Our travels from Rome to Prague were nowhere near as complicated or as
lengthy as the Madrid to Rome journey. It also took place during slightly more regular
hours, thus making us eager and ready to enjoy our first day in Prague.
Upon
arrival, we sought out food. (Typical.) We quickly found some street
vendors and indulged in some sausage and ham. After days
of carbohydrates, we decided that we could stand to have a little
protein in
our bodies. Then, intrigued by the vendor roasting pastries and topping
them
with cinnamon sugar, we tried trdelnik.
Trdelnik fun fact: This sweet originates from
Translyvania (the country most people think I come from when I say that I'm
from when I say I'm from Pennsylvania).
After getting a bit of energy in our bodies, we began to wander the streets without a set agenda. This was the first city that I hadn't already visited and it was fun to be exploring with no idea of what to expect. We ended up in the Jewish ghetto, where we made friends with a young woman who was working in a jewelry store. She taught me to say thank you (děkuji), which is even harder than it looks. The "d" sound is much softer than we have in English... after a few attempts, I realized I was making mistakes I couldn't even identify and would need to do some independent studies if I wanted to actually learn Czech.
For dinner, we ate at Lokál,
a restaurant suggested both by the guy who rented our apartment to us
and a blogger from Prague. It was delicious, and I had beef tartar for the first
time ever! I decided it was the place to try it, since I saw 2 other girls near me eating it and the restaurant prided itself on getting fresh meat from a loyal, local butcher.
Mom and I had our first Czech beers. We each only drank one though, not quite living up to the apparent norm of the restaurant.
Beef tartar with fresh garlic bread (aka I rubbed the garlic clove into this butter fried bread)
I also need to give a SHOUT OUT! to Ali for trying the beef tartar! Mom, on the other hand, refused. We tried to convince her to try the tiniest piece, but it was a no go. Ali and I were both pretty surprised to see Mom absolutely refuse to try a new food.
The second
day in Prague, Ali and I decided to enjoy Old Town by doing her MWS workout
in the center square. Luckily, at 9 AM, there weren’t too many people. Those who
were there, however, got a nice show of Ali and I sprinting along, using street
signs, poles of buildings, and sidewalk cracks as markers for the different
running distances. They probably also thought that I was the slowest runner on
the face of this planet as Ali pulled away from me in the span of a 60 meter
sprint. I wanted a sign that said, “I’m not slow, it's just that she runs a 6:00 mile!” Oh
well, I wasn’t too worried about impressing the old man who tried to high five
us and attempted to use his arms as a start gun for us.
Plus,
working out made the trip to Bakeshop afterwards even more delightful. I
thoroughly enjoyed my spinach feta pastry and my rhubarb, blueberry tart.
Rhubarb and blueberry tart... it tasted like pie!
After
breakfast, we wandered around the Jewish quarter and entered a few of the
synagogues. Most of the synagogues we entered are now being used for museum
purposes and are quite educational about the development of the Jewish culture
within the Czech Republic. One of them, however, was used as a memorial and had
walls covered with the names of the Jews that had died in the ghettos and the
concentration camps during World War II. It was beautiful, though obviously in a somber way.
My
favorite part of the tour through the Jewish quarter was one of the exhibits
displaying children’s drawings. The exhibit focused on an artist who had given
the children art lessons while they were living in the Jewish ghetto. They studied
color patterns and whatnot, but the works that they created depicted the view
of the ghetto from a child’s perspective. Many showed the disparity of the
situation, from the uncensored viewpoint of a child. Other drawings, however,
revealed hope for freedom in the future and included flowers and smiling
families walking away from the ghetto, towards home. These drawings reminded me
of the book Room (by Emma Donoghue), which I highly recommend. It gives extremely
interesting insight into how a parent can influence a child and transform his
or her understanding of a desperate situation.
We also
entered the Jewish cemetery, where there were 12,000 tombstones over 100,000
bodies. As the brochure reads, “Jews were not allowed to be buried outside the
ghetto, so the dead had to be buried on top of one another, up to ten layers
deep.”
The tombstones seemed to be piled on top of one another
With Hebrew inscriptions
After
our
tour of the Jewish quarter, we headed to lunch, and stopped by the
“Dancing
House” along the way. This building is owned by a Dutch insurance
company, and was originally given the name "Fred and Ginger", because it
looked like two people dancing.
Walking past the Dancing house
Duck with an onion, feta, arugula salad
After
lunch, we went to the Prague Castle complex. "According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world, with an
area of almost 70,000 m²" (Prague Castle). There, we walked through great halls,
entered a small church, and saw the outside of the cathedral. We didn’t get to
the inside before it closed, so we just imagined seeing the outside walls from
the other side. I’m pretty sure my imagination was pretty accurate.
A hall in the Prague castle complex... doesn't it make you think of a gothic style Downton Abbey?
A church
The outside of the cathedral
Our feet
were pretty tired from walking all over our map, so we headed back towards our
apartment to drop off the Christmas ornaments that Mom bought for our first
gifts of Christmas. (We'll act surprised.) On our way, we paused to buy a few gifts, check out a
church (and accidentally enjoy a brief but pleasant organ concert as someone practiced), and
get Mom a Starbucks.
Lastly, we
stopped in one of the jewelry stores that sold garnet, which is abundant in
Prague. Ali was considering buying a ring as her big souvenir from the trip.
One in particular had caught her eye, so we went back (much to the overeager
salesman’s delight) to check out the price and consider. (Background
knowledge: I had tried on a gold-plated ring with a decent size stone the
previous day that was priced at $75.)
Anyway, the
conversation went something like this:
Salesman
(S): Oh you are back! How wonderful!
Me: Yep,
we’re just taking another look…
S: You’ll
find something you like. I’ll sell it to you.
Mom: Well,
we only buy if you give us a good deal.
S: Oh! I
give you a crazy deal. A crazy deal just for you.
Ali and I
meander around the store; Ali takes a closer look at the one that she liked.
S: Which
one you like? Let me show it to you. Salesman is already pulling out the entire rack of
rings.
Ali:
Uhmmmm, this one? She points nervously to the ring with a small garnet stone
and petite diamonds around the outside, unaware that they are real diamonds
set in white gold.
S: Pretty.
Very pretty.
Ali: How
much is it?
S: Salesman pulls
out his calculator and begins punching in numbers. Well, the normal price is
this but with the conversion rate and a very special discount, it would be 965
dollars.
Ali: Ali politely and quickly taking off the ring. Okayyyyyy, thank you.
S: So you
buy it?
Ali:
Nooooo. I’m a broke college student.
S: Where’s
your dad? I’ll talk to him.
Me: No no no. He’s
not here. I smile, thinking: Nor would he buy a $965 ring from you on a whim!
Mom: She was going to buy it as a souvenir with money from Christmas.
S: Okay,
okay. I give it to you for $750. Just for you.
Ali: No,
really. I can’t afford it.
S: How
much can you afford?
Ali: You
don’t want to know.
S: No
really, tell me.
Ali: No
really, you don’t want to know.
The scene
continued on as the salesman started sweating, trying to figure out how much
money Ali had (100€), lowering the price to $350, and attempting to sell her one of the more gaudy, cheaper
rings. He was unsuccessful, and as we were leaving he said, “Wow, she’s a good
bargainer! She won’t tell me how much money she has!” I think he knew when we
walked out the door that there was no hope of us returning.
The last
big event for our only full day in Prague, was the beer garden. Or lack of beer
garden. I had read about the big, open beer gardens online and was eager to
check out how the locals relaxed on a Friday night. As the very handy blog
that I had read stated, “When the
weather is warm (or at least un-cold), Prague’s beer gardens are the place to while away an afternoon,
evening, or possibly even both. Beer gardens are casual affairs with long,
simple picnic tables, a food stand or two serving greasy sausages, and — most
importantly — an endless supply of freshly pulled Czech beer. Relax with locals
of all ages, from the stodgy business guy in a suit to grandpa with his dog to
the young punk kids."
The tourist center next to our apartment didn’t seem too keen
on helping us get there, saying, “You don’t want to go there. That’s where the
locals hang out. Its just a couple of stands with beer and picnic tables.” Wrong,
lady. I do want to go. Have you ever
heard of people watching? I was determined, so I looked it up on Google
Maps and led Mom and Ali across the river and up 256 stairs.
And then we found… not what we were looking for.
There were about 60 people between the age of 18 and 26
drinking out of 2 liter coke bottles, skateboarding, and smoking a very sweet
smelling drug. Obviously, we fit right in. There was one beer
stand, serving a special locally produced beer: Budweiser. (Sarcasm?). But there were
no grandpas with dogs or stodgy business guys. So we took a picture, pretending
like we had walked up for the view, and wandered around to the other set of
steps in hopes that the beer garden was behind the punk rock fest. Negative. Oh
well, better luck next country!
Just hanging out with all the Czech hipsters
Our
last day in Prague, Ali and I went for a run and then we had
breakfast at Bakeshop. It was a slight repeat from the day before, but
it worked so
why not? Then we checked out of our apartment (aka we left the apartment
with
our stuff and shut the door without bringing along the keys), and headed
over
to the train station to store our bags until our 4:30 PM train. At this
point I
would like to give Mom credit for lugging her suitcase for 20 minutes
over the
cobblestones of Prague to save money on a taxi (which we still have not
used).
We could've used a tram but the tram system was a bit complicated
because you can only buy tickets in the
metro. Thus, we decided the small distance it would save us wasn’t worth
it. In the end, we didn’t use any transportation within Prague… we
walked from end to end
multiple times without thinking twice about it.
The last day was no exception. We walked from the apartment to the
train station and then all the way across the city to the other side of the
river to check out the Lennon wall. It’s basically a big wall of graffiti, but
it was pretty cool!
Close-up
Wonderful travel buddies!
Then we walked back across the city, had some lunch, and
played rummy while we awaited our train. Another successful city!
The blog recommended the special for lunch at our last restaurant. However, it was in Czech (and the waiter gave me a pretty rough
translation)
so I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting. But the pig knee, 2 kinds of sauerkraut, bread dumplings, and
potato dumplings were a deliciously filling meal for $7!
Now we’re in our last country, Germany, and we can’t believe the
time is going so quickly! The up-side, though, is that I'll be seeing many of you very soon!
Much love,
Amber
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