So, anyway, I went to Prague, and it was fantastic! Lots of good things to see, and I had a great time. Now that I'm back, I thought that I would post an abbreviated version of my Praguian adventures.
Tuesday:
Wake up very early in Leeds, with a list of things to do that I lovingly prepared the night before. On the list: Some important things (pack toothbrush, look up address of Hostel); some not-so-important things (pack makeup) and some plain old random things (Must decide how many socks I'm going to take, even though I can't wear socks with my Birkenstocks, but then maybe when I go into a restaurant I can take off my shoes and put my socks on, in case my feet are cold. But how many times is this going to happen?? AUGH)
Take a bus to Leeds Bradford airport, which is actually rather small and cute. It's efficient and clean, and it was very full of people taking flights.
Get on plane. We were sitting next to some woman who seemed nice, and just read the paper, but we were sitting behind a family who had 2 girls, and they just screamed most of the flight. The mum was a bit of an idiot; she didn't know how to keep them under control, and dad had a look on his face which said "Damn, I hate my family." The girls' names were Scarlett and Sophia, which are nice names, but together? I hate it when families try and give everybody names starting with the same letters. Like "Hi! We're the Smith family! I'm Sam, this is Sally, and here are our kids, Susan and Steven! We sound like we belong in a cartoon!" I hate people like that.
Arrived in Prague, and very quickly got into town. Thanks to my extraordinary map-reading skills, we found the hostel very quickly. It was kind of weird. It was in the basement of an apartment building, so it really did feel like you were living in a cellar. It was fairly clean, but there was quite a variety of interesting animal life (Read: massive spiders as big as my hand lurking in corners. I swear, the spiders of the world are ganging up on me. I think that they must have some underground social club, where meetings go like this: "Ugg, where have you been recently?" "Well, Speee, I've been hanging out in Leeds, at avacarrdo's house. It's great! She freaks out, and then you get to hang around in corners so that she'll see you every time she gets out of bed to go to the toilet. Don't forget to puff up as big as you can to really make her scared! I hear she's off to Prague next week. Shall we send Lurr to her hostel to greet her upon arrival?" "Sounds like a plan.")
Then we walked around Prague, and saw that the National Museum was having a concert. So we went in, and sat on the steps and listened to a chamber music ensemble play some popular classics. It was nice, and then we went to sleep. Well, obviously, we didn't go to sleep in the museum. That would be stupid.
Wednesday
Today we did a lot of things, including looking at the astronomical clock in the old town square, but it only does it's special, magic thing, on the hour, and it was about 10 minutes to 11, and we could have waited for 10 minutes to see the clock do special things, but instead we got some ice-cream. We went to a massive art gallery, and spent 2 hours looking at paintings that weren't that impressive, until we got to the Frenchies, and then it was great. I really like Pisarro, but Picasso not so much.
That night, we had dinner at an Afghan restaurant, which almost felt surreal; sitting in an Afghan restaurant, being served by a Czech man, and communicating in Pidgin English. It felt like a Monty Python sketch. And, also, you're not supposed to drink the tap water in the Czech Republic, because its full of Kryptonite or something like that, so I was pretty much dehydrated the whole time, because I refuse to pay money for a bottle of water with my dinner.
Thursday
Today we saw the Opera! We saw "Turandot" but Puccini, which was finished in, like 1926! I didn't realise that it was written so recently. Anyway, the storyline goes like this:
Once upon a time, there was a Princess in China called Turandot. I have issues with this name, because it is not a Chinese name. No indeed. "Alien" in a Chinese name. "Strawberry" is a Chinese name. "A Little Bit" is a Chinese name. But "Turandot"? No. Anyway, Turandot is a bit of a bitch, and if people want to marry her, then they have to answer three riddles. Nobody ever does, so all these suitors get put to death. Then this other guy turns up and is all like "Wow. She's hot. I'd do her." So Turandot poses him the riddles, and he guesses correctly! Happiness and Sunshine! Turandot is mad. So the guy says, "OK, if you can guess my name before dawn, then you don't have to marry me."
Turandot makes everyone scurry around trying to find out his name. It's kind of like Rumplestiltskin in China. There's some slave girl who gets tortured and kills herself; sorry if that's a bad description, but I can't be bothered writing anymore about her. Anyway, in the end, the man tells Turandot his name (It is Kalan), and she decides that she does love him, after all. And they live Happily Ever After!
It was a pretty good production; a bit rough around the edges, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Friday
We came back to Leeds. Goodbye scary Czech spiders! Goodbye Prague! I will come back again one day armed with a big can of Bug Spray.
3 comments:
You had very interesting trip and so many adventures. I'm glad you liked Prague and I see you want to come back. I feel the same about Prague.
When I was in Prague I also was in theater. I saw "Don Juan" and I liked how actors played. I think in Prague theaters are very good.
I love the exotic dancers in Prague..... so many memories especially of the RLD
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