Champagne Out Of An Orange Juice Glass: Absinthe Out of an Orange Juice Glass a.k.a. Prague!!

Good Afternoon,

I have just returned home from Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. I am exhausted after my 3-day trip, which included 2 train rides, 2 flights, a few metros and trams, and a hell of a lot of walking. But this was not just another one of my trips. No, this was something much more, much better. I will tell you the whole story from start to finish. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let's begin.

As always, I will start with a complaint. Prague is a pretty cold city in March. It snowed on the first day. It was -10C and windy the second day. I did not pack accordingly.

Ready for this? Still sitting down? That is my only complaint.

Prague is a beautiful city, with beautiful architecture, a rich history, and amazing scenery from the centre all the way to the outskirts. While not being a very large city, it is packed with things to see and do, many of which I will be describing to you in painful detail. From the biggest night club in Europe, to the largest medieval Castle in Europe, and even the only remaining building where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart actually performed (apparently), Prague has something for everyone.

I decided that this trip, no matter where I went, should not be done alone, as I have had too few purely positive experiences while travelling by myself. Having consulted with a few people, I found out that a fellow uOttawan, Freya, had already booked a trip to Prague. The city was on my list of things to see before coming home in June, so I decided to tag along. (Note: you can read Freya's own account of the Prague trip and the rest of her stay in Reims here.)

Prague is only 1 1/2 hours by plane from Paris. The city centre is a 45-minute bus/tram/metro ride from the airport. From the time I left Charles de Gaulle to my arrival in Praha 7, the district where my hostel was located, less than 4 hours passed. My hostel was the Extol Inn, a 2- and 3-star combination hotel/youth hostel which cost about 19E per night. This included one of the best breakfast buffets I've seen in recent years, as well as private room, and bathroom shared between three rooms. This last part wasn't an issue as there appeared to be no one staying in the other 2 rooms on my block.

The first night, after finding my hostel, unpacking, and purchasing my tourist transportation pass, it was time to meet Freya for dinner, so we could discuss the game plan for the next few days. Interesting sidenote, it is very helpful in this type of situation for both people to have functioning phones (sorry :P). After finding Freya's hostel, I was able to make my way there and we headed out into the Old Town (in the heart of the city) to find a suitable restaurant.

The one Freya suggested was a small restaurant with an incomprehensible name serving typical Czech food. The food was very good, the restaurant was very quiet (read: empty) and the overall atmosphere was very enjoyable. We then went back to her hostel where there is a free internet-enabled computer station to plan the next day.

We decided it would be best to start with the Prague Castle, located across the river from the city centre. It is more or less like the Alhambra I visited in Granada back in November, but much colder, and more medieval. The size is comparable, though unfortunately various groups throughout Prague's history, including Germans, Commies, and Swedes ransacked the place and many of the original furnishings are gone. The Swedes even went so far as to replace everything with IKEA furniture.

OK I made that last part up. There is still some real furniture, but wouldn't that be hilarious?

While in the Castle, we saw the St. George Cathedral, the main interior of the Castle, a few dungeons with instruments used for torture, and a small street called Golden Alley, given that title because this was where the blacksmiths and alchemists lived during the Middle Ages. During the time we were at the Castle, Freya and I were also treated to the daily changing of the guard. Something about the Czechs was just so intense. Perhaps it was the orders being yelled in their strange language, or the band playing from windows around the courtyard. Either way, it was really neat to see.

After the castle, it was too cold to move, so we shivered over to the Old Square, which had a Starbucks. Now, you know I'm not a fan of Starbucks. I know I'm not a fan of Starbucks. But it was cold, and I had lost all feeling in my limbs, so it was appropriate. After thawing for about 15 minutes, Freya and I parted ways so I could take a more detailed tour of the City Centre with a tour guide (something she had done the day before, as her plane landed in Prague about 3 hours before mine). She went off to take in a Dali exhibit (Spanish contemporary artist) while I continued to walk around outside with a tour group.

While on the tour, I saw the Old Square, Wenceslas Square, Jan Pollack Square, and a few other shapes. Also on the tour was a little restaurant called the Bohemian Bagel, where they actually serve just about anything a typical tourist could want, but the kicker is that they make it well. I had a piece of cheesecake, the best I've ever had outside of Canada, though as I was later reminded, the one from Granada was good too. Point is, Prague makes good cheesecake. After this little stop, the tour continued through the Jewish Quarter, then back to the centre so I could go home and warm up.

And warm up I did. I stood next to the heater in my room for about 20 minutes. Then I had to get changed into better clothes than a sweater and jeans, since Freya and I were headed to the Prague State Opera House to take in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty ballet.
If the building itself wasn't impressive enough, the performance most certainly was. Though I must say this: having listened to a musical recording of the same ballet, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed at the mere 1h45m-show, composed of only 2 acts. My version had 4 acts and is over 2 hours long. I'm not entirely sure what changed, but in order not to give the wrong impression, I will re-iterate to you that the technique of the dancers and the glorious music of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky were absolutely wonderful.

After the show, we headed back to Freya's hostel to briefly discuss plans for day 3. The verdict was that we would head to a prominent Modern and Contemporary art gallery (sensing a theme yet?), which also featured some French painters. Finding the building was interesting, as it was marked on the map as a "Palace", but since a fire destroyed the original structure, and the subsequent re-construction makes it look like an office building, we spent at least 10 minutes thinking "this can't possibly be it".

Once inside, however, the museum was quite impressive. While Modern and Contemporary Art aren't really my thing, I did find some interesting (and even quite pleasant) works by Léopold Survage and a few others. Though I still don't get how a chair in the middle of an otherwise empty room can be considered art. That said, as Freya pointed out while we were there, one can find some inspiration for home décor in these exhibits. Indeed.

After the museum we went to go see The Dancing House, a Frank Gehry work of pure genius which towers above the streets and the river with surprising elegance. That's my intelligent way of saying "it was f***ing weird, but so cool!" I think I might even take the time to upload a picture directly onto the blog, so that everyone can see it. Just one though. :P

After the Dancing House, we were more or less done the tourist stuff, and we just decided to go for dinner, but not before making obligatory stops in various shops for souvenirs, etc. In no particular chronological order, trips were made to H&M, a sports apparel store, a regular souvenir shop, and a pet store. If you can guess which one was my pick, you win, well, nothing.
(@Nada: Yeah, I got the jersey :D )

We then proceeded to have dinner at a jazz-themed restaurant. Well, maybe "themed" isn't the right word, they do actually have live jazz music sometimes, and they've got signed posters and photos from all the greats, so that was cool. The food was decent, though I found not quite as good as the first night. Afterwards, we headed back to Freya's hostel, which has a bar next door, for a final drink before heading back to Reims. The drink of choice: Czech Absinthe. That's right, The Green Fairy. One shot of that, followed by a shot of Mead (honey-based alcohol-fortified wine), followed by a strange vodka cocktail which promised mango and delivered grapefruit. Oh well.

After a final goodbye, I took the metro back to the neighbourhood my hostel was in. The trams had stopped running by this time, but the walk from the metro station wasn't too bad. I left my hotel at 7:35 this morning in order to make a 10 am flight to Paris. I got to Reims around 2 pm my time, did my laundry, went shopping, walked downtown, walked back, and made dinner. A nice end to a busy but absolutely amazing week.

You may not be overly impressed by what I have just described to you. That's because you need to see Prague to really feel the awe I succumbed to for those 3 days. Having good company for the better part of the trip helped, of course, and I expected no differently. Prague just simply is a world-class city that everyone should visit at least once.

Some interesting facts about the Czech Republic: It gained independance from Russia in 1918 (as Czechoslovakia), survived WW2 nearly unscathed, and split from Slovakia in 1993. If you want to have a coffee that costs 75 of something, the Czech Koruny is the currency for you. 1 Euro = about 26 Koruny. The Czech language sounds like a mixture of Russian and Portuguese, while the script is basically English with a heavy use of accents on both vowels and consonants to change pronounciation. Phonetically speaking, it might actually be a good step between English and Russian.

Now that the week is ending, I can look back on this amazing adventure and think "Hey! Only 10 days til Turkey!" Oh come on, you saw that coming. Anyway, it was a wonderful trip, and I now have something to look forward to that I hope will compare to what I have just seen. I have two days of class this week, including a presentation and an exam, but these should be relatively easy. I will be posting a very select group of pictures on here, and the rest will be on Facebook. And again, don't forget, for the other side of the story, visit Freya's blog.

Hope you all enjoy your weekends!

P.S: Here are those select pictures I promised: