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This is what I like to call a cheater entry. Right now, let's pretend I'm not sitting in a hostel which is located in the middle of a forrest on the edge of Berlin, but instead inside a cute little apartment in the fairytale city of Prague. A fairytale city, peppered with communism and a rather violent history.
Before I forget I get too ahead of myself, I would like to tell you that homeless people in Munich can be extra special. Even now, a long while after leaving Munich, we are still talking about a woman who was sitting outside the train station when we were saying goodbye to Jessi. She was crouched in a ball, while we waiting for Jessi's carpool/organized hitchhiking ride to arrive, we were standing in a circle talking, when from behind us we heard a gnome/hobbit/evil tiny creature voice from behind us, speaking in a hybrid of German, French and English. I believe Nicky said, "Wow, that guy's voice is really awesome." And Jono replied, "That's not a man, that's a woman." Every once and a while she would ask (in our general direction), "what tongue do you speak". Then all of a sudden we notice that someone has given her a beer to make her stop talking. It almost works, until Kate, our beautiful blond German friend walks by and crazy beer drinking lady yells "Shut your mouth, shut your pretty mouth. Bye, bye." She was crazy drunk and polite, like every good German... I mean homeless person should be. Germans are just angry. HALLO (you'll understand that if you've ever been here before).
So the four of us hope on a magical train to Prague. This happens to be a Harry Potter train to Hogwarts. We get our own compartment, although we do end up sharing it with two guys. One of which is an alpha-male who insists on spreading his legs as far out as possible to prove to the world that a) he's manly and huge and b) that' he's really good at playing up masculine body language. I get it, you're a guy, i can mostly tell by the fact you don't have boobs and do have fascial hair. Although, we were on our way to Eastern Europe so perhaps I shouldn't make that assumption. *ching!*
Anyway after a long train ride, with some amazing scenery, we finally roll into the main train station. It's quite the sight. Everything around us is falling apart, the consession stand is mostly boarded up, with just a little slit to talk to someone. There's garbage everywhere, and the platform is a cement block like thing that is completely falling apart. The lobby looks like an old church that's been bombed out and then almost reassembled... maybe by Big Bird, because it's not really looking like it's gonna stand much longer. Essentially, it's what Jono and I began to call "Chernobyl". We know that didn't happen in Czch, but it seemed to fit this former soviet land. We also tended to blame all our problems while we were there on Communism. I assumed that once we got out of the train station we'd be greated with the beauty of Prague. The thing that all tourists brague about seeing. The thing that Lonely Planet (the travel guides) rave about. The thing that is supposed to make every other European city cringe with shame because they can't compete. And what do we see? A giant highway. Yes friends we were greated by the Whyte Mud. We watched as cars zipped by as the crumbling train station stood behind us. We asked ourselves if perhaps we should have stuck to Western Europe.
But being the troopers that we are we figure out how to cross said highway (and watch a drug deal while doing so) , and eventually find our apartment.
Four our four nights in Prague we decided to rent a little apartment. It only cost us 25 Euros a night (which is the same as a hostel) and we got a cute little two bedroom, with our own kitchen and bathroom. There's a lot to be said for real beds, and not having to put your stuff in a locker all the time. The apartment was actually pretty big and there was enough sleeping room for 10 people.. so if someone didn't like their bed they could easily switch. Each room had a king sized bed, and a bunk bed, plus there was a futon in the kithchen/living room. Jono and I shared a room (don't worry everyone Jono and I are not "those kinds of friends"), and Nicky and Anna shared the other. It was a nice getaway from the normal bagpacking gig.
Eventually we made it out into the city.. and then... THEN... we understood what all the fuss is about. Prague is BEATIFUL. I think one of the best ways of putting it is this. Jono had only ever been to Munich, which he believed to be beautiful and a standard to set for other cities. But then he got to Prague and its beauty basically punched him (and all of us) in the face, and made Munich seem like dulls-ville. It really does have a fairytale feel to it, with castles and just crazy beautiful buildings. It was a great place to visit. We saw the castle and the famous Charles Bridge, went paddle boating in the river, and ate like kings.
One of the best parts of this was the exchange rate. We each decided to exchange 150euros into crowns for out stay in Prague. So that was a total of 600 Euros. What did we get back??? 12,800 crowns! There is a photo of me laying in a bed of money somewhere... For real. It was crazy. We got all 100 crown bills, in packs of 1000. Although this seems crazy, most things cost around 100 crowns, except beer which often costs like 35. By the end of the trip we were more frugal.. but at first we just thought it was sort of funny to throw 100 dollar bills around.
Eating there was also an experience for me. Like Germany, Czch is all about the meat. So my first meal consisted of fried cheese. It was two HUGE pieces of fried cheese, so big that I gave some away and still only ate one of them! Although we did find a place that was similiar to Oodle Noodle at home, and they had tofu, which was exciting!
Jono and I also went on a clubbing adventure. Prague has one of the biggest clubs in Europe. It's a 7 floor club, each floor having a different theme and style of music. We though it might be sort of lame, but we decided to go anyway (it cost 120 crows to get in, so about like 2 euros or something). Surprisingly, we were dissapointed at all. The club was amazing. Basically the layout was like this. The building was very tall and rather narrow, so there was a staircase running up the middle. It also used to contain two old Roman bath's, so two of the dance floors are located in those sunken areas. The stair case that divides the place separates each level in two, the right side being the dance floor (with two bars) and the left side being a sit down room (with another bar). The first floor was a disco/top forty, and was the first roman bath. The second floor was the rave floor---which sounds lame.. but was actually our favorite one for dancing. It has this HUGE statue that has lazers that shoot out, and glowing walls along the side in red and blue, it was the best one to dance on. The next was the 80's floor, which was AMAZING. The walls were checkered in big tiles of red and green, but the dance floor had multicoloured lights on the floor in tiles (i guess like an old disco floor from the 70s??), and lowered roof and was always packed. The sitting room there also had a waterfall. The next floor was.. well they called it the "black floor" because it plays hip-hop and R&B.. Prague isn't really down with the PC so much yet (chernobyl!). It was probably our least favorite floor and tended to be pretty empty most of the night. But it also had another roman bath dance floor. It was decorated with leather couches and had a very urban feel to it. The top floor was the chillout room, but it was closed the night we were there.
So Jono and I danced the night away until about 3am. Drinking beer for 40 crowns for a pint.
The next morning though, I woke up with Anna's cold and am still trying to fight it off. We spend a lot of time walking around, and also went to the Communist museum which was actually really awesome. Our last night we had a picnic by the river.
I really liked Prague a lot, however, it has a fairly violent history and you can definetely feel the difference between there and other european cities i've been to so far. Police carry guns, batons and pepper spray at all times. People seem a little more sad.... Seriously, there is a strange sense of the communist "feeling" (if that's possible) that still hangs in the air. They do try their best to put on a "show" for tourists... They want to make you feel comfortable, even when it feels a little sketchy (aka chernobyl). Like I said to Nicky though, I feel like if they ever did anything to hurt a tourist or their own repuation, and the Police caught them, they would probably be in BIG trouble... I don't think the police have the same restraint that we are used to (most of the time).
Just a quick side story. Some of Anna's friend from a tour she was on were in Prague at the same time as we were. They had these little toy guns someone had bought, and were playing with them in their hostel, but mostly just hanging out in their room. Through the video camera, the hostel worker saw a guy with a gun walking through the hallway and she called the police. The kids in the room saw the police cars drive up, but didn't think anything of it. Then a couple more showed up. There was a knock at their door, they said something sassy and opened it to let their friend in. A few minutes later, there was another knock. A guy opened the door and then there was a giant gun pointed right at his face, and a man yelling at him to lay on the ground. A large group of policemen carrying big guns ran into the room, and screamed at everyone to lay down, while holding guns to their heads. They asked them where the guns were, while they tried to explain to the police (who LUCKILY spoke some English) that they were fake. The police raided their room. They handcuffed one guy, and made him explain and tell them where all the guns were. Once they explained the policed asked him if he was "fucking stupid", the guy, smartly, answered "yes, yes, I'm fucking stupid!" Good answer I'm guessing. Eventually the police laughed it off, and left. I'm really glad that I didn't bring my toy guns with me and opted out of running around a former communist country with it.... And this is how we all get the title of dumb tourists.
I promise to write about Berlin soon...
I can't believe that I have less than 20 days in my trip. It makes me really sad. I land on June 20th, please feel free to greet me at the airport with gifts.
On the upside, Jono and I are meeting Jessi in Frankfurt on June 6th and we're flying to the Greek islands for 10 days. Santorini here I come! I'll leave my fake gun behind.
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Anthony
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Lana you should've asked a tour guide about the Czech habit of throwing leaders out of windows during revolutionary moments. I know if I was a government leader in Prague I would have my office on the first floor. Just to be safe.