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Published: August 2nd 2014
Sunday 13th July
After two fantastic days in Paris I was on the move again and this time headed for Prague, Czech Republic. I had looked into the costs of flying but with my luggage the prices became way too expensive and trains are pricey too. It was going to cost me a minimum of €125. So I looked into the idea of ride sharing. My Airbnb host in Montpellier, Mohamed had told me about this website called BlaBlaCars which is basically the travel version of Airbnb. People advertise where they are travelling, the different drop off points they can make and then you ride with them on their journey. I admit that it does sound a little dodgy but as I looked at the website and read peoples reviews I felt more and more comfortable with the idea. It sounded very environmental, better to share fuel with several travellers then just one driver. So I looked up two lifts that were travelling from Paris to Prague on the Sunday and contacted them both. Marcin replied telling me that he spoke good English and as long as I was alright travelling with another BlaBlaCar guest and her cat that
I was welcome to travel with them for the cheap price of €53! I booked it and felt happy that I had managed to save so much money. Of course the down side was that it was going to be a long 11hr drive.
That morning at 7am I met Marcin and his friend, as well as the other BlaBlaCar guest. They were all from Normandy, France but spoke to me in English. We went to a cafe and bought coffee for the road then stacked our luggage into the tiny car. Marcin was a musician and a fan of classical music so we listened to beautiful music and talked about art, music, dance and all the sights. Persia, the cat was sitting next to me in a cat box and fortunately was very quiet and slept peacefully the entire way. She woke only when we stopped for petrol or toilet breaks, meowing "are we there yet?”. I slept most of the way though the journey which was a shame because the sights were so beautiful. We drove through Germany, so now I can officially say I’ve been to Germany! Along the road there were lots of Autobahn
exits to Germany’s biggest city and each time I read the signs in German, Ausfarht, I couldn’t help giggling to myself.
We arrived in Prague (Praha) around 6pm and I was dropped off at Hlavni Nadrazi, Prague’s largest train station. My Airbnb host Misha had given me directions to walk to her house that would take about 20 minutes. However I had not anticipated it would be 20 minutes up hill with my travel pack. With over half my body weight on my back I was so out of breath and unfit. I felt like one of the biggest loser contestants when they have lost a huge amount of weight and are in the semi finals and have to trek somewhere with all their lost weight strapped onto them with sandbags. It’s not easy! I arrived at Misha’s apartment, climbed four flights of stairs and was welcomed into a beautiful apartment with high ceilings and colourful walls. Misha gave me a glass of water and sat me down to show me a huge variety of brochures, maps and a two invaluable guest books filled with ideas on what to do and what not to do during my visit in
Pregnant Woman Sculpture
You can climb under her legs and stand up in her Woohoo as if she is giving birth to you. Prague. Misha runs her Airbnb as a business and over three years has had over 1000 people stay at her apartment. Therefore she was very organised and had loads of information on what to do, where to go and eat. We got talking and she invited me out to watch the world cup soccer (or as everyone in Europe calls it, football) game with some of her friends and their Airbnb guests. I had nothing planned for my first night so I happily accepted. We walked to an outdoor bar in a park where they had set up big screens to watch the show. It was packed full of Argentinean and German fans. I hadn’t been following the soccer, having not been around many televisions but it’s always fun to watch the final game. I sat at a table with lots of Germans, ordered a really nice meal of Gnocci and a pint of Pilsner Urquell, the famous Czech beer. Another beer later and I was surprised that my meal and drinks only came to $12, and even more surprised when Misha told me that this was an expensive meal. It was nice to be somewhere cheap after spending time
in London. Germany won the match and my newly made German friends bought my table Jager shots to celebrate. I had so much fun meeting new people and hearing where they live in Europe and where they have travelled. Everywhere sounds so exciting and even more so when I realised how close in proximity I am to these countries! Around midnight I walked back to Misha’s apartment with another Airbnb guest who were staying in the room next to me.
The next day I decided that the best way to see the city was to do a free walking tour. Misha told me that Sandemans was an excellent tour group, so I walked into the city centre towards the astronomical clock to find them hidden from the heat under their red umbrellas. My tour guide for the day was Kate, an Australian who moved to Prague in 1991 after marrying a Czech man. I couldn’t believe that I would have an Australian guide on my Czech tour! Kate was a children’s teacher and art history major so she spoke with a loud voice, filled our brains with interesting information on the politics, religion, history and architecture of the city.
She kept us entertained with stories and made things fun so even me with my short attention span stayed interested. My favourite story was of the legend of the Astronomical clock. It was build 1410 by Hanuš a world famous clock engineer of the time. After he completed the clock he was ordered to the Palace by the Prague cancellers. He was unsure of the invitation, as the Palace was not a welcoming sort of place but curiosity got the better of him so he went. Here the cancellers tied him down and with a burning hot rod poked both his eyes out so that he could never construct another clock of this grandeur again, therefore stopping other surrounding country’s of attaining a Hanuš built clock. Without his sight he was utterly depressed and ended up throwing himself into the clockwork mechanics committing suicide and in turn breaking the clock. This was perhaps the best punishment he could have given the chancellors as Hanuš was the only person at the time who knew how to fix the clock. It took over 100 years before anyone could repair the clock. The tour lasted four hours and we were guided through the
Old and new town square, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish district and then over to Charles bridge.Kate insisted we work on a ‘Buddy system’ and everyone had to chose a buddy who was not their friend and at certain times we were told to check in and see if every ones buddy was with the group. It was a great way to check if people had gotten lost in the group, but also a great way to make friends if you were traveling alone like me. My buddy was Jonas a boy from Quebec Canada who was studying finance in Germany and for the holidays travelled around Europe because he had to vacate his dorm over the summer. We clicked instantly and both enjoyed each other’s company after travelling alone. In the middle of the tour we were taken to a local pub for lunch and given two options of a set menu. We chose the goulash and dumplings and a pint of beer. I was really impressed that lunch was included on the tour and that they took us somewhere cheap with Czech specialties. Something interesting I learnt from Kate was that the Czech’s have a peculiar habit of defenestrating
(the act of throwing people out windows) key authorities and inturn changing their political history. It seemed like a strange way to kill people and made me think differently when looking up at the beautiful windows on all the buildings we walked past. I really enjoyed the architecture of the buildings because nothing quite matched and blended different eras together in a way that somehow worked. Also there are so many, correction, too many churches in the city, which are wasted on the citizens who are 90% atheist. Therefore many of the Churches have been turned into hostels and bars to make use of the space. This seemed like such a crazy way to treat a sacred building. I particularly enjoyed seeing one church where hanging from the roof was a dead and beef jerky shrivelled human hand. Legend has it that the hand belongs to a thief who came to the church to steal some riches. As he reached out for something the statue of the Madonna came to life and held his arm. She didn’t leg go until a Priest came and realised that had happened. The Priest cut off the thief’s hand and hung it from the
high ceiling as a way of warning others that if they stole from the church they would share the same fate.
The tour worked on a tips scheme that you pay what you felt the guide deserved. Both my buddy Jonas and I enjoyed Kate’s tour so much we paid her fairly and then signed onto her next paid tour of the Castle and Palaces. We took a tram up the hill with her and were guided through the Castle. It was not one singular building but a mass of mismatched buildings collaged together to form a mass of palaces. I was glad I was on the tour and not sight seeing alone because Kate shared so much knowledge on the history behind all the buildings and the history of the Czech Republic to match. Hearing how much the country has been though over the years was made clear when Kate explained how her husbands Grandmother had lived in Prague from 1919-2012 and without ever leaving the country had lived in nine different countries. Each time she had to learn the countries new title, leader and change all her documentation and currency. So it is no wonder that
the Czech’s have not moved onto using Euro’s, resisting another change.
After the tour I still had some time to kill before it got late. I thought about visiting a gallery or museum but after seeing so many art galleries in other countries I couldn’t handle seeing any art! Walking home a museum of another sort caught my attention, the Museum of Sex Machines. This sounded interesting so I walked in and bought a ticket. It was a very small museum filled with an incredible collection of sex objects. The first room showed a collection of corsets, caged bras, chastity belts, and nightgowns with slits in the crotch with signs explaining ‘God wishes it’. Next I entered a small cinema where I watched two silent black & white porn films from 1925, Italy. It was hilarious to watch and see what was considered “sexy” back then. The women were extremely voluptuous and the men either rotund or scary thin. They would act politely kissing each other on the checks then start to go at it. Most often the men could not keep aroused the entire time. It was a strange thing to sit and watch alone I know
but it was so bizarre I was hooked. Upstairs I came across one of the first peep show booths, a seesaw with painful looking wooden dido’s on the seats, a thrown for “golden showers” and an array of vibrators and masturbation devices. Most of the artefacts dated from the 1800’s to early 1900’s. I left the museum and ended my day with a whole new insight to the sex industry and fear of masturbatory items that more accurately resembled torture devices.
The next day I moved out of Misha’s apartment and down the street to stay with my friend Sophie. Sophie and I danced together at CDDC and had not seen each other for over nine years when she was 18 and I was 14. I was pretty nervous about how we would get along but as soon as she welcomed me into her small apartment and introduced me to her Czech husband Ivo, I knew we would get along perfectly. She had been living in Prague for nearly two years after moving from Holland and has been living in Europe for over five years. She is still dancing but working mostly as a teacher and promoter for
bar crawls (a good job for non Czech speakers), because the contemporary dance scene in the Czech Republic is not very strong.
Sophie and Ivo took me out for lunch at a nice restaurant nearby and we met up with another ex CDDC dancer who was also in Prague, Erina. It was strange to have so many generations of CDDC students hanging out together but also comforting to know that no matter where you are in the world you have a dance family to spend time with. Ivo ordered us a traditional goulash dish with dumplings and cranberries. It was really delicious and the dumplings are not anything like Asian dumplings or English stew dumplings but are closer to a spongy sort of bread. After lunch Sophie walked me around other areas of the town that I had missed on my tour like the artists on the Charles Bridge, the statue you had to rub for good luck and the John Lennon wall that used to be filled with inspirational positive quotes but is now disappointingly filled with Yolos and teenage scrawl. At the wall we bumped into a friend of Sophie’s who did Segway tours. He offered
to let me drive it after learning that I had never been on one before. It was really fun but also very difficult to drive on the cobbled stones. The stones in Prague are very dangerous and everywhere you look there are missing stones and pot holes. I think it must be one of the most dangerous cities in the world to visit at night where you are very susceptible to tripping in a sneaky pothole. At night Sophie took me on a bar crawl with her Drunken Monkey crew that she works for. I don’t normally enjoy going out but I had so much fun with her and we got free drinks most of the night. At 3:45am we decided it was a night and called a cheap taxi service to take us home. The taxi took a long time so we asked another driver how much he would charge for a ride home. He told us 380CZK, $19.80 but Sophie said it was way too expensive and he was taking advantage of tourists. Soon our cheap taxi arrived and took us home for only 108CZK, $5.60, a huge difference in cab fees. I was happy to be going
home with a local.
On my fourth day in Prague, Sophie took my buddy Jonas and I a couple of hours out of the city to visit the Bone Church/Ossuary in Kutna Hora. In the 13
th Century an abbot returned from a visit to Palestine with a pocketful of soil from the holy land and sprinkled it onto the cemetery surrounding the Chapel of All Saints. This made the graveyard a sought after burial sight for the aristocracy of Europe. In the 17
th Century during the thirty years’ war the number of burial plots outgrew the space available so the previous graves were exhumed to make space. The inside of the church was divided into 4 cross sections where piles of bones were mounded up to three meter high pyramids with giant crowns placed on the top to represent God. In the centre of the space there was a magnificent chandelier made entirely of bones and several skull columns. The bones were all placed in exquisite patterns. It is said that a monk went mad and made detailed designs and geometric shapes from the bones. All the bones had been bleached and cleaned because many of the dead
were victims of the plague or influenza. Therefore the bones had an eerie beauty about them that almost made them look less real. Unlike the bones of the Paris Catacombs the jaws and teeth were present and most were in good condition. Obviously they were treated with care.
After visiting the Church we walked around the town to find a place that sold Schnitzel, something the three of us were craving. We looked and looked finding only expensive restaurants until we came across a small Mexican restaurant that had a schnitzel lunch of the day that was advertised in Czech. Sophie read it and it cost a bargain price of $5 so we sat down to eat. With full bellies we walked to the other side of town to a small water park with playgrounds, swimming pools and bob sledding. We purchased five rides on the bob sleds between the three of us and we all had a blast together whizzing down the hill overlooking Kutna Hora.
That night when we got back to Prague Sophie took me to Andy, a friend of hers Teahouse/bar. The place had a real laid-back hipster vibe and most of
the people there were friends. There was a great little band playing and everyone was having a good time smoking shisha and drinking tea or beer. Andy kept making us all different pots of tea wanting me to try all his own special brews. His chocolate-mint tea was by far the best tea I have ever tasted and his chai was the first chai I have ever enjoyed. We left at midnight and as we were walking back to the tram stop we came across a bakery where locals were knocking on the back door to order freshly baked bread. We decided to do the same, so Sophie in her broken Czech asked for two loaves of bread, ten baguette style rolls, two jam donuts and a selection of Czech pastries, costing only $7! We ate some of the bread on the way home. It was the first time I had ever eaten freshly baked, still warm bread.
The next day Sophie and Ivo invited me to the Colours of Ostava music festival a few hours outside of Prague. I was unsure about going because it was Thursday and I was leaving Prague on the Friday night with
a BlaBlaCar ride share. Ivo helped me work out that my ride was actually driving through Bruno that was very close to Ostava. I contacted Olly my driver and he said it was no problem to collect me from Bruno instead. I quickly packed my bags while Sophie and Ivo packed theirs and their camping equipment, and we caught the next train to Ostava.
I had never been to a music festival and have to admit I was unsure if I would enjoy it and whether or not I would feel safe around a crowd of drunk/drugged festivalgoers. After buying our tickets (my one day pass only costing $40) we ran to get into see the end of a band that Sophie really wanted to see. We threw down our travel packs at the front of the stage and danced around feeling as light as a feather without the weight of the packs. Afterwards we set off to find our camping spot and met up with a group of Sophie and Ivo’s friends. We hitched the tent and lay out a tarp for everyone to sit on to hang out drinking until the big bands starting playing at
night.
The first band we watched was Seasick Steve, an American blues musician who makes his own guitars out of trash. My boyfriend McGee is a fan and I knew he would be jealous of me. Seasick Steve was awesome and his old pal drummer was filled with crazy amounts of energy. The two of them rocked the crowd and got us all hyped up to move onto watch MGMT. These guys started off really cruisey with an almost dream like atmosphere but suddenly it amped up and the crowd went wild with energy. Ivo put me up on his shoulders because he wanted me to see how far back the crowd behind us went with thousands of people. We were dancing next to a man in a wheel chair who was frowning and looking miserable next to his carer. The disabled get either free of drastically reduced tickets to lots of music festivals in the Czech Republic because it’s a form of therapy. Sophie didn’t realise he was not having fun and went up to him and started dancing with him and twirling herself around holding onto his deformed hands. I saw his face light up instantly
for the first time that night so I quickly joined in. We danced with him until the end of the show, laughing and having so much fun together. It felt good to have been able to make his night so special. Worn out and utterly exhausted we went back to the tent to drink and hang out till the sun rose as if to tell us to go to bed.
On my final day in the Czech Republic I slept until the afternoon and read for hours under a tree by the tent. It would have been perfect except for the fear of getting a tick like some of our friends had gotten during the night. Supposedly there are no dangerous animals in Czech except ticks that carry lime disease, nasty creatures! I walked around the campsite and was taken aback when I saw washing machines and fridges for hire. It was camping in luxury that’s for sure. Still it took about forty-five minutes of lining up to get a shower.
By 5pm it was time for me to leave, so I said goodbye to all my new friends and left to catch a tram to
the train station with Sophie. We looked everywhere to find a ticket machine and even asked the driver who just ignored us, so we sat down without tickets. Unfortunately during the ride two ticket inspectors came aboard and asked us for our tickets. We explained that we didn’t know how to get one and were going to purchase it at the train station or if they could help us we would buy it now. The one who spoke English said “Let me make this simple, do you have a ticket?” we replied “no” to which he said, “Then you will get a fine. 14000CKZ, each”. I was leaving the country and was carrying only enough Czech money to pay for a train ride to Bruno and a drink, so we told him we didn’t have the money. So he told us he would take us to the Police station instead. I was so shocked he was treating us so rudely; it was obvious I was a lost and confused tourist. I didn’t know what to do and somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered what my God Mother Tante Rina had told me to do in certain situations;
cry and use being a woman to my advantage to men. I never really wanted to do this sort of this but after asking and asking if he would let us buy a ticket and let us off the fine and him saying no, I began crying. With this he lowered the price down to 700CKZ each and then with more babbling 500CKZ each. This I accepted and withdrew money from the ATM to pay him. Handing over the money I told him that I hopes he realised what a mean man he was and how it was not a nice way to treat travellers who were obviously lost and confused in a foreign country, and that by treating us like this left a very bad last impression on me for my trip to the Czech Republic! Furiously Sophie explained to me that this was a typical Gregory. A Gregory being a slang name her and her friends use to call Grumpy Czechs, Gregory Pecks.
With a face filled with tears I bought my train ticket and waited for the train, which didn’t come… It seemed as though anything bad that could happen was happening. I checked the
monitors and there was no explanation so I started to panic. Sophie stayed with me until the monitors showed the train was delayed 60 minutes, then 80 minutes. This stressed me out because it meant I was going to miss my pick up for my rideshare to Vienna with Olly. After calling him he told me they were running late and it would all workout. Finally the train came and I sat down in a carriage across from a friendly looking woman. She told me she only spoke a little English as she was from Ostava and there isn’t really anyone to speak English to and that she had not spoken English in fifteen years. However her English was fantastic and we got along really well. She told me the reason the train was delayed was that there was a bomb scare and that a man had told authorities that he had planted bombs on several trains! Our train was the only train checked and cleared to leave the station so we were very lucky to have left. It felt like too much drama for one day! Lucky for me I was sitting next to an extraordinary woman. She told
On the train to Ostava
On the table you can see a beer opener. me that she was in her mid thirties, married to a 53yr old man whom she had a 13yr old child with, but that she also had a 60yr old boyfriend. Strangely this was all right and they were all friends and each accepted each other’s relationship. Her child Olivie felt lucky to have two Dads. It was the perfect example of a modern relationship. When we arrived in Bruno, she gave me a big hug and thanked me for spending the journey together and wished me all the best from my travels and that she thought I was very brave to be traveling alone. I felt so fortunate to have sat with her for the last three hours and to have shared our stories after having a very negative experience leaving Ostava. After meeting her I felt calm and ready for my next adventure.
At Bruno I desperately needed to use the bathroom before the car trip but had no money left and the toilets were all pay toilets. Luckily a nice young man saw me looking at the fenced off toilets, standing there with my travel pack and back pack looking like a lost tourist staring
into her empty wallet. Kindly he came over and gave me the ten cents to use the toilet. Random acts of kindness like this can make such a difference when you are travelling alone, feeling lost and scared in unfamiliar places. Afterwards I waited outside for Olly and his carload of other BlaBlaCar passengers. I got in the car with two dancers from the States and a girl from Poland. They were all friendly but tired after travelling for such a long time. I sat in the front seat and chatted to Olly keeping him awake. However I was starting to feel run down and very sick so it was not easy to make conversation. He was a great driver and was full of interesting stories. He also offered me a lift to Berlin after I finished in Vienna in August. We arrived later then expected in Vienna and I felt bad for making my ex singing teacher Sonia wait for me until past midnight to collect me from the train station and take me home to stay with her for my first night. I was really happy to have a friend pick me up because by this time I
was feeling very unwell and feeling the flu come on. Sonia took me back to her apartment, dosed me up on borocca and put me to bed. Here I spend my first night in Vienna, feeling sick but cared for and not alone.
Random Findings in Czech Republic: 1. Ahoy in Czech means Hello or Goodbye. I really wanted to say it to someone on a boat!
2. Prague has the highest rate of pot smokers of all cities, even beating Amsterdam, which made me question if it was legal. The answer was no but that everyone does it and most police will just tell you to put it out if they see you smoking.
3. Ostava ticket inspectors are assholes!
4. Beer is cheaper then Water.
5. Dogs are allowed in restaurants, pubs, pretty much anywhere.
6. By putting up an Australian flag over a tent at a music festival it can attract other Aussies and English speakers to come over, hang out and become friends.
7. Since being in Europe my skin has completely cleared up. No more stressed spotty skin.
8. So far the advice my God Mother Tante Rina has come in
Mini theatre.
If you stand on the circle in the middle and the group stands around the sides your voice is enhanced and sounds like a mega phone in your ears. handy for two things; cry to get my way in difficult situation and to wash my undies & socks in the shower to save on using a washing machine.
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