3/3/09 Prague

I dreamed about Tiger Stadium last night and playing baseball, a dream I have from time to time, pretty much always the same. I’m excited to play TBB, ma is signing me up with the Cover team. Last year didn’t really end the way I wanted it to, so I’m excited for this year. I already have my pitch pattern for Jeff Valice down. Actually, I hope I don’t have to face him.

I left Anj’s around 11 and stopped at my subway bakery for a pastry before grabbing another cheese sandwich on the way down to Old Town. Both were good.

I didn’t have any real solid plans about what I should do for the day and I saw one of the free Prague walking tour groups, so I joined in. We went to mostly places I’d seen already (sometimes I’d be seeing things for my third or more time) but having a guide there (she was from Colorado) made a big difference. We went to the Old Town Hall, the Jewish Quarter, Charles Bridge, the island, Little Quarter, the Lennon Wall, a wall that students wrote the lyrics to “All You Need is Love” on and were covered by the Soviets. This kept happening and led to the Velvet Revolution, among other things. It is still covered in graffiti and has Beatles lyrics on it.


We went back up to the castle and into St. Vitus, of which I knew most of the stuff aleady but it was nice to have a guide there too. There were only maybe 10-15 people on the tour, so you could actually hear what was being said as well.

I walked back to Old Town and went into St. Nicholas Cathedral. It was a very small interior, except for the painted ceilings which were huge.

From there I walked down to St. Martin’s in the Wall, which is not open for tourists but it looked cool from the outside. From what I’ve learned in Europe, it was probably the case that it really was.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. I had a couple options, going to Vyshnard, an old castle ruin down the river, but I was sure how to get there, going to the Communist Museum, or taking a ferry ride. I imagine you can figure out what I ended up doing.

The ferry was nice inside, I ordered a hot apple cider and a piece of chocolate cake. The apple cider was better than the cake, especially because my hands were freezing. I took them up to the deck outside (seriously, why don’t people go up there, it wasn’t even cold) and looked at the sights.

The boat moved incredibly slow and we didn’t go all that far, but it was still great. Somehow, like in Liverpool the weather turned all-the-sudden great when I got on the boat. The sun tried to peak out a little, making it incredibly scenic with the castle and bridges in the background. I chatted with a guy who was in from Royal Oak. He was the kind of guy that tells you his life story as soon as you meet him, including his father passed away six months ago from cancer, he’s doing the cancer walk, his friends wouldn’t come on the trip with him, and he kept saying he’d need to put his ‘tennies’ on (tennis shoes) to go walk around the next day. He said he hadn’t been doing much walking, which I found to be just insane. Why do people go places if they aren’t actually going to see any of it? I gave him my brochure for the free city walks, hoping he’d actually do it.

I walked back to Anj’s and packed up. She had to leave by 6, so I threw everything together pretty quickly, including a chance of socks since they were wet from the rain and looked up night buses to get back to my dorm. Her roommate got back from Greece (she’s Greek) and I had enough time to run into her and basically say bye. I then said bye to Anj and I headed back to Old Town.

I wanted to eat at the Grand Café Praha, where Franz Kafka used to live above and eat at. It’s directly outside the Astronomical Clock that goes off every hour. I ordered gnocchi and a water with bubbles. It was good, better than a lot of the gnocchi I’ve had at restaurants. I wish there was more Czech food that was meatless. Oh well. The clock went off while I was sitting there which was cool, and the view again was great.

They didn’t accept credit cards so I had to go to an ATM, which made me pretty upset because I was about 200 krowns short and the minimum was 500 krowns I could take out, plus whatever ridiculous fee I had to pay (I didn’t want to know).

I passed on desert, decided to try to get something from one of the stands in the square. Sure enough, there was a pastry place with cheap pastries, so I got one that was sort of like a donut hole and the other with like a cream cheese on bread. I did a terrible job of describing them. I went and at them on the benches where I sat from time to time looking at Old Town Square. It was a nice ending to the day.

I like Prague a lot, it was sort of like walking around Disney World, except it was all real. At times things looked so incredible that I had to convince myself they weren’t fake. That said, I think I saw pretty much all I wanted to in the city during my trip. One of my favorite things was just walking around and getting sort of lost along the cobblestone narrow streets. The entire city was picturesque, just building after building that was incredible, stretching out to where Anj lived and beyond.

I hoped on the Metro (it was a much shorter ride from down there) and transferred to the bus. I got to the airport a little early, but I wouldn’t have wanted to get there much later. I could steal some internet as I waited to go through security. Many airports here they have security only for the gate you are going to. Like there wasn’t one big security point, but just one for the people getting on the plane. Sorta weird, but whatever.

I got a seat in the second row on the aisle (there was a lady sitting in the aisle seat, so I figured I had a great chance of no one sitting in the middle seat if I took that window. It worked) It was probably the closest to the front of a plane I’ve ever sat. I wrote most of this there (I’m writing this now) and I went back and wrote the first day up as well. There were a number of babies on the flight, and they were just going crazy as we were getting ready to take off. I’ve never heard so many kids crying at once. Although I guess that’s basically how everyone was feeling, they just vocalized it.

The best part was that the pilot said we'd be flying into bad weather and the landing "would be interesting." It was. I was pretty nervous as we landed.

I rushed out and through customs, catching the first train out and in tine that the Tube was still running. Huge victory on my part.