paraphernalia

And so I'm in Prague for another day. Prague is amazing during the week - it's busy, with much nicer tourists, and the weather is grand. No dodgy hens/bucks parties! It's so much easier to appreciate the architecture and history of a place when people aren't stumbling around drunk or offering you strippers.

News at Hostel Centrum:

• I have my old bed back.
• No more dodgy shower curtain - now none at all, and no light! THAT was an interesting experience this morning. Try telling someone who doesn't speak ANY English that the shower light is broken and you want the key to another room with a shower that works. In the end I had to bring him up and demonstrate one light working and the other one not. He was very helpful though - I had a shower with a light, and a bench! Luxury! No curtain though - that would just be too much to ask.
• 4 German girls locked themselves IN their room this morning
• I'm sharing the room with yet another Italian. Not so much Valentino (Nicky's friend from last time), more 'me scusi' from Eurotrip! Max isn't that bad, I shouldn't be mean to him - his English is just limited so its a struggle.
• Once again I've been ripped off buying a 2nd night. 400Kc. It's actually cheaper to pay in Euros (€10) than Czech Kc!

And so I now have another day in Praha to do all the things I wanted to do over the weekend but ran out of time.

My first stop was the City of Prague Museum, housed in this 18th-century building next to a motorway overpass. It's FASCINATING (Bec & Nicky: you would've loved it), and went through all the archeological explorations that have taken place in Praha and the effect of various religions and rulers on the city. The model of the city that is housed there, made of paper in the late 1800s, is unbelievable!

Then I headed on a tram to have lunch at the famous Bohemia Bagels, and it did not disappoint. Such good value (120Kc incl beer), and a great atmosphere. (Take Tram 9 towards the castle and get off near the furnicular railway to get there). On the way I also got to ride on the longest escalator I've ever been on - something like 350 steps. I was on it for over a minute! Not that special, but definitely scary.

I spent the afternoon wandering around the Prague Castle Lower Gardens and exploring the various frescos that seemed to pop up in strange locations (just randomly on walls). The highlight was seeing the Italian-stlye grotto (fake limestone wall) inside the grounds of the building opposite the castle. So random and really worth the trek.

I also got to explore the hidden courtyard garden that we were told about in our walking tour a few days ago. Nothing special but nice nonetheless.

For dinner I had traditional Czech pork at Restaurant Muskettr near the National Museum. Good value for money, but not as good as the other places we've dined at.

And now I'm spending my last few hours blogging and checking emails. This time tomorrow I will be in Glasgow!

Tchuss, Ciao, Au revoir Europe!

PS: For photos of Praha, click here.

After much musing as to what our plans were for tonight, we decided to stay in Praha. To celebrate our new-found decision making (!), we had a stylish breakfast in one of the cafes along Wenceslas Square. I restrained myself and had a cheese and ham toasted sandwich with coffee, but the girls went all out and had raspberry and chocolate pancakes!

By this stage we'd already missed the 9:30am walking tour, so we spent the rest of the morning wandering around buying clothes. Well the girls did anyway, I just followed them. You see they are heading for La Tomatina in Valencia, Spain, and as such they want really dodgy cheap clothes that can be thrown out straight away. They were definitely successful, buying shoes for 199Kc (~A$14) and tshirts and shorts for 70Kc (~A$5). Admittedly they are pretty awful, but it is La Tomatina. At least they aren't making the same mistake as I did last year at Holi and wear decent clothes.

By that stage it was 1pm and we only had time for a quick fast-food lunch. Thus we headed for Maccas and I finally satisfied my fries w/mayo craving. Mmmm....so good

The walking tour of Praha which followed was fantastic. Our guide looked like Sean (a friend from USyd) and was really knowledgable. He'd lived in Praha his whole life, was studying economics, and loved to travel, so he was able to compare things all the time to places that were maybe more familiar to us, like the UK. We were shown the nice side of Praha, and it completely changed my mind about the city. I know want to spend more time here and go exploring. We went all through the 'New' and 'Old' towns (Nove Mesto and Stara Mesto respectively), the Jewish Quarter (Jovamesto), and up to the Castle and surrounds.

The tour lasted 4 hours, and by the end of it we were buggered, so we hopped on a metro to the Bus station to buy tickets to Vienna for tomorrow. They were super cheap (330Kc, or ~A$23), which is a huge saving on the €40 train tickets. I wouldn't want to take a long bus journey (there are ones direct to London!), but for 4.5hrs it should be fine.

Finally, we went to the Communism Museum, which documents the modern history of Czechoslovakia under Communism. It was fascinating, as they had loads of real posters, propaganda, and the like from the era. God they're funny! I don't think 'ours' (ie. the West) were much better though.

After getting hopelessly lost again and having to hop on the metro we ended up at the restuarant we ate our first meal at for goulash, appel strudel et al. Soo good!

After an excellent nights sleep, we went down to consume our first bland hostel breakfast and plan the next few days in Prague. Bec and Nicky are friends from Sydney Uni - Bec was one of my mentees from ArtsNetwork in 2003, and Nicky I know though O-Week and mutual friends. They are both in Europe for exchange as well - Nicky to Potsdam, Germany, and Bec to Aix en Provence, France.

It's amazing how different things are when you travel with others. We ended up doing very little 'sightseeing' today, but we had an excellent time nonetheless. We've all had our fair share of museums etc, so it was great just to wander around.

That being said, we did spend rather too much time in the Internet cafes and cafes. The food, though, is fantastic. We all had traditional Czech meals of pork, duck and dumplings and they were amazing! Quite cheap too - everything is roughly Sydney prices, not 2x it as in the rest of Europe.

The one Museum we did go to, however, was the National Museum, at the end of Wenceslas Sq in the New Town. It's an imposing building and well worth a visit, but the museum itself is largely dead-boring. I've had more than enough of 'ologys' for a while!! Palaentology, Zoology, Anthropology and Mineralogy all got a mention! The guestbook and architecture were the highlights.

We walked all through the Old Town, marvelling in disgust at the large number of English hen's and buck's nights around (my personal favourite: "I'm 40 and very naughty" on a group of rather large females. Eek!). They really are horrible tourists! But we caught an awesome sunset from the top of Charles' Bridge tower and had another great dinner (celebrating Nicky's 21st) with lots of cheese! (Sorry Nicky! - she's lactose intolerant)

Woke up at 8 to say bye to Julia - my host for the past few days - and received calls from both Mum, Dad & Flis and Angela! yay!

After packing and dropping my bags back at Hauptbahnhof, I headed to Warschauer Strasse to visit the East Side Gallery, whcih was AWESOME! So much to see, and the Grafitti was really impressive. Some cool stencils too.

Unfortunately, that ended up being all I really did today, as I spent some time in the afternoon looking for the Stasi Museum (unsuccesfully, it looks like it no longer exists), and buying souvenirs. I did get to visit the Berlin Wall Memorial though, which was great, although somewhat more of the same.

And yet another dodgy exchange rate from Pounds to Czech Crowns... ah well, such is life.

However, today was destined to be good: I was meeting with Bec & Nicky from Sydney and we were all headed for Prague!!

I met Bec on the train and we had a great time catching up over a few beers in the restaurant car. We finally arrived in Prague 80mins late and proceeded to get hopelessly lost looking for the hostel! It was totally my fault, however I can't be totally to blame when there are two streets named 'Skolska' and 'Sokolska' within 2kms of each other.

So finally, at around 1am, both exhausted, we arrived at our hostel. It actually ended up being really close to the exit to the Metro, which made it all the more annoying!! So we knocked at the door and were greeted with a Czech couple who knew nothing of our reservation, names, or anything! Only after 10mins of exasperation on all our parts, and Bec asking for 'her Blonde friend' (to which they replied, 'Ah!! Blondino!!!') were we allowed in and found an equally exasperated Nicky.

The hostel (Centrum II) is VERY centrally located, but dodgy as. The shower curtain is, well, covered in a mix of brown and red substances that I don't even want to think about, and the beds squeak. The breakfast is OK, if very bland, but it's safe and the other guests are friendly. Nicky even scored (no pun intended) free accommodation in Naples through her new-found Italian friend Valentino.

We FINALLY got to sleep at 2am, exhausted and kinda over Prague.

PS: For photos of Berlin, click here.