Day 12: Prague
It is very hot in Prague. So very very hot. But I get ahead of myself...
So Monday night I did manage to get a standing room ticket for the opera. Up in the balcony it was really hot and stuffy, and one girl near me actually passed out, and I could only see about a third of the stage at the best of times, and couldn't see any of the screens with an English translation on them at all, but it was the f&!cking Vienna Philharmonic and the Stadtopera and Mozart and it only cost me 2 Euros! After the opera I went to the Sachercafe for a melange and a sachertorte and felt so twee and cliched it hurt, but it was still lovely.
Tuesday morning I managed to get myself to the train station early enough to catch the 9am train to Prague, and after some dicey moments trying to confirm with someone that the train that said Warsaw and Krakow really was the one I wanted (it was, I was changing in Breclav for the Prague train) I was off. For the last stretch of the trip I was in a second class car with no air conditioning and no open windows, and stuck right next to the smoking section, so that was no fun, but still, it got me to Prague in one piece.
Once in Prague, the first order of business was finding my hotel and finding somewhere to do laundry. I managed both, and then coming back from the laundromat chanced into running into Zafeer in the lobby of the hotel where he, too, was checking in. It's a good thing we ran into each other, because the hotel seemed pretty intent on giving us two separate rooms, even though we only had the one reservation and only wanted to pay for one room.
That night, Zafeer, his colleague Dorian and I walked around Prague Castle and over the Charles Bridge before meeting up with Bill, Zafeer's supervisor for dinner. The restaurant we wound up at was a little more swanky (and consequently a little pricier) than I've been eating at so far this trip, but the amazing roast duck we had was worth it. And the famed Czech beer didn't disappoint, either, although the 50 Koruny (about $2.50) it cost wasn't quite the famed 50 cent pints that people have told me stories about.
Today, Zafeer's off seeing a lab with his colleagues, so I've been touristing on my own. I checked out the castle some more and visited the Museum of Communism (nestled on Prague's main shopping street, just between a casino, a McDonald's and another casino). Now, I've got to find somewhere to watch the Spain-Ukraine match that I believe has already started. Preferably somewhere with air conditioning and cold beer. Especially the air conditioning. But especially especially the beer.
So Monday night I did manage to get a standing room ticket for the opera. Up in the balcony it was really hot and stuffy, and one girl near me actually passed out, and I could only see about a third of the stage at the best of times, and couldn't see any of the screens with an English translation on them at all, but it was the f&!cking Vienna Philharmonic and the Stadtopera and Mozart and it only cost me 2 Euros! After the opera I went to the Sachercafe for a melange and a sachertorte and felt so twee and cliched it hurt, but it was still lovely.
Tuesday morning I managed to get myself to the train station early enough to catch the 9am train to Prague, and after some dicey moments trying to confirm with someone that the train that said Warsaw and Krakow really was the one I wanted (it was, I was changing in Breclav for the Prague train) I was off. For the last stretch of the trip I was in a second class car with no air conditioning and no open windows, and stuck right next to the smoking section, so that was no fun, but still, it got me to Prague in one piece.
Once in Prague, the first order of business was finding my hotel and finding somewhere to do laundry. I managed both, and then coming back from the laundromat chanced into running into Zafeer in the lobby of the hotel where he, too, was checking in. It's a good thing we ran into each other, because the hotel seemed pretty intent on giving us two separate rooms, even though we only had the one reservation and only wanted to pay for one room.
That night, Zafeer, his colleague Dorian and I walked around Prague Castle and over the Charles Bridge before meeting up with Bill, Zafeer's supervisor for dinner. The restaurant we wound up at was a little more swanky (and consequently a little pricier) than I've been eating at so far this trip, but the amazing roast duck we had was worth it. And the famed Czech beer didn't disappoint, either, although the 50 Koruny (about $2.50) it cost wasn't quite the famed 50 cent pints that people have told me stories about.
Today, Zafeer's off seeing a lab with his colleagues, so I've been touristing on my own. I checked out the castle some more and visited the Museum of Communism (nestled on Prague's main shopping street, just between a casino, a McDonald's and another casino). Now, I've got to find somewhere to watch the Spain-Ukraine match that I believe has already started. Preferably somewhere with air conditioning and cold beer. Especially the air conditioning. But especially especially the beer.
posted by Carlos at 3:17 PM
2 Comments:
hehe... Carlos looks like a baby without his beard
Hot in Prague? I was all summer in Prague and remember just several hot days and much more raining and pretty cold days.
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