Prague, Czech Republic

On Friday, 11/30, we took a couple of hour train ride from Berlin to Prague (or Praha, as it´s referred to in Europe). We did the usual, walking around the city center looking at beautiful old buildings and looking into stores, shops, food vendors, etc. That evening, we went to a jazz club where 3 young guys played a set that was a good combination of classic jazz covers and modern originals of theirs. The other fun part of the show was the family of Russians (including their 5 year old girl) who sat next to us, drinking, smoking (not the little girl!), laughing, dancing, and by the end of the evening, taking shots after chanting some loud drinking chant! After leaving the show, we found out that the tram we planned to take back to the hostel wasn´t running that evening, and we walked the 2.5 miles home.

The next day we went to the Museum of Communism. Lots of original anti-American, anti-capitalist propaganda examples and some good history, as well. One story told of a certain potato bug that ruined many crops in the 50´s in Czech. The government told the people that the bug had been dropped by American planes so as to ruin the communist nation! We also learned a bit about the anti-communist demonstrations and demonstraters, including Jan Palach, the 21 year old student who lit himself on fire on the main square in Prague to speak out against communism in 1969. Powerful stuff that put the (to me, at least) funny propaganda and impossibly ostentatious statues into a deeper light. That night, Emily and I both tried absinthe for the first time at the hostel bar. The bartenders prepared it using a modified version of the Prague-method (methods described HERE), which was different than the basic water-over-sugar cube method I´d always heard of, and different than any Prague-method I found on the internet later. At one point in the "shot", we inhaled the vapors from the burned absinthe/sugar combination left in the over-turned glass through a bendy-straw, like a pipe. Weird. Neither of us cut off an ear (Emily can't even remember what it tasted like), and neither of us hallucinated anything, but it was quite the drink!

Our last day in Prague, we walked around the castle (every town over here has a castle in the middle, it´s like seeing a Starbucks in Seattle) and then attended a small orchestra performance. It was a great time, even if we were dressed in our "going-backpacking" outfits instead of our "going-out-to-the-opera" outfits!

Prague was nice, the food was great, but it was a bit overrun by tourists and souvenier shops. I guess that that may be the case as we get closer and closer to Christmas, though. And it does mean a steady supply of sweets and drinks, so I won´t complain!

Photos from Prague, HERE.