Prague

As many of you might already know, we went to Prague last month. 
Thats right, *last month*.  It shows how blog-negligent I've been. 
Indeed, I've been told, from several sources, to get my behind in gear
and let the teeming masses of Kevin and Laura's blog readers know
whats been going on.  Well whats been going on is this...  Work,
sleep, work, sleep, work, travel, sleep, work, work, work, travel,
sleep, sleep.  Roughly in that order.

Lets begin with Prague

Laura and I flew Lufthansa connecting at Frankfurt to get there.  They
are such a great airline, even in cattle section we had ample leg
room, and while their mini-sandwiches looked small, they were
surprisingly filling.  Who woulda thought.


Our plan was to meet up with Joanne and Mary (two of Laura's sisters).
Joanne had been travelling around here, there and everywhere.  She
started out in London a month prior to Prague, then she travelled
through Italy, Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic.  She and Mary
met up in Prague about 5 days before we got there.

We landed and took out 2000 Koruna (about 50-60 pounds).  We figured
this would last us most of the weekend, but we didn't figure that the
bank machine would give us one 2000 Koruna bill.  How annoying. 
Absolutely no one would take it.  We tried to buy bus tickets from a
couple of locations at the airport, nothing doing.  They kept saying
to us "Thats a lot of money here".  It's a lot of money where I come
from too, its just that the stupid bank machine gave us this ludicrous
denomination.  Eventually (on the second try) a guy at a currency
exchange booth agreed to break it for us.  So we were able to get on
the bus, and after deciphering the Czech transit maps we made it to
our hotel.

The hotel was great, immediately above a Metro station, and we had a
balcony that had a neat view of the city.


Later in the evening, Laura and I ran into Mary and Joanne out front
of their Hostel.  It was quite fortuitous because they didn't have
phones, and we didn't know how to get into the hostel.

Joanne, Mary, Laura and I went through the old city and snapped
pictures like no ones business.  This is a very photogenic city,
everything is ancient looking and ornate.

Here we are on our way up to their big church.


The old part of town surrounding the church is pretty amazing, very
big and very touristy.


The church itself was pretty grand.  But then I'm beginning to expect
that from major cities in Europe.  It's funny how Europeans went
through this period of shear insanity where they madly built
cathedrals... For centuries.  Usually people grow out of these phases,
but it sure took a long time for Europeans.  It is quite an amazing
cathedral though.


The walk around behind the church gave us a great view of the city and
some neat buildings.


One nice thing about Prague is that food and drink is very cheap.  I
was able to get a pint of beer for less than a pound.  Also a full
meal with appetizer, entree and dessert would come to about $10
Canadian, in fairly nice restaurants.


The river that goes through the city flooded rather badly several
years ago.  Which is surprising, because it is such a wide river, and
the banks are built very high.  It must have been a lot of water to
have flooded so much of the city.  This bridge that crosses the river
is a market in the daytime, and has statues of kings going back
centuries.  If you rub one of the statues, you're supposed to get good
luck!


Mary and Laura went off shopping, so Joanne and I decided it would be
a good idea to try to climb the mountain in the middle of the city. 
To get back on time we had to jog/power walk much of it, but we were
rewarded with nice views of the city, rose gardens and ruins of an
irrationally located wall that goes straight up the side of the
mountain.


There is a very active night life, and we hopped from cafe to cafe
drinking wine and eating dessert.  We were *so* excited about the low
prices.

When it gets dark in Prague, things go weird.


These statues below are a monument to the oppression of people during
communist rule.

As you go further up the stairs, the human-like figures slowly
degrades to nothing.  Pretty neat.


The Metro was great!  They are not at all like London's tube system. 
The first thing that hit me when we pulled out of the first station,
was that the people who were standing up weren't holding on.  In
London, this would be an invitation for injury, but in Prague, the
tracks were so flat and even, you only had to worry about
acceleration/deceleration.  No need to worry about movement about the
the other axis.  So if you stand with your legs spread apart, there is
no need to hold on!

Besides some ugly block-houseing, there was very little left of the
communist influence.

This place is as much a European city as any.  Although I don't think
they are actually part of Europe proper.

Two Auzi friends of our were also in Prague that weekend, but we
didn't have time to meet up with them. But in any case, it was a great
weekend.

On the flight back, we ran into a little bit of "weather" coming into
Heathrow.  We had to circle around at low altitudes for a while and we
had a rather rough ride.  Needless to say, Laura kept the "barf bag"
close by.  Turns out it wasn't needed, but it was touch and go for a
while there.

Here are all the pictures.