Prague 2 - and a little travel fatigue

 

These past few days in Prague have been interesting. We’ve been enjoying being at home and doing domestic stuff: cooking, washing clothes, sending couch requests for Budapest, battling the new bank fees over the phone for hours… that is, until the washer decided to steal our clothes!! Today was the first warm day in Prague, so we got our clothes in the washer early in the morning, perfect for hanging them to dry before we left for the day. Except, that the washer wouldn’t open!! It’s one of those with the door on the front, so it locks the door so water won’t spill out. So, it finished washing, we waited a while and it would not open!! We fiddled with the buttons, it ended up re-washing the clothes, and finally we left for the day. Came back, and still locked! Our hosts won’t be back for a couple of days, and I was picturing myself traveling to Budapest with a pack full of wet clothes. And finally Alex turned the power off, and after waiting a few minutes, it finally gave up!

That’s one example of what we’re thinking of as foreigner fatigue. Little things get so complicated. The transit system here is excellent. The only problem is where to buy tickets. You don’t buy them on the bus or tram, you have to have them with you when you board. You might be able to get them at the pulperia (corner store) if they’re open. Or, SOME stops have a yellow machine that sells them. Very convenient, except that they don’t take cards OR bills! Only coins! So, today we went to a new stop, and could not find the yellow machine. Alex ended up going all the way down into a metro station, and hunting around for a place to buy tickets while I waited. After he came back we saw the yellow machine INSIDE a building next o the stop! In the meantime, we missed our tram.

Oh, another foreign favorite: since we can’t read the words on the food packages, we have to guess what things are. We’ve been getting used to that. Today at the grocery store, I wanted to buy cream, but the little cup had a drawing that looked like sour cream (natilla). So I put it up by my ear, to shake it and hear if it was liquid. Well, someone had poked a hole in that particular cup, and I ended up covered in cream, including my camera. Fun times.

So, we are getting a lot of practice at exercising our tolerance for frustration. It is definitely good practice at trying to let go of things that are annoying, but after a while it takes its toll. Particularly when it’s the 20^th frustrating thing in a day, your feet hurt, you’re hungry, you haven’t peed because the public bathroom costs money and the groceries are getting heavy.

We’re starting to get a little homesick, thinking of all the things we love doing at home, mostly having you guys visit, and feeding you!! So, we’re thinking about you and hoping you’re having fun.

Other than the frustrating things, yesterday we had a lovely day. We took the whole day to rest, which meant staying at home and doing digital work. In the evening we went to a restaurant we watched on the Anthony Bourdain show. The main course was disappointing, but the side dishes were great, the beer was good, and I got to try a soda that had cardamom flavor! Alex went crazy with the sauerkraut pancakes.

 

Right after that we went to see Don Giovanni!! My mom had been to a marionette show when she was in Prague, and we didn’t want to miss out. It was wonderful. We got to enjoy the music, but the performance was so entertaining! They had a Mozart marionette who conducted the music, and got a little drunk… the way they handled the marionettes was amazing, and the puppeteers even got into the show a little! Sometimes they would let their hands hang down, or their hands would fight with a puppet. They even had rain! Actual water!! Beautiful effects, including blowing bubbles for the bath scene. It was funny, charming, sweet, and technically impressive. We had SUCH a great time. I wished you guys could have been there.

 

 

The day before, we went to Cesky Krumlov, a little town about 3 hours away. One of the newest houses in the town was built in the 17^th century!!

Beautiful, old, winding little streets. Incredibly touristy, though. The town itself is about 6 blocks, so it’s easy to get around.

We walked around the town, looking for a ceramic store that my mom had bought me some beautiful pieces at many years ago. We looked at a lot of different stores, which all seemed to have the same things. My brother had remembered the area where the store was, but we could not find it at all. We did find a store that carried almost only ceramics, and had some beautiful, different stuff. I think that might have been the store they went into, but the particular artist I had loved might not be selling there anymore. Maybe. But we enjoyed looking, and they let me take pictures!

We stopped by the river so Alex could have a mug of warm mead (honey wine), that smelled incredible. It was great even getting to see inside the house! I’m amazed they have a working restaurant in such a tiny awkward space.

The castle is very pretty with a beautiful tower.

They do a neat thing, which is to draw/paint the blocks on the wall. So it looks really impressive, but the blocks are fake!

As we were walking around, we saw an open door into the cellars. Since it was an art exhibit, we paid to get in. we didn’t care about the art, but getting to see the cellars was pretty incredible. Old stones, tiny archways and halls, crazy dungeons that went up and down, and then brought you back where you started! Our favorite part of the castle, by far.

 

The day before that, we had gone to see the very famous Prague castle. What we knew was that it was built in the 9^th century!!! And that it is the largest medieval castle in the world. With that information, we expected something pretty incredible. It turns out, that the only really old part is the cathedral inside the castle, which is pretty amazing, that’s what you see in the pictures. So remember where in the lat post we had found ourselves in front of the castle without realizing it? It’s because it doesn’t look like a castle at all!!! It turns out that it’s just the cathedral, surrounded by some new-looking buildings on all sides!! New compared to the church, they might still be 500 years old, but they just look like all the other buildings around the city, even less pretty!

 

So, we had set aside 2 days to see the castle, and we were out of there within 90 minutes. We walked down the hill, and found some nice gardens that we enjoyed a lot more.

 

Today we went to Vysehrad, the place known for incredible views, except… we couldn’t find them! We kept running into walls and trees, most of the views were totally blocked, and finally, we found a couple of spots where we could see some parts of the city. We did have a lovely picnic and enjoyed the sunshine, but we were disappointed that we didn’t see the panorama we were looking for. Then to a couple more dead ends, and now we prepare for our last days in Prague. Tomorrow we head out to see the church that is decorated with human bones!!