Prague

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Well, I have finally found a smell worse than the pee-soaked stations… Mustek station in Prague smells like puke. At first I thought ‘man, what bad timing for it to smell this way…’ but no, it’s permanent. I had the misfortune of using the station once yesterday, and then 3x today. Ew.

Anyway, on with my day. The plan was to do that 6hr day tour followed by the ghost tour… yeah, didn’t happen. ‘Prague Walks’ can kiss my bum.

I show up and the guy is too busy talking with a girl on a segway to even notice I’m there. FINALLY he’s like ‘can I help you?’ I asked about the tour. He noted that I’m alone, and they don’t do them for one person. Ok, but the brochure and online says it’s daily. He just gave me a blank stare. Okkkk nvm. Needless to say I didn’t return to them for the ghost tour.

I had missed the free tour at this point (damnitall), so I found another group of people and figured why not, at least I won’t be alone. Oh man, worse tour ever. The guide could barely speak English which you know I could’ve lived with had she had any personality or enthusiasm whatsoever. I actually couldn’t wait for the tour to be over just so I could get away. She rushed us from place to place, and then would say something like ‘ok one block that way is this AMAZING street, so go back later b/c I don’t want to go now’… And her explanation of the Jewish Quarter was essentially there were Jews, they lived here, in a ghetto, and there are synagogues you should visit, and the museum is nice.

Seriously?

To be fair, the sights are very nice in Prague… but I find it’s far too ‘touristy’ for my liking. In some areas you can barely move due to a mixture of tourists and street vendors. A lot of things are ridiculously overpriced (if you take the time to do the conversion, which I’m sure a lot of people don’t) and yeah, idk. The side streets and alleyways are lovely just b/c you get to enjoy the architecture and charm w/o being sucked into the tourist hole.

Of the major tourist area, Prague Castle was very nice. Probably the only thing I thoroughly enjoyed on the tour - watching the Changing of the Guard. I love watching them march haha. There are some interesting statues around too, but I didn’t have much time to explore since after the tour I had to eat and then to head back to my hotel to get my bag. (40min subway ride)

Supper was soooo good. I ate Czech duck, very yummy. It came with both red and white cabbage, some spongy bread-like substance, and those spongey potatoes... I was quite pleased. And I washed it all down with Budvar - the true Budweiser which is much better than the Budweiser we have in North America.

So, the ride back into the core was interesting. By now you should know what ‘interesting’ means.
I had a front row seat to subway fight. How fun.

This guy (Guy A) is standing about 3ft away from me, in the exact middle of the aisle. A few stops later, a couple get on w/ their backpacks and are standing by the doors. I guess the girl noticed seats further down, so she went to squeeze past Guy A. Guy A started SCREAMING at the girl (in Czech) - I have no idea what he was saying, but he was not happy. The boyfriend then steps in to protect his gf, and they’re yelling in each other’s faces. The guy sitting across from me then starts yelling at Guy A (again in Czech), so Guy A starts making motions like ‘bring it’ to the guy sitting down. Sitting down guy gets up, so now two of them are yelling in Guy A’s face.

Of course at this point everyone in the subway car is watching.

I unfortunately/fortunately missed the end of the fight, as it was my stop. Ah, people are so friendly.

And on a totally random note - there are billboards here promoting some sort of Iced Green Tea drink that has the Pope and Obama ‘drinking’ it (worst photoshop skills ever btw) and saying how much they loved it. Unfortunately, when I returned to take a picture today, it had changed. Sigh.

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Comments

[Elvira]

Prague and Sofia
Your pictures are great, Julie! =) Elvira