Advertisement
Published: August 1st 2005
July 22-29 Prague, Czech Republic at Ariva Guesthouse
So, it was blazing hot in Prague and Justin desperately needed a haircut but for the life of us we could not find a salon or barber anywhere, and the funny thing is, is that we probably walked by a thousand of them but had no idea because everythings in Czech and we're a bit oblivious. So, the best alternative I could think of was to just shave it all off and that's just what we did. Of course this made Justin a bit nervous, but after a few beers and some liquid courage he wasn't so worried about it and he said if Jim (Beth's dad who also recently shaved his head) can do it, I can to! And of course we have pictures of all this and are trying to upload them onto this site, but everything takes so long, so we're thinking we'll burn a disc of the photos and upload them that way, so stay tuned.
We thought we'd be able to sleep in a bit, but for some reason EVERY morning there was construction or some loud noise outside of our apt, so we were always up bright and early. The food is amazingly good here as well and very reasonably priced. We ate at this place called the Needle House, which they do have a website for if you want to check it out (the conversion is 1 USD to 25 Kz) Basically that means you can get a 5 star meal for 12 dollars a person, it was great. Justin and I also noticed this crazy entree, well not that crazy but something that definately would not fly in the States. It was about a third pound of raw hamburger shaped in the form of a burger ready to be plopped on the grill with a raw egg yolk still in its round shape on top. This came with about 7 garnishes such as mustard, onions, green olives, crushed red pepper or paprika, salt, pepper and we're not really sure what else, but it looked awful! Justin and I had finished our meal and were ready to go but stayed just to watch these people eat the raw meat! They didn't even put it on bread or anything...pretty funny.
The weather has been fantastic, but towards the end of the week it has gotten crazy hot, you just don't stop sweating all day and can not drink enough water to keep up! An art vender on the Charles Bridge mentioned that it was the hottest day in Prague so far this year.
Another place we went is the Museum of Communism. It was a bit disappointing because it was very small and a bit pricey, but very interesting. There was a video that showed people getting the crap beat out of them by the police and undercover police in a main street in Prague because they were protesting communism, and this was in 1988, not that long ago! (we had recently walked down that same street just before going to the museum). Otherwise the museum displayed a few stories of what went on during the communist period and some pictures as well as an interrogation room the police and government used to interrogate people they thought were against the government and so on.
Another cool thing we did was tour the Prague Castle, which stands up on one of the tallest hills overlooking the city of Prague. There is this gorgeous church up there and many different buildings that make up the castle.
We also went to this black light show titled Yellow Submarine and was accompanied by Beatles music. I thought it was absolutely horrible and seemed like someone who had been on some sort of a hallucinogen or drug and this is what they saw during their high. It was in this tiny room with individual chairs and a small stage. It was a non-verbal show and I'm still not sure what the actors were trying to tell us or what the story line was, they just moved around and did all these weird actions then a neon music note would go floating across the stage followed by a floating eye ball...it's real hard to describe. Justin on the other hand liked it and thought it was pretty cool. We went with Carmen and Chris (the people we met in Berlin, from Ireland) and Chris liked it but Carmen did not, so who knows.
One other thing about Prague/all over Europe but we noticed it in Prague, they have this alcohol called Absinth and Justin and I really had no intention on trying it because it is the strongest alcohol you can pretty much imagine, you can't even buy it in the states. It used to have a hallucinogen in it but not anymore. Anyway, we were out with Cia, a law student we met in Prague and he insisted we try it so he bought us each a shot and literally the instant it touches your lips, it burns! We took a tiny sip and called it good, I think any more than that it would come up just as fast as it goes down because it really does make you gag a bit.
Prague has a reputation of being extremely cheap for tourists as far as food, lodging and everything goes. But, in the past 4 years prices have tripled and quadrupled and now the only cheap thing is food and beer ($1 for a .5 liter), so its not as cheap as we had planned, but still reasonable.
Now we're in Krakow,Poland and will blog ya in a few days...I promise it won't be this long!!!
Beth & Justin
Advertisement
Tot: 0.293s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0894s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
ureinmn
non-member comment
Wow! What A Great Time You Are Having
Fun to share your travel stories. Brings back lots of memories of my time in the Netherlands and Europe. You know not to eat the raw meat (food poisoning, etc), that was also popular when I was traveling too and thought that was different.