PRAGUE (part 2)

Prague    Days 3 & 4.

            Friday and Saturday were definitely event filled days. We did an incredible amount of walking and picture taking. He’d take out his little tripod, unfold it, screw in the camera and click away!!! (By the end of our trip we had over 600 pictures and he told me he still didn’t feel like he had truly captured Prague!!) Friday we woke up and took our showers and took the train the Mala Strana (Lesser town) which resides under the castle that sits on top of the highest hill in the city. Lesser Town was my favorite part of Prague. Unlike New Town (which is mostly shopping centers now) and Old Town (which is where the masses of tourist hang out), Lesser Town has a few tourist, but mostly it’s a quiet residential area of Prague and is the oldest part of the city. I thought it had more charm than any other place we toured. There are lots of small shops, restaurants, pubs, things of that nature. The only crowded part of Lesser Town is the part right around the starting point of Charles bridge, that connects you to Old town across the river.

            We had lunch in this ritzy place, where for the first time I sampled Wild Boar. It sounds gross but it was delicious! It was a cross between a ham flavor and a pork consistency. The sauce they simmered it in had so much flavor, and unique on its own. I had never had anything like it before. Before the meal the waiter served us Champaign. Frank held up a toast, we clinked our glasses and took a drink. (I have come to realize I am a HUGE fan of Champaign. GOOD Champaign. Lol) After lunch we strolled around Lesser Town until late in the night. Probably well past midnight. We wondered into a Catholic church, (amazingly beautiful inside. We have pictures I plan on posting them.) The priest was giving a sermon in Latin or Italian I am not sure which. It sounded like a mix of both actually. Our favorit street in Prague we found late at night. It was a Y shape street, and in between the two off springs of the main street was a building. The street on either side of the building went up and curved around it, with dim yellow lights in lanterns hanging on the sides of the other building. It’s so hard to describe accurately. I want to tell the story of places so that when I show the pictures they make sense. I have a feeling I am leaving so much important detail out though, so as I add pictures I will probably remember more about a place and tell more of the story. So my readers will probably be reading about Prague for some time, lol.

            Saturday we woke up and took showers and rushed to the castle so we could see the changing of the Guards that took place at noon. (They do it every day.)  I walked up to the castle and lost my breath. Emerging from the center of the castle was the most beautiful, and extravagant cathedral I have ever seen in my entire life. Frank opened his book on Prague to see how old the castle was, and it turned out to be a 1000 years old! That’s after the first one burnt down in a fire! This church had amazing detail and architecture. Every building in Prague looked like they had been made to be beautiful and artistic. The city makes American cities look so boring. We spent several hours walking around the castle grounds, taking a lot of pictures and touring the art museum in one of the buildings. A lot of places were closed due to winter scheduals so we couldn’t see a lot inside the castle. But there are so many buildings of a castle. I thought it would be one huge, massive structure, but instead it was lots of huge massive structures. And when you go to the edge of the castle grounds and look down, you can see the entire city laying beneath it. It was such an amazing view. It was kind of a foggy/cloudy day so we didn’t get to see far, but the air gave the city this old, medieval look. I wish I had longer hair, a robe and a white horse to take off riding….Standing inside the castle grounds I felt like a real princess. I can only imagine what it must have been like before tourist, before cars, before sliding doors, before tourist this way signs….Back when it was servants, royalty….horses and flowers in the gardens. I wanted to just close my eyes and take it all in and picture myself there, back in those days, but the noises of thousands of people kept drowning out my thoughts and visions of what this place must have been like before modern living and technology. The castle was stunning.

            After the castle we spent the rest of the day walking around, bouncing between old town and lesser town. We had dinner at this amazingly fancy and sophisticated restaurant called the Alchemyst. People like Roseanne Cash, Johnny Depp, Vin Diesel, Jon Claude Van Dam have all eaten there. Before dinner they served us Champaign and strawberries, for dinner Frank had duck and I had lamb. The whole place was very dim and lit with only candles. It was terribly romantic. The food and service were so awesome. At the door the Maitre D’, took my coat off for me and took it to a cloakroom. He pulled out my chair for me and would come by like very 5 minutes to make sure my drink glasses were full or something. It was very grade A service. Very aristocratic. I felt like a rich girl getting doted on hand and foot. However, as we were leaving the establishment, I was stepping down off of a step into the lobby area, and my poor ankle gave out and I landed on my hands and knees. Thankfully no one but Frank and I saw, and I was up faster than I went down, but regardless I was mortified. So mortified I wanted to run from the place and burst into tears. I was so mad at myself. Frank is still teasing me about it, which doesn’t make me feel any less bad about it. I don’t find it that funny.

  That night we went from pub to pub. We found a place called the Alcohol Bar that served amazing martinis! Then we found another place called Aloha, and it was just okay. Very touristy and the drinks were WAY watered down. So we opened his Time Out book to search for a bar that might be more interesting. We found one that was kind of far away, after 20 minutes of walking we found what we thought was it and went inside. The downstairs part of the bar was very dark, smoky, and cramped. We stayed through several drinks, and inhaling of fog machine productions, and decided to go back to the hotel. (We usually ended up getting back to the hotel around 4am every night…averaged, lol.)

Days 5 and 6    Sunday and Monday

<p class="MsoNormal”>            Sunday was New Years Eve. We woke up kind of late due to being out so late the night before. We had a nice lunch in Old Town Square and spent most of the day there taking pictures of that area and walking around, getting a fill for what it was like. Usually by the time we’d venture into Old Town on the other days it was at night, so we wanted to get a feel of it during the day. A lot of the buildings were just as nice and beautiful in make, and made for awesome pictures. We went on a boat ride down the river, and it lasted about an hour. But it was nice to sit down and tour the city from the water and take in the sights. When you’re walking you miss so much sight seeing because you’re dodging all the people and potholes. So we rode on the boat, drank some hot chocolate and took more pictures. It was a pretty leisurely afternoon for us. Around 5pm or so we went back to the hotel and took a nap, lol. Then got up and started getting ready for our night out on the town. I was so excited to be spending New Years Eve with him!!!!

            We spent the first four hours standing in Old Town Square watching a terrible Czech cover band do renditions of Michael Jackson, Queen, Rob Zombie, Kiss…and other bands we had no idea who they were trying to imitate. We spent most of the time shifting from foot to foot and laughing at how absurd the band was. The opening act for the band was a Czech who though he was a magician with whips, but it basically consisted of him snapping them back and forth, with Johnny Cash playing softly in the background. I am pretty sure I would have been more talented with the whips, but the locals seemed to really enjoy him and thought he was doing a great job. I guess if they were happy with the performance, then that was all that really mattered! The whole night was kind of cheesy though, ha ha. At midnight, the show programmer came out to do the count down. At midnight people started popping bottles of Champaign open, blowing through horns, setting off fire works, Frank pulled me close to him and kissed me. Everything else in the back ground pretty much faded away for me.

            After the fire works died down, we headed over to the club we had gotten tickets for earlier in the day. The place has like 5 or 6 dance floors and is the biggest club in Middle Europe!!!! The lines were outrageously long. Frank and I were so squeezed together, and squeezed in with other people; I couldn’t even bring my hand up to scratch my nose. The line to get in kept getting thicker and thicker, and people kept getting more impatient about waiting. Frank said, “Hanna what ever you do, don’t fall!!!” No doubt had I, I would have never been seen again. The mass of people was so great, the pressure of them all pushing behind us trying to get in was a bit exciting and scary at the same time. When we finally got it, the doorman gave each person a bottle of Champaign, which was cool because after we drank that, we didn’t have to get anything from the bar! We finally got to the dance floor about 1:30 and we stayed on it until like 4:30, lol. I’ve never danced for such a long period without taking a break or something!!! I knew the next morning when I woke up, I’d never be able to get out of bed, ha ha. Which proved to be true for us the next morning!

            We slept kind of late Monday. Being that we didn’t fall asleep until 6am, we crashed hard. When we woke up and got dressed we spent the afternoon in New Town, and bought souvenirs for people and mailed out post cards. We had a nice Italian dinner at Don Giovanni’s and spent the rest of the evening in our hotel room, getting things together and just being close.  Tuesday I slept most of the way back to NY. I wasn’t much company for Frank but I think he did a lot of reading. I’d wake up now and then and his hand would be resting on my knee or something. It felt good just being beside him and knowing he was there. I always feel safe with him close by. I hated having to say good-bye to him at the airport on the way home. I pulled me close and gave me this huge, long kiss good bye. Which didn’t make it any easier. I finally pulled myself away to walk to the terminal, if I didn’t he would have seen me cry. I don’t cry very often, but I know if he ever saw me cry he wouldn’t know what to do. As I was standing in line to check my baggage I had this instant pang of regret. I didn’t tell him I loved him. Not during the trip or when I said good-bye. It’s not something we say to each other very often,  but I wished I had said it. He kept asking me if I had a good time. He spoiled me rotten. How could I not have had a good time? He took me everywhere, he took me to Europe, and we ate wherever I wanted to. Even if it was something I forgot I wanted to do, some how he remembered and we did it. I had an amazing time with him.

            That is pretty much the gist of our days there. I am sure I will remember things I forgot to mention as I wrote this, and will write about them as they come to the surface. I will probably remember more as I look through pictures and begin posting them! Pictures always have a story to tell.  I hope by the end of the weekend I will have plenty to post. So far I just have some of he and I in the pictures, and not much of the scenery. Which is much nicer to look at, lol.