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Published: March 10th 2009
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pretty hotel
All the buildings were old with great detailing and then were all different colors Hey everyone,
I must make this relatively short because I have a midterm and a final exam this week ( I say this but it'll probably be just as long as the others). On Friday I went to Prague with 4 other girls: Katie, Emily, Kaitrine, and Kerrianne. We left the city around 4, took a bus to the ryanair airport in Frankfurt, and flew to Prague a little after 8. When we got to the "Old Town" part of the city we wandered for a while looking for our hostel. We were so tired when we finally found it that we were annoyed to find out that we had to pay up front, they didn't accept credit cards, and they only accepted crowns (their currency) but didn't have very much change for big bills. After figuring out all this mess and getting situated it was past midnight so we stayed in and went to bed.
We got up early the next morning and walked around the city trying to see it all. It really didn't take much time to cover the whole city...maybe an hour and a half if we had done it all at once. We stopped in
a bakery and bought pastries. Everything was ooo inexpensive! I got two pastries (although one was pretty small) for under a U.S. dollar. 100 crowns is about 5 dollars so its weird at first to do the math. We came across a market area in the center of town that was called "taste of Europe". It was a special thing going on only that weekend and they had booths set up with different foods and wines that are typical of that area. I'm really glad we saw this because it was one of the only cultural experiences I got while in Prague. We crossed the river and went to the Prague Castel. I'm not sure what the significance is of this, but it was huge and not that old. There was a gothic cathedral kind of attached to it and it was just a bunch of separate buildings all in teh same area with large court yards in between.
It was freezing cold and we'd been outside for a while, so we didn't stay at the castel very long. Katie, Emily, and I left and got some lunch at a place called Bohemian Bagel that had good American food
(aka bagels) and other salads and stuff. Lunch took longer than expected so we ended up having to run back to the hostel to change for a ballet. We were running late so we took a taxi to the theater. I had ordered a ticket online that never came, so I had to buy another one there. This made us ever more late, so we were probably 10 minutes late for the ballet. It was really good, and I can't remember the last night I'd been to one. The story line was similar to Romeo and Juliet and snow white combined if that makes any sense. The prima ballerina (is that what she's called?) is poisoned or something by this witch and she dies and her boyfriend man dies too of heartbreak maybe? I'm not sure but it was good. A lot of the scenes the other dancers had kilts on and they were doing an Irish step dance / ballet combination which was neat.
After the ballet we hopped on a tram which ended up taking us to some far away part of the city. We had to wait for the tram to circle back around, so we
ended up being on it for about an hour. This is what we called our free tour of the real Prague... After we changed back at the hostel we went to dinner at a place that was recommended by the hostel that was decently priced and had great traditional Czech food (which is basically German food).
For all the Donelans...I looked in every bakery I passed for nut roll and poppyseed roll. I found very similar things and the pastries i had had almost the same nut filling, but just a different pastry dough. I didn't find anything similar to paska or paghachi (spelling?) and they looked at me like I was crazy when I asked.
On the train ride back we encountered a lady that wouldn't get out of one of our reserved seats. She jsut refused even though she knew it was ours. A man across the aisle had to stick up for us and tell her to move. This all happened in Czech I think (or some other language that I don't know) and they argued back and forth for a little bit. She finally moved, but it made such a scene! We were all
shocked, embarassed, and annoyed at the same time. We were on that train for 5 hours to Berlin, and from there we caught a train to Metz, France that was over night (left around 7:30pm and arrived at 6:20am). We shared a sleeper car with this guy in the German military. The poor guys had to listen to us talk for a few hours after he went to bed in the room the size of a small bathroom (although he did go to bed at like 9:30 so it was a little inconvenient for us). We squished on the top two bunks that were so close to the ceilling that we had to slouch to fit sitting up. We had fun talking because it reminded us of sleepovers when we were younger staying up late...even though we ended up going to bed at 11.
In the morning we stopped in a bakery here in Differdange to get breakfast. Kate ordered a hot chocolate to go. The lady to was making it asked another employee for a spoon, and he proceeded to lick the spoon he used to stir his own hot chocolate with and then give it to this
lady to use for Katie's. Katie just stood in disbelief and the lady didnt even notice. The man just smiled at Katie b/c he knew that she was so grossed out. I told his story because I've come across many instances (not quite this bad) of porr sanitation in restaurants. People in Europe don't really have rules it seems. Workers touch food all the time without using gloves or washing their hands after dealing with money or a cash register. I know much worse happens behind the scenes so I try to get over the fact that its so discusting.
I have other short stories like this, but not enough time to write about them right now. Hopefully I'll be able to update again later this week.
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Patty
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touching food
If Megan Brown doesn't already receive these blogs, you HAVE to forward this one. I'm sure she'll appreciate the story about the hot chocolate spoon! I can't wait to see you! 12 more days!!! Love, Mom