Prague

March 28

Peter flew back to London on Monday to catch his flight home. I guess not everyone gets a three-week break. Our plane landed Tuesday night in Prague at 11:00. I received and email while in Ireland informing us that our flight from Prague to Bratislava was cancelled. We were unable to find a solution, and by the time we got into town and found a hostel it would likely be 12:30, if we could find a place with vacancy. We had to talk to a SkyEurope rep, and their first flight in the morning was at 6:30, so we figured someone would be in by 4:30. I managed to get a twenty-minute nap in. Dave slept pretty solid on the hard marble floor. I guess the extra cushion comes in handy sometimes.
After spotting a world map in the middle of the floor, Swaff starting singing, “On the floor is a map of the world” to the 30 Seconds to Mars song From Yesterday. “We slept on the floor on a map of the world.” This was the beginning of a recurring theme. A few games of Phase 10, King’s Corner, Go Fish, War and Extreme Golf Niner later, we must have ruined the SkyEurope lady’s day. I would hate to start my day at 4:30 in the morning by talking to us. After going back and forth several times over the next few hours we finally settled on a direct flight to Paris, rather than our flight to Bratislava and then from Vienna to Paris. We missed out on two cities, and only saved about $25 a person by the change, and that’s assuming I actually get the refund.
We looked up a few places to stay in Prague so we at least knew where to start looking. Korey, Dave and Robbie went ahead to start the search. By the time they came up empty on their first attempt, Swaff and I had decided to take the direct flight and meet up with the others. As Swaff dozed off on the bus, I grew a bit concerned as he nearly fell out of his seat a few times, and woke up with drool down his shirt one a few other occasions.
It was now about 9:30 on Wednesday morning, and we weren’t even sure if we’d be able to check into a room. We found a place, which happened to be down the street from the place we were looking for, and slept most of the day away.
Typical of all new cities, we spent the first night exploring, but not before buying some groceries for dinner and breakfast in the morning. The Eastern European architecture is quite different. I was fascinated by truly unique style. We returned to our room pretty late, due to our unusual sleep pattern earlier in the day, but we had a good idea of things to see in the morning.
We wandered most of Thursday as well, seeing several sights Dave had read about in his ‘holy grail’ of a tourist book. After getting caught trying to sneak into the National Museum with another group, we saw the Astronomical Clock, which turned out to be pretty lame. We also walked down to Charles Bridge and in the distance we could see Prague Castle. We took a quick look inside St. Nicholas Church. It was pretty intricately decorated with everything gold-covered. We didn’t make it over in time to tour the actual castle part, but we weren’t too upset because we would have had to pay. Instead, we got into St Vitus Cathedral for free. We saw a basilica, but didn’t enter.
Thursday night, we went to the ‘biggest nightclub in Central Europe’. While walking to the club, we were harassed by several guys trying to get us into their strip clubs. After fending off several unwanted offers, we continued on our way. The five-story club was quite the experience. We met some nice Swiss girls that we talked to into the wee hours of the morning.
As checkout time approached, we wondered if we would actually be charge for our stay. The lady at check in noticed that all we wanted to do was get to sleep, so she didn’t bother with charging us. As we gathered the keys, we were missing one. Korey had turned one in already, but somehow he unknowingly had a second. This prompted us to begin singing “Korey’s got a Key” to the tune of Aerosmith’s Janes got a Gun. “What did Korey do, somehow he had two. He reached down in his pocket, and pulled out another key.” It was great fun. Unfortunately, they did ask us to pay, and they only accepted cash. In addition to Koruna they also accepted Euros, apparently they’re supposed to be switching over in the next couple of years. Between the five of us, we pooled enough money to avoid having to visit the ATM before heading out.