At any rate, after my midday arrival, Aisling packed us a picnic lunch that we ate at a pretty park that overlooked Prague and then caught the tram(!!) to the National Gallery of Art (... of Prague?), which was giving free admission between 3 - 7 p.m. Ais and I proceeded to spend hours and hours working our way through the museum, which started with stiff landscapes and moved on to crazy conceptual art. It was pretty sweet.
We headed back to the dorm and met up with Roxana and Sophie for dinner and drinks at BarBar, which serves some kind of delicious lemon beer that I forget the name of. I had a delicious crepe (recommended by Aisling) that consisted of mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and bacon/ham topped with a little bit of pesto sauce. After a long dinner & dessert, we went back to Aisling's dorm for some good old fashioned season 1 of the OC. (Season 1 of the OC was really a big part of my time in Prague -- I both want to kiss Roxana on the cheek and punch her in the face for having it. It was SO GREAT to watch, but now I've got the fever and am going to be searching for all 4 seasons online. I MAY NEVER READ OR WRITE AGAIN!)
Eating our picnic @ the park.
View from the park.
View of the river and bridges from the park, partly obstructed by my stupid camera lens.
Aisling, riding in the elevator up to the top floor in the National Gallery of Art. The elevator was sort of in the middle of the museum and had all-glass walls so you could see everything outside of it. They must be fond of novel elevators in Czechland.
Old man in a cute jacket looking at some of the more traditional art @ the museum.
A diorama.
Like a record baby, right round, right round.
Made me miss my baby blue.
Another diorama/model thing. Doesn't it look like a real building, though?
Reminds me of Kundera, of course.
Records!
See Alice, through the looking glass.
Ok. Thursday morning when I woke up, Aisling was already at her Czech class and so Roxana and I took a tram and walked around Praha 1 (I think) for a little bit. We (she) found a cute garden and then she showed me the David Cerny (there should be a weird accent or two in his last name, but I do Spanish, not Czech) piece where two wooden turquoise men delicately holding their members will spell out text messages in "pee." ... Into a pool the shape of the Czech Republic. Then we went to a coffee place to wait for Aisling and Sophie to get out of class. They have more American-esque coffee in Prague. Or, at least, they have a spectrum of coffee drinks that bridge the gap between espresso and café con leche, which can not really be said for Barcelona.
Aisling brought me a delicious cheese treat from the bakery and then we visited the Old Town Square while sipping on delicious glugenwine (sp?), which is hot spiced wine (of the gods). I saw the Astronomical Clock change hours and then from the top of the clock tower we got to see a really pretty Prague vista.
Next: Onwards and upwards to Café Louvre, which easily could have been a set from Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (which is probably why Aisling is obsessed with it.) (Not that the previous parenthetical was meant to suggest that I am not also obsessed with it.) High ceilings, big windows, Parisian decor, sharply dressed waiters. We spent so long there with our Pilsner-Urquell half liters. Café Louvre also has the cutest matchboxes, one of which I kept as a souvenir.
At night, Aisling and I went out by ourselves to some dumb German place that overcharged us for Pilsners. So we screwed that noise and RAGED at Uvjed (sp?), a three-story bar with cheap Budvar beer. "Budvar" is Budweiser, which Czechs have been eager to point out (to Aisling and Roxana) is not the same as American Budweiser. Apparently it is a girly beer in Prague, but we just thought it was delicious.
Later the bartender came by and delivered shots on the house. When we suspiciously asked what was in the shots, he said, "Oh, an apple." Yyyyikes. No thanks, Captain Roofie. At the end of the night, we tried to take the night tram home, but ended up walking through a death park and several death alleys for ... oh, upwards of two or more hours before finally navigating our way back to Aisling's hostel. It was both a terrifying and a hilarious experience. At some point in the night, I got to speak to Spanish tourists in ... Spanish, which felt good.
Dave Cerny. Men peeing your text messages on Prague.
A close up, for your viewing pleasure.
Prague: EuroPittsburgh. Tons of bridges, similar weather.
Astronomical Clock.
Coffee shop.
Elevator up to the top of the Astronomical Clock tower.
Aisling in the clock tower.
HI HI IT'S US! YOUR FAVORITES!
Look at all those red roofs.
Castle in the distance.
Czech qt.
Old Town Square.
'W' Square. I don't know how to spell the name well enough for Google to even recognize what I mean.
Friday Aisling got out of her last class pretty early, so she met me back at her dorm. We went back to her Czech class to get her final grade from her language class (which was an A because, as her Czech teacher said, "AISLING IS THE BEST STUDENT!!") and then got delicious, cheap sandwiches from a cute bakery and headed to David Cerny's "Babies." We made a pit stop at the building where Aisling's study abroad program has offices because there are crazy elevators that were like some kind of amazing carnival ride. Then, to "Babies." So, "Babies" is a radio tower (or a TV tower maybe) that has giant metal babies with coin slots for eyes crawling all over it. This guy is nuts. And funny.
After that adventure, we headed back to the dorm for some Project Runway/a light nap on Aisling's bed. Roxana and Sophia left on their program's trip to Moravia and Aisling and I had the joint to ourselves for Friday and Saturday night. We got Asian food for dinner (my Thai-style noodles were not Pad Thai as I had expected, but were still delicious) and went back to Aisling's place for dessert (wine and chocolate) and a show (The OC, of course). At night we tried to go to Aloha Wave Café but it was full of old people and expensive drinks, so we went to The Chateau instead, which was equally crowded, but multifloored and somewhat more reasonable. After a beer or two, we decided to really get classy and had mojitos and cosmos. Met a British guy who was @ The Chateau on business -- running a pub crawl. He tried to "pound it"(which is when you pound your fist on another person's fist) with Aisling at one point, and when I asked if they really did that in the UK he said, "Only when we're being GAY." HAHAHA. Later we "danced" with some tall Czech man. Mainly Aisling and I just were dancing like crazy people and kind of avoding him. I don't think he knew what to make of us. I tried to make him twirl but he said that was for girls and that's basically when I knew that he and I wouldn't be friends. The Czech club music is techno-ish and lame, and probably to blame for all the really boring Czech dancers. We had a few more beers and met an Italian before successfully taking the night tram home. Made tons of delicious food back @ Aisling's dorm. Probably watched The OC.
Aisling about to get on to this crazy elevator. There elevator consists of several compartments that are constantly moving upwards on the 'up' side and constantly moving downwards on the 'down' side. You just have to time it right to step onto one of the compartments when it's at your level.
She got into the compartment.
And the compartment goes down! If you ride the elevator all the way to the bottom, then it moves horizontally to the left and starts going upwards, and vice versa if you ride the elevator all the way to the top. I was so amazed by this!
Ah, Cerny.
See 'em?
Evil.
Creep city.
Look at how gleefully Aisling is about Cerny!
Not the biggest Jewish cemetery in Prague, but a neat one that Kafka is buried in.
Pretty with the houses in the background.
Another David Cerny installation? Nope, just a discoball head at The Chateau bar/club. Also, my mojito glass. I kept the pink tennis racket as a souvenir.
Supercute picture of Aisling.
We are, like, the cutest girls in Prague.
Yesterday we woke up appropriately late, had a nice brekky and then went for a stroll around Mala Stranka. Went into some antique shops, which had the coolest pins and teacups and enameled mirrors, but they were all a bit out of my price range. The one marionette store we stopped in was so cool. So many different wooden puppets hanging from the ceiling. I bought a sweet wooden box at a small store for roughtly $2.50 USD. It's pretty and I'm going to keep my necklaces in it.
Eventually we ran into some kind of street parade in Mala Stranka where all these children were dressed up in costumes and piled into the back of horse-drawn carriages. Tons of grown ups were dressed in costume, too. We had no idea what was going on but popped into a pub-type place for a Pilsner-Urquell to get ourselves into the festive spirit. After fruitless attempts to go to two different secondhand stores, we decided to have our romantic walk across the Charles Bridge when we ran into ANOTHER street fair! There were itty bitty stands serving all manner of food and beverage, including the elusive churros con chocolate which I haven't even successfully found in SPAINLAND yet! Golly. Music, costumes, etc.
We made it over Charles Bridge with all of its statues and vendors and wandered around the shops a bit more before taking the tram to our AUTHENTIC ROMANTIC CZECH DINNER at a restaurant three seconds away from Aisling's dorm. Aisling had some fried pork cutlets with potato salad and, duh, a Pilsner Urquell. I got Old Bohemian pork w/ some cabbage dish (kind of like a sweet sauerkraut) and dumplings (which are really bread! or ... something with an extremely bread-like consistency!). And, duh, a Pilsner Urquell. We both had garlic soup for starters (so good) and split hot apple strudel for dessert. After dinner we decided to have a quiet night in because we had to wake up early for my flight, so we watched so much OC!
Marionettes. These ones remind me of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.
Aisling + marionettes.
Neat.
Hey, qt.
Kiddies in a carriage.
Hey, qt.
Carriage driver.
Away they go.
IDK, our BFFs the police? And a prisoner? Dispensing beer from their own metal thing?
Disturbing statues near BarBar and Uvjed (sp?).
Again.
Cute canal.
The second street fair we found.
Picture a vendor on Charles Bridge peddling his wares. HAHA YOU DIDN'T IMAGINE THIS, DID YOU? I should've bought one.
Some BA statues on Charles Bridge.
Finally got a decent shot using the "Night Scene" feature on my camera, which is basically just a really, really long exposure. Too bad the railing is so much in the picture, but I couldn't hold my heads steady for, like, the 30 seconds of exposure time. Anyway, a view from the Charles Bridge.
Aisling "I really believe in luck" McDonough, rubbing a statue for good luck.
Sweet building, pretty sky.
This morning we had the delicious, filling, FREE breakfast offered by Aisling's long-term hostel and Aisling assisted me in taking the tram, metro, and bus to the airport. I bought some small souvenirs with the rest of my korunas, although I sadly didn't purchase a CZECH ME OUT t-shirt because they were supa-overpriced.
Here are the things I can sort of say in Czech:
-Hello.
-Goodbye.
-Please.
-Thank you.
-Two beers.
-Push.
-Gay.
Anyway, one of the most amazing weekends I've ever had. It struck the perfect balance between sightseeing and relaxing and between experiencing new things and relishing comfortable things. GOSH! I can't wait until Justin and Stephen come to Euroland and we all reunite in Amsterdam! Just a month or so.
Pretty cute metro in Prague, right?
