hill, for those who don’t know, was written about by Kafka in ‘Description of a Struggle’ and by Milan Kundera in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’. It’s a beautiful hill and in the middle you can already see all of Prague and the Vltava river out in front of you in an awesome landscape.

We reached the top and wandered around the gardens up there and tried to go up the observation tower, but it was rather expensive. So, we bought a couple postcards (mine is an old-fashioned 3D picture viewer card!), and headed down a windy set of stairs into the Mala Strana area. We saw a cute little cafe called the Booze Bar (ha), and no one was in it except the very kind waitress who spoke very good English. She made us homemade mixed berry iced tea and I had a ginger ale, and some streudel (how do you even spell streudel? It’s too late for me to be writing this!), though I did try to get some kolacki, but it was cherry, so I renegged. We spent an hour or so there, listening to the eclectic music and feeling like it was a very home-y environment, then we toddled on down the street again. We found a market to buy dinner food, then we went across the street into a witchcraft store and bought some awesome tea. After that, we found a fruit stand and bought dates, apples, and oranges. Apparently we’re addicted to those fruit! Anyways, we found where the tram home came, but decided to go into the church of the Infant Jesus, which was both hilarious and beautiful. I can’t believe they dress up a wax doll of Baby Jesus every few months (in a secret ceremony at night) that is from the mid-1600s in Spain! Weird. But pretty church nonetheless. We hopped on the tram, not paying the fare, because we didn’t know how, and got home without any issue. We then made a yummy Italian dinner of pasta and tomato sauce (which is still in the fridge cause we made too much), and Maria drank lots of wine. We’ve just been lazing around at night – everyone in this hostel is here to get drunk and stay out till 2am, so it works out well for those of us who like quiet evenings and going to see the sights at a normal hour of the day.

The weirdest thing about this city is the crosswalk signals –they are the normal green and red men, but when it’s red, they make a slow flap flap flap noise, and when it’s green, they make a fast flapflapflap. I get that it’s for the blind, but that’s rather disconcerting to hear the flapping everywhere around you in a busy intersection. Also, the blind must have better hearing than me, because, shit, they all mix together when I’m standing on a corner.

Anyways, I’m off to bed. Sleepy time is calling me!

Pictures are here, for those who want to see them!