Part of a mob in Praha

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So after a lengthy trip from the Rock Am Ring music festival to Prague, I arrived in Prague at about 10:30 and caught the metro and a tram to my hostel. I took my bag upstairs and struggled to work out exactly which bed in the room had not already been claimed, which took a suprisingly long time and eventually I was able to choose my bed. I hadn't been feeling very well that day after the music festival so I headed off to bed pretty early and slept quite late the next day.
That day I spent a fair amount of time getting ready and having breakfast, and then took off and walked randomly around town. It was a beautiful day (it was nice to see the sun, which had been absent since I was in Berlin) and the city looked very pretty. I tried to avoid the masses of tourists but they were everywhere and obviously I wanted to see the things that everyone else wanted to see as well. I spent most of the day walking aimlessly and just enjoying the city, but as I still felt like I was sickening I didn't want to push it to hard and spent a little bit of time in the internet cafe (I wrote about half of the previous blog then, and then more the next day and then more the day after that - thats why it was so long).
When I got back to my hostel I started talking to a couple of Canadian girls who were travelling together and we headed down to the bar for a couple of drinks (quite cheap - 30 czks for a beer - but not as cheap as some places). While we were finishing our drinks, a Canadian guy (Khalid) came over and invited us to go along with another group for a drink. We all said we would go but one of the Canadian girls had started feeling sick and so neither of them went in the end. I headed out with the other group anyway to a bar that was underground in caves. It was really cool but quite quiet but at least that meant that we could talk. There was 11 of us in the group; Me, Alex (a French-Canadian guy - very confusing to have another Alex in the group), Jazz and Katie (Melbourne girls), Khalid, Tassia (Brazilian - sorry Soph, no Brazilian guys), Chris (the very same Chris from the Munich blog), Timor (not sure of spelling there - everyone thought this was how to spell his name, I thought it was Tebor - he was Latvian I think) and three Mexican guys I never really talked to. So it was a really fun time, although i ran out of Czech money and stopped drinking for a while. Then I headed off with Jazz and the three Mexican guys to go to a club called Duplex but unfortunately it was closed, however we made it back to the other group in time to head back with them. We were going to check out another pub but the Mexican guys had a sudden about turn and wanted to get a taxi back to the hostel, and jumped in one without really telling anyone. Tassia and Katie also wanted to go so they then also jumped into the Mexican guys taxi, however that meant there was too many in the taxi so the Mexican guys booted them out and they had to catch their own back. The rest of us looked for a pub, and then gave up and walked back, and sat on the front steps of the hostel talking (quietly) until we all headed up to our beds.
The next day the 8 of us (the group minus the Mexican guys) met at the hostel for breakfast where we were joined by Mike (from Hong Kong but studying in the US). After breakfast the nine of us caught a tram to Prague Castle. We arrived just before midday and in time for the changing of the guard. After that we strolled through the castle churchyard and past the cathedral in the centre. I have to say I found it very unusual being in a group this size after having spent so much time looking around places by myself, and actually found myself drifting off occasionally and finding it difficult not being able to do whatever I wanted to do. However it was really good (or awesome!) to be around people for a long period of time. We got an overpriced beer at a cafe with a beautiful view of Prague and then tried to head to a market supposedly nearby (which of course was miles away and required a full trek there). As you know I've had mixed weather on my trip and have gotten into the habit of carrying an umbrella everywhere with me as it has not been unusual for rain to suddenly strike. However I didn't want to take a bag with me and so me and Tassia actually discussed it that morning and decided that as it was such a nice day we would leave our umbrellas behind. Of course I'm sure you've all guessed by this point what happened. When we were sitting in the cafe we heard loud thunder in the distance (prompting me and Tassia to look at each other in disbelief!). However we took off for the long trek to the market and despite a very little drizzle the rain seemed to have missed us. When we arrived at the market we agreed to meet half an hour later and all split up. I headed off with Timor and Mike, and after about 5 minutes we were defeaned by the loudest thunder clap I've ever heard that seemed to last a least a minute. However it hadn't started raining so we kept walking and looking for somewhere to eat. We actually heard the rain approaching a few seconds before it hit. Suddenly the noise of rain got louder and louder and we ducked under cover a split second before torrential rain began. We met up with the other Alex and all bought some food and waited until the time to meet before we headed out to the meeting place (by this time the rain had eased slightly). We discovered that everybody else had gone straight to the meeting place as soon as it had started raining and waited there, so they hadn't eaten yet. We all headed back to the hostel and then to a nearby restaurant so they could get food. We were there for a while and then after we went back to the hostel I met up with the two Canadian girls from the previous night and we headed to the internet cafe for a little while. When we got back everyone sat outside for a while and met some new people including Jack from the US. The group of nine had actually grown really close and everybody thought we must've been travelling together for a while. I then headed out with Jack and Mike and got some cheap Chinese food for dinner. We then rejoined the group and sat outside for a while longer. However the terrace is supposed to be closed at 10pm but we didn't know that and the hostel people didn't tell us so at 10:20 (the neighbours must've jumped straight on the phone) the police arrived and told us to move into the bar (which everyone was more than happy to do). After a while at the bar, where I met John (who I'm pretty sure was Canadian), 17 people headed out (the 9 of us except Tassia, plus John, Jack, the two Canadian girls, a Sydney girl called Jess, a US girl who I think was called Ellen or something similar, and three English guys). All day Khalid had been our unofficial leader, and then that night he started rounding up people and became our tour guide and dictator. Tassia really didn't want to go out but knew he would make her and so she told me to distract Khalid and then snuck out of the hostel bar and up to bed. He noticed she was missing almost straight away and then started asking everyone who was leaving the bar where they were going, and wasn't satisfied unless they assured him they were coming back. I know that makes him sound crazy but hes a really nice guy and just wanted everyone to have fun and perhaps became a tad obsessive about it. We went to a Hip-Hop club which was deserted but still lots of fun and stayed there for a while. However it had no dance floor and people wanted to move on so off we headed. However the next place we headed had the same problem and Jazz suggested going to try Duplex again, however Khalid didn't want to go and we had a mutiny on our hands (neither cared who went with them but the group divided). I went with Jazz as did 6 other people and I despaired that it appeared that we had lost the split (however at the last minute John joined us and we got the majority! Yay!). So the 9 of us; Jazz and one of the English guys that she was getting along very well with, Mike, Timor, Katie, John, Alex and obviously me headed to Duplex. We arrived and discovered that the entry cost was 300 Czech Korunys. With conversion this works out at almost 17 Aussie dollars, which is ridiculously expensive for a club on a Wednesday night. And whilst I could probably afford it, no locals were going to pay more than a couple of days wages to get in (because generally everything is very cheap in Prague) so it was only going to have tourists. Unfortunately Jazz, her English guy, Katie and John were in before we could blink and me, Mike and Timor didn't want to go in anymore. In the end we caught Alex and told him, and then headed back to the hostel. On the way back we ran into Khalid, Jess and Ellen (?) and walked the rest of the way back to the hostel where we sat outside again and chatted. A little while after we got back we were joined by Katie, John and Alex who had quickly tired of the empty club they had gone into. Katie headed off to bed and the rest of us sat up talking for a bit longer, and then I got to bed at about 3am. I woke up at about 9am the next morning and joined Tassia for breakfast. That morning half the group had left leaving myself, Tassia, Khalid, Mike and Timor, however for some reason I never actually ran into either Mike and Timor again who had been supposed to join us for breakfast that morning but never turned up. Me, Tassia, Jess and Ellen (?) then headed out to find the 10:30 free tour that left from the old town. I don't normally go on tours but I found the Dachau one very interesting and wanted to try to understand Prague better. You see I didn't (and still don't) have a very stong idea of Prague. It is a very pretty town but had no character what-so-ever (especially when compared with a city like Munich. I think there was probably no locals in the center of the city, which was packed full of tourists. I loved my time in Prague, but unlike some places I never got a strong sense of what Czech people are like, so I decided to do a tour in the hope of better understanding Czech society. So anyway, free tours are nearly always the best tours because they work for tips and really try hard. Unfortunately someone had stolen the brochure pinned to the wall at the hostel and we couldn't remember where it was supposed to meet. We also left too late really to try to find it and in the end couldn't find the tour. Jess and Ellen decided to head up to the Prague castle, but said they would meet me and Tassia at 7pm to go out for a traditional Czech meal. Tassia and I decided to go on one of the paid working tours, and chose one that sounded good (boy, were we ever wrong!!). We paid (a lot!) and took off on the tour with our tour guide who I think was called Yann. He seemed like a nice guy but he had a thick accent and not very good English, but the worst thing was he was just simply boring. Me and Tassia realised pretty fast that we had made a mistake and she wanted to go back and try to get a refund (but in the end we decided that the ticket seller would've left as she would only be there at the start of each tour). So we stuck to the tour and were suprised at how interested everyone else looked. We walked through the old Jewish quarter which was beautiful (but deadly boring when your guide mumurs a bunch of dates at you). Then we went for a drink stop and were left there by our guide. Whilst we were sitting there a girl from Alaska (Amber) commented that she couldn't understand what he was saying and suddenly our table burst in about how crap the tour was and everyone made really good friends with each other. When he finally came back I had formed a good friendship with about half the people and we actually had a really fun time both mocking the tour and at times ignoring the tour (we never did it too obviously but the tour guide was atrocious and had taken a lot of money from us and to be honest we were all over his half-hearted attempts at guiding). He had a habit of walking backwards when he talked so that he would point at a building and talk about it whilst walking backwards so we didn't lose any time. I was convinced he was going to get hit by a car because he didn't look at all when he crossed the road. He walked into lots of people and poles, although when we were crossing the Charles bridge we joked that he was like Moses the way he made all the tourists get out of his way and seperate to either side of the bridge. The only time he almost fell over was walking forwards when he missed his footing and launched himself off the sidewalk and only didn't fall as he hit a parked car. So there were a group of 7 of us hanging back, but there were a few people who were real suck-ups. He never wanted to go into buildings even when they were free and this one girl always agreed with him so all of a sudden we'd be off again without getting to see anything. The group I was with consisted of me, Tassia, Amber, as well as an approximately 19 year old girl and her mother (I never found out their names), and two girls travelling together (Lisa and N - this is bad but i can't remember her name except it started with N and was a name I was unfamiliar with). The tour was so bad that despite the fact we walked through the Old Jewish quarter for about half an hour when we mentioned it later, Amber went "we went to the Jewish quarter?!?". Eventually we ended up back at Prague Castle and I had since found out that it was free entry into the cathedral and meant to be very beautiful and wanted to go inside (as did most people), but Yann was really unenthuastic about going in and the brown-nosing suck-up girl agreed so we were off. It was at this point that our group considered branching off from the tour and heading back to the cathedral but we never needed to because all of a sudden Yann said that the tour was over and he was happy to take us back to the beginning point or we could leave from there. He had sped along so fast that we had completed the walk which was supposed to last 3 and a half hours in only 2 hours and 45 minutes which included a lengthy drink break. We gave a half-hearted goodbye and good ruidance and the 7 of us headed back to the cathedral. Needless to say nobody tipped him (not even the suck-up girl). At one point on the tour the girl who was there with her mother tried to take a photo of him but he caught her and asked her to delete it. I agree that it is rude to take a photo of someone without asking but the way he asked her to delete it was even ruder (of course she didn't delete it!). We went to the cathedral and looked around inside and then everyone (except N) climbed the 287 steps up the tower. It was actually quite hard because it wound around in circles and were very narrow steps (especially when it had to accomodate people going down as well). We arrived at the top and looked at the amazing views and then eventually headed back down the stairs. Tassia wanted to go back and quite suddenly headed off, and then the rest of us took a few photos and then the mother and daughter wanted to go and do a tour of the castle. The remaining four of us headed back to the old town and got a beer. I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that most people I met travelling were quite a bit older than me but most people in Prague were about the same age as me and I met quite a few people younger than me at the music festival, so I was shocked to discover that the three girls I was with at that time were all 10 to 15 years older than me. I'm actually really happy that I get along so well with older people (actually probably better than the younger ones) and was able to have really good conversations with them. We then all went back to a market that looked interesting but which Yann had practically run through. After quite a while there Amber said goodbye and the rest of us looked around a little bit longer and then got another beer and said goodbye. I got back to the hostel at exactly 7pm but nobody had arrived yet. I went on the internet for a little while, and then sat with Khalid for a while until Tassia arrived 30 minutes late. Ellen (?) and Jess never showed, and I found out at breakie the next morning that they had fallen asleep by accident. So in the end Khalid, Tassia and I headed back into old town to try to find a souvenir jumper for Khalid. But he couldn't find one he liked and eventually gave up. We then headed to a restaurant where I ordered the pork knuckles which is apparently a Czech dish. It was a really nice meal and then the three of us went back to the hostel and then they went to bed and I finally finished the previous blog and headed up.
The next morning I said goodbye to Tassia (Khalid had left early that morning and Tassia left before I had breakfast). I then went on the internet for a little bit and re-packed my things before heading off to the airport. I arrived there a few hours early and waited for my plane (which was slightly delayed) to take me back to London and a few days off at my Aunt's place. After travelling since the 30th of April and going through 6 countries I was ready for a couple of days of down time - but the travelling isn't done yet and I'll soon be off again. (Make sure to check for photos dating back to the first Croatia blog as I will hopefully soon put some up).

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