Sunday, March 1, 2009

1/3/09 PRague

I got to the airport way too early, I could have left about an hour later. The bus picked me up right down the street, which was awesome. I even got to sleep a little before I left.

Stansted Airport is a lot nicer than I assumed it would be. I stopped and had a Starbucks while I waited for my gate to be put on the board (Yes! Sorry, that’s a joke only for White Sox fans).

I got a window seat near the front of the plane and didn’t have anyone sit next to me, so it was great. I rested my head against the wall and slept alright, the flight was only an hour-and-a-half, so it wasn’t great sleep, but the little bit was nice.

In the airport I stopped and bought a ‘super Snickers’ and a bottle of water (which turned out to be with bubbles, goofy Eastern Europeans) so that I had change to get a bus ticket because the machines only took coins. Miraculously, the change I got was equal to exactly the amount I needed for the ticket. Probably should have thought that one through first, but it all worked out.

The bus was packed and I stood the whole trip, which was about 40 minutes. Then I took the subway into Jiriho z Podebrad, which was cool because at the start of the Radiohead song, “A Reminder,” they have a tape of a lady saying the next stop is Jiriho z Podebrad.

It was a straight shot down the street to Anj’s place. I buzzed the door, and she came after a few minutes. She had bee sleeping, I felt bad. Her place was big, but strangely configured. There were two huge bedrooms connected by a tiny skinny kitchen, a room with a toilet (the light didn’t work so you had to use candles) and next to that was a room with a shower and sink. I was going to stay on the pull-out bed in her room, which was fine with me.

We talked for a while, and she offered me tea, so we went and sat down and had tea. We talked about studying and living in Europe and what it was all about. Pretty interesting perspectives she had. I clicked with her pretty quickly, so it wasn’t going to be super awkward the rest of the trip, which I was glad about.

They had a cat that would not shut up, which was a problem for the entire trip, but wasn’t all that terrible.

I told her I was going to the castle and asked if she wanted to go. She decided she would since she hadn’t been there for a while. She wanted to know if I wanted to walk or take the tram. With me it was not a hard choice.

We walked through a park nearby that was supposed to have a view of the castle, which we never found. We talked about her job as a preschool teacher and how she could teach without speaking any Czech. It sounded pretty interesting, something I’d enjoy doing.

We went to Old Town Square and across the Charles Bridge. The climb up to the castle was worse than that to Edinburgh Castle, much steeper. Since it was Sunday, most of the things were close there, but we had a great view and got to see the city.



She thought it would be cool to walk up to where the largest Stalin monument was. It’s not a metronome which, um, wasn’t working. But it was a great view of the city. There was graffiti and a skate park up there, it gave the whole coming-out-of-Communism-feel which I like. She said there’s some graffiti that says something like, ‘We don’t want our city clean.’ She said she liked the layer of grime that was on the city, and I did took. It gave it personality. Not that the city was super dirty, but you could tell it was past-Soviet.

She had to go pick up her guitar from a friend’s house (she’s learning guitar and plays in a marimba band, crazy). We walked down the hill to get there and inside there was a jam going on with Bubu on guitar (he reminded me of a jolly Charles Manson) and a girl on mandolin. Bubu was singing a song about Letna (the place where the apartment was) in a sort of folky country way. It was stuck in my head the rest of the weekend and I would make up my own verses. It was cool to see, but slightly awkward as well. Bubu said he liked my peacoat and asked if I was in the Navy. I said no, but I’d been on boats before. He didn’t really find this funny and looked at me strange. Oh well.

We took the tram back and I fell asleep on the way. I was beat. I love that they have trams though, they’re a great way of transportation and a lot of people use them I don’t know why the States got rid of all theirs.

We were getting hungry so Anj said there was a good Czech place down the street, so I offered to buy her meal. The menus were all in Czech so she had to order for me. I had the first (and best) cheese sandwich of my trip. It’s like a mozzarella stick in sandwich form. I loved it. Luke hyped it up a lot and he was right.

We came back and she wanted to get ready for work the next day but I wanted to go wander a little so she showed me how to get down there. I was nervous, but with the map, it wasn’t that hard to do.

I went to Old Town Square and wandered around. It’s gorgeous at night, it has a unique feel to it. I had piece of cake at a restaurant below Tyn Church and outside of an arcade from the 1500s. It was good, nothing extraordinary.

I walked back and didn’t get lost again (I just had to look for the Scheckler sign on the corner I had to turn on) and made it back before 10. I walked down the street to the old Communist TV Tower that was supposed to block out Western TV signals (apparently it didn’t). It’s huge, like the CN Tower and it has these strange baby figure climbing up it. No idea why, Anj didn’t know either. She had the bed all pulled out and ready which was great. I slept well.

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