Sadly I managed to miss Obama’s speech at the Prague castle by a week. Later I missed Obama’s visit in Turkey by two days, which is even worse; he clearly forgot to check in with me to correlate dates. But Robert and I still made Prague worth our time.
<-- view of the Harz Gebirge in Lower Saxony from the train My expectations when Robert and I left Breslau did not measure to the beauty of the city itself. My impression is encapsulated by my friend Janna’s description: Prague is a Disneyland for adults. Just on our way from the train station to the “hostel” (I’ll get to that later) I was astounded, literally jaw-dropped, at the beautiful buildings that we passed by. They were incredibly ornate, and unlike the buildings in Berlin they preferred a brighter palate of colors such as purple or green. Thankfully the tram systems in Prague were pretty similar to the old rickety trams of Breslau – that means that you go to a little machine and pay them exact change or, if you don’t have exact change, your second option is to find a nearby shop that sells the tickets. Then you pay according to how far away your stop is. We crossed the beautiful Moldau and arrived at our stop, Svandovo Divadlo.
A-Okay, all good up until then. But here was the problem: I had the name of the hostel written down, but no exact street number. Okay fine, I confess, I had forgotten to write the address. Luckily there was a Patrinska Street nearby, so we assumed that the Patrinska Hostel and Apartments would be located somewhere on this street. Haha, easier said than found… we must have walked along the short street a good six times, asked three or four people for advice, and finally checked the website again (there was random internet in a park nearby). We were right, it’s on Patrinska street, but where?!? Oh goodness, the final time we searched the street meticulously for a sign of this place, which advertised itself as an affordable but well-located hostel in a popular tourist center. Finally we spotted a narrow gold sign about a foot tall and a few inches wide with the hostel’s name. It was almost indecipherable from the street numbers on the street, which was quiet and mostly residential. Okay, we thought, all is well, we can drop our stuff off and at least take advantage of the sunny day for an hour or so before it would get dark. One catch: the door of the place was locked. We rang the doorbell. No response. We rang about seven more times. Robert knocked pretty damn vigorously on the door. Nothing. We waited a bit longer, then decided that we had two options, look for another hostel or go back on the internet and try to find a phone number. It was only 5pm at that point, so according to the opening hours listed on the website someone should have been there to at least let us in. We called the number, and a somewhat frantic lady answered in broken english, you are here early! She said she’d be there in ten minutes. So we waited.
We waited so long that Robert went off to look for some other hostels in the area (although nothing would have been as cheap for a private room) and I sat on the side of the road and checked the website again to figure out if we were obligated to follow through with our reservation. I heard someone coming, quickly shut my laptop, and looked up to see a woman rushing towards us with her two kids. I had it in my head that I wanted to complain, or negotiate for some sort of discount, or just have a right to be a little pissed off. But I did not want to complain in front of her kids. So before we entered I pulled her aside and explained that my boyfriend was looking for another hostel and that I wanted to get my deposit back. I told her that we had come earlier than we expected from Breslau and we had been trying to find and trying to get in to the hostel for about three hours by that point. But of course the negotiations did not get me anywhere for three reasons. First, the woman spoke hardly any English. She was Russian and I’m pretty sure did not know much Czech either. She did not understand a word that I said when she came to the door. So she looked at me confusedly and had her ten year old son bring in my suitcase, which was a bit embarrassing for me. She unlocked the door and the “hostel” literally consisted of a hallway with an old desktop computer, a few brochures on a bulletin board, and three doors that led to “apartments”. She showed me our room, which really was fine and had a small makeshift kitchen in the corner, but I did not know what had come from Robert’s searches, and I did not know if I should just nod, say thanks, and suck up the price-tag even if the place had absolutely no tourist information or anything that a bigger hostel might be able to offer. There was one sheet of paper up on the wall with information about the room, when the check out time is, that we had to pay upfront, when they clean, etc. One of the parts said that the hours that the employees are present (I guess that meant just this woman) were only until 4pm during the Winter, and until 6 during the summer. A blatant discrepancy from what the website said, and the third reason why we really could not complain.
our humble but generally useful room:
Robert thankfully came back and was able to speak a few words in Russian with the woman (and her kids). She wanted the money upfront, but she was understanding when we said that we did not have the cash. We could leave the money in the room the next day. Needless to say I was a bit frustrated, especially because the vacation house that Robert had booked for us on the Baltic sea had worked out so magically and I was hoping for the same. Robert did not find any vastly better prices while he was out. Although there must be a plethora of great hostels all over Prague (I’ve heard the “Czech Inn” is a great one, recommended by Rafi), we decided that we should just brush it off and enjoy the fact that the place had a kitchen and a good location. I still had that Kilo of perogis from Breslau that we fried up for dinner, with yogurt and a tomato salad. And then, we were a bit rested up and ready to actually get a better glimpse at the city lit up at night. Pictures can explain a bit more than words for this part:
We walked across the river and along it not knowing what we should focus on more, the majestic and seemingly never-ending castle on the left bank or the quiet and small lantern-lit streets on the right. We walked towards the older part of town by the Charles Bridge and were able to enjoy some of the gorgeous small lanes - too small to be called roads – without the flock of tourists that invade during the day and on weekends. We went to a bar with huge wooden doors that looked sort of like a hobbit hole. But once inside we discovered that this was a well-frequented place that was cavernous. There we had our first and last shots of Bescherovka…….. along with some dessert.
The next day we did some serious walking, trying to trace back the roads that the tram took us through when we came in from the train station. Upon Robert’s suggestion (we both love skipping the crowds and looking for the quieter spots in a city) we turned off the main road and found a small café with panini’s, good beer, wi-fi, and even STUDENTS! We felt right at home, except for a wild wolf dog in the corner who occasionally barked at its dreadlock-baring owner. Robert’s general rule for vacation is not to check emails or NBA stats on the internet or anything of the like, but I on the other hand feel a particular need to stay connected at this point in time. I find that being well-rested and being excited to see new places and being in Europe in general gives me enough of the vacation-sensation.
Robert and Pawel, roommates reunited -->
We stayed there for a couple of hours when we met up with Pawel. Pawel was Robert’s suite-mate in Breslau (as in they shared a kitchen and bathroom) last semester while Robert was still living in the dorms. He has lived in Prague his entire life, except for his 6-month stay in Vermont and other various abroad experiences. He is in a house with his parents about twenty-minutes by tram from the castle, meaning he has to pass it every day to get to his university classes, which are located in buildings scattered all over the city. Like most people from the Czech Republic (okay, I know a total of four at this point), Pawel can speak many languages very well. We speak in German automatically, but the fact that he of course speaks perfect Czech was a great opportunity for Robert and I to feel less like tourists and a bit more, well, like “informed tourists”, or traveling students. We went to a café called the Café Louvre (it only has that name and has nothing to do with French culture or the museum) for some legitimately hearty Czech cuisine. Pawel was of course a great resource for learning a bit about Czech culture, what was “typically Czech” as opposed to “typically Polish” for example. For instance, he picked up a little newspaper on our way into the café and later commented that he was so disappointed with the political situation in the Czech Republic. Robert and I had no idea what he meant by that. He explained further that the parliament had been recalled a couple of days before and everything was in the process of being reorganized so that the government could start anew. That’s exactly the opposite of what he wanted; he liked the regime that had been in place and they were a solid barrier hindering the growing power of the president, who according to him is intelligent but incredibly poor at navigating the financial crisis. Such a beautiful place in such political turmoil! From the crowds on the Charles bridge lining up to take their picture in front of the castle, who would have known?
Like Janna said, the beauty of Prague keeps your jaw-dropped like little kids in a theme park. But just like Disneyland, the certain marketability of the beautiful Charles Bridge and Castle guaranteed one slightly unwanted piece of the city: flocks of tourists. I wonder why we always tag tourists as flocking… rather than herding or infiltrating or swarming or any other terms potentially used to describe groups of buzzing animals. Like I said I always try to distinguish myself from the general mass of tourists, and even though that is really pointless in the end, the effort to get to know a little something about the history and politics of a place does make me feel a little more knowledgeable.
FLOCKS of tourists in the old town square -->
In the afternoon we parted ways with Pawel: he had already made plans for the night and Robert and I had plans of our own. The only other things that I had pre-booked (other than the hostel) were tickets to a little tour and a jazz concert followed by dinner in the old part of town. Although the dinner didn’t quite happen as planned, the tour and concert were actually really nice, a great way to hear about some of the “intellectual contributions” that Prague made to science and music. The tour was of the Klementium, a large complex of buildings right next to the Charles Bridge that served as the beginnings of the Charles University of Prague. The Jesuits built a library there that remained undamaged since the 1700’s. The building itself is much older, but I just don’t have the dates on me. We started in the Mirror Chapel, where mirrors on each side stood for the endlessness of spirituality. A very funny large Czech tour guide tried to translate everything in English, Czech and French, which was actually indiscernible from his English because his accent was so poor. He took us up the astronomical tower where Johannes Kepler worked. From there we got a view of the city’s east bank – a sea of red roofs with cathedrals scattered in between, and the river and castle on the other side. We saw the quiet old library, which was still lit by candlelight and featured a good dozen geographical and astronomical globes from different centuries. Of course Robert and I were the youngest people in the Mirror Chapel for the jazz concert, but we’ve stopped denying the fact that we are an old couple ourselves at this point. The saxophone quartet played some short pieces from Czech composers for the first half, and then some standard “American” composers for the second, with Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue serving as the main event.
view from the astronomical tower, Klementium
My grand plans to have a restaurant reservation and a place to go after the concert fell through. They fell through because we could not find the restaurant. I had an address written down, and thought that since we had a map the address would be sufficient. Unfortunately I was wrong; the streets featured red numbers and blue numbers, and the street “Old Town Square” didn’t really exist since it was just incorporated into a huge and crowded cobblestone marketplace. We walked around said marketplace about seven times, now used to the idea that things were harder to locate in Prague than we expected, and yet there was no 12 Old Town Square to be seen, nor could we find the name of our restaurant. Robert was convinced that the red numbers were the right ones; we followed them from street to street but found every number possible other than 12. We later learned from Pawel that these numbers have nothing to do with the address but only serve some sort of taxing purpose for the state. Resigned and a bit hungry, Robert and I walked from the Old Town Square to Wenceslas (good king Wenceslas…) Square. We ended up at a nice Italian restaurant and had enough leftovers for a solid and appetizing brunch the next morning in our kitchen.
The following day I think was my favorite, because we managed to avoid the crowds just as they were multiplying by the hundreds. It did not help that it was the day of the Prague Marathon – it seemed as if more English-speakers participated than Czechs. We managed to catch a glimpse of the race just at the end, but in the morning we just heard the cheers from afar. We walked from our place to the apple orchard on a hill overlooking the city. The first day of WARMTH and SHORTS and springtime. We finally made a tour at the castle, where we discovered a new and beautiful part of town with crisscrossing lanes and fun passageways. The castle was in many ways not as impressive from above as it is from below. The building is still essentially in use; a flag on the outside indicates when the president is home and working. One could not enter the building without an expensive tour guide, so we just spent our time walking through and enjoying the view from outside of it. We walked through the city again to a small café on the water for late lunch and sekt. We could leave our luggage in our room all day since the woman wasn’t expecting any new guests that night (skeptical…) so we picked up our stuff and hopped on the tram to see a totally different part of town, the part where people actually live.
Pawel met us at his stop and had plenty of place for us to stay that night. We bought a bunch of groceries, ate a sort of german “Abendbrot” (cold dinner with bread and cheese/meat/stuff), and then went out again to a bar in his neighborhood. It was so nice to have someone speaking in Czech to order for us and give us recommendations. We went out walking after that, through the now totally empty lanes and streets (tourists seem to disperse late at night) across the Charles bridge. Pawel was incredibly defensive about Prague, as if he needed to excuse every construction sight; he clearly loved showing people around. There were a good ten things that he recommended for us to do that we just would not have time for… of course a reason to go back later on. We ended up at a really cool and big bar that hadn’t closed their kitchens yet (even though it was midnight). More food, more drink, and afterwards a far more comfortable place to sleep than the hostel.
In the morning I finally made use of the jug of maple syrup that I had been dragging around from Berlin (well, originally from my grocery store in Weston). I even had baking powder with me. We breakfasted for a good two hours before Robert and I packed our things and headed back to the train station. Staying at Pawel’s was not only fun, but it was a huge help on our wallets, too. Hopefully I can return the favor if he needs to visit Berlin any time soon. Robert and I spent all of our money on food and lodging and train rides. Now that I think about it, for all of those many tourist stands on the Charles bridge we bought zero souvineers! I think my biggest souvenir from Prague is that my facebook is now only in Czech. I’ll have to figure that one out later, and maybe I’ll need Pawel’s help. Now Robert can’t say that he’s never been to Prague, and I can’t say that I’ve never been to the Czech Republic. The only other boarder country I need to visit is Holland to say that I really saw Germany and it’s surroundings.
Robert and I went by train to Dresden together, and then he split off to catch his train to Breslau while I stayed put till I made it to Berlin two hours later. I just can’t believe it that a place so different like Prague, still as old and beautiful as it was before the war, is just four hours away. That’s the same distance from Boston to New York.
Pawel met us at his stop and had plenty of place for us to stay that night. We bought a bunch of groceries, ate a sort of german “Abendbrot” (cold dinner with bread and cheese/meat/stuff), and then went out again to a bar in his neighborhood. It was so nice to have someone speaking in Czech to order for us and give us recommendations. We went out walking after that, through the now totally empty lanes and streets (tourists seem to disperse late at night) across the Charles bridge. Pawel was incredibly defensive about Prague, as if he needed to excuse every construction sight; he clearly loved showing people around. There were a good ten things that he recommended for us to do that we just would not have time for… of course a reason to go back later on. We ended up at a really cool and big bar that hadn’t closed their kitchens yet (even though it was midnight). More food, more drink, and afterwards a far more comfortable place to sleep than the hostel.
In the morning I finally made use of the jug of maple syrup that I had been dragging around from Berlin (well, originally from my grocery store in Weston). I even had baking powder with me. We breakfasted for a good two hours before Robert and I packed our things and headed back to the train station. Staying at Pawel’s was not only fun, but it was a huge help on our wallets, too. Hopefully I can return the favor if he needs to visit Berlin any time soon. Robert and I spent all of our money on food and lodging and train rides. Now that I think about it, for all of those many tourist stands on the Charles bridge we bought zero souvineers! I think my biggest souvenir from Prague is that my facebook is now only in Czech. I’ll have to figure that one out later, and maybe I’ll need Pawel’s help. Now Robert can’t say that he’s never been to Prague, and I can’t say that I’ve never been to the Czech Republic. The only other boarder country I need to visit is Holland to say that I really saw Germany and it’s surroundings.
Robert and I went by train to Dresden together, and then he split off to catch his train to Breslau while I stayed put till I made it to Berlin two hours later. I just can’t believe it that a place so different like Prague, still as old and beautiful as it was before the war, is just four hours away. That’s the same distance from Boston to New York.
(in the end, ready to head home)
No comments:
Post a Comment