Jan 2nd – Jan 6th

As some of you may just have learned from my last post, or have already heard, I spent the last four days in Prague with mom, Tia Nicha and Tio Quim. We arrived late in the afternoon after and went straight to the hotel, Hotel Josef, to check in and start exploring. The hotel was really a great place, and old typical Czech building that had been completely redone inside recently with a modern feel…It was a cool balance of old and new. We dropped our bags of and it was straight to the city, it took me a little bit to get oriented but before long I found my bearings on the map we had and we were tearing through town seeing the things we wanted to check out. Just as we arrived at the Old Town Square for the first time, it was the top of the hour and the astrological clock did its little sing and dance…There is a clock that I cannot even start to explain, it shows something like the hour of sunrise, the hour of sunset, the astrological signs, the 24 hour clock, and the days of the year all at once! See pictures on my web album to believe! After that we wandered around the Christmas markets that were still open and drank Mull wine, which is a warm wine drink and ate some typical Czech cinnamon pastry thing that they cooked over coals. Later that evening we went to a restaurant off the beaten path that was recommended in mom’s guide book. We ended up having a great meal of Pork stuffed with, I forget what, potatoes and Sauerkraut if I remember correctly; and to wrap things up we split some berry pie for desert. Whoops, how could I forget the world famous pilsner that we drank there. It was the first time I had had this mystical pilsner I had read about, and it was indeed tasty. After a brisk, below freezing walk balk to the hotel it was off too bed. I know, I let myself down by not going out to the disco in Prague, but I would have been a one man show and by the time we were done with dinner I was exhausted…WHIMP, I accept the label!
The plan for the next morning was to take a bus tour to get to see a general overview of the city for a couple hours and then set off to more specific places later on. I am not usually a big fan of those big touristy bus tours, but it was something Tio Quim really wanted to do so we gave it a shot. Almost forgot to mention the killer spread the hotel put pout for breakfast, anything you could imagine, a wonderful cheese spread, fresh fruit, eggs, potatoes, prosciutto, Lochs (salmon) , fresh bread, anything you could ever want for breakfast; I wish I would have taken a picture of it. We booked the bus trip and it was off to see the city during the day. We ended up taking the bus all over, and looking back, I think it was one of the best things that we did; it gave us a great overview of the city and took us to see things that we would not have seen otherwise. After the bus ride, we decided to head up to the royal caste and toured the grounds. Before making it, we ended up stopping in at a church that was about to have an organ concert so we ended up staying and enjoying some Czech organ playing before making the rest of the trek to the castle. The castle was pretty cool, the Czech President or ruler has ruled form the same exact place for, I don’t remember the exact number but I think it was something like 2 or 3 centuries. The architecture was quite different (please enjoy the photos again), and the grounds had spectacular views of the city below. We ended up buying concert tickets for the Royal Orchestra and headed back down to the city for dinner. We ate at a local brewery and had some more great food. We ate dumplings, potato soup, pork, roast duck and this time enjoyed some darker ale with the meal. Afterwards, we headed back up to the castle and watched Orchestra play in one of the oldest churches on the castle grounds. This may have been one of the coldest moments of my life, the church was probably a brisk -3 or 4 Celsius, we were sitting on old wood benches, and the whole place was stone…no wonder the other signs for concert said HEATED, ok so I did not notice that until afterwards and I was thoroughly pissed that we froze while listening for an hour and change. Whoops, we actually went to the concert and then to dinner, I had that switched around but so be it.
On Monday, we spent the whole day touring the Jewish Quarter of Prague. I did not know that there was a big Jewish population in Prague, but there must have been six or seven synagogues within a square mile of each other. After going through the first couple we stopped off at Franz Kafka Café. I do not know exactly who he was, or cannot remember, but he was some really important guy because there are things all over the city named after him. After finishing up with all of the synagogues it was back to the hotel to rest for a few minutes then some aimless wandering through the city until we went for dinner…why does food always seem to be one of the highlights of trips…it is always fun to try all of the different types of foods. Again, we ended up in another pub/bar called something that translated to the rope makers wife…we ate another meal of pork and potatoes, these people must get sick of it after three days or so, at least I was ALMOST starting too, key word being ALMOST! There was a funny story about the rope makers wife, and how her husband would go on long trips and she was lonely so she started a bar, then one thing led to another, it was full of guys and they were served more than just dinner…astonished after hearing about this, the rope maker came home from one of his trips and strangled her with a rope he made…her ghost has since been in the bar. There was a really interesting wood carved lady in the restaurant, which you would need to see pictures to do justice, for everyone to enjoy.
On our last day in Prague it was back up to the royal palace to see the Cathedral that we missed out on the first time because it was closed. It was absolutely breathe taking, and took some 6 hundred years to complete because of war, communist ruling, and who knows what else…possibly the brutally cold winters they have. (On a complete side note I think I failed to mention that it snowed every single day that we were in Prague, except the last day where the weather cleared up and we had some sun but also the coldest day out of all of them) After visiting the cathedral we wandered up to monastery and took a look around. We went to some super old Library that had all these collections of dried up animals from all over the world; it was pretty cool to see. Unfortunately, the main hall of the library was under restoration and of course they did not tell you that when you paid for your entrance, so that was kind of a bummer, but I guess they would not have money to complete the project if no one paid to go see it! After being through there it was lunch time, we went to one of the oldest breweries in Prague that was up on top of the hill near the monastery had had probably the best meal of the trip. For starters we had venison pâté and pickled sausages…neither of which I was extremely crazy about, but I had to try them both to see what they were all about. Along with the meal, we enjoyed some Pilsner that was brewed at the restaurant. For the main course we shared a goose dish, a rabbit dish, and pork on a skewer; all of which were excellent. I am not sure that I had ever eaten goose before, atleast not that I could remember but it was very good, and it had been a long while since the last time I had eaten rabbit. Oh man I almost forgot, on the second day we were there, we were at the Christmas market cruising around and there was a stand selling different smoked meats and sausages. On the board of what they had it said horse, so I asked the girl to point out which the horse was and it was a sausage that they had made from horse…she offered me a piece and it was not too bad either, didn’t taste much different than a regular sausage, it was kind of spicy with paprika or something, interesting I guess. Ok, back to the monastery…after lunch we took in the views of the city from above and then leisurely made our way back down to the hotel and relaxed and packed things up for a little before going to dinner later. We had a light dinner at a kosher restaurant in the Jewish Quarter, and then did a small little lap around Old Town Square again before calling it a trip and heading back to the hotel to mentally prepare for waking up at 3:30 a.m. to catch our 6:00 flight…WHO BOOKS A 6:00 a.m. flight!!! Waking up was a little rough, but it was nice to be back in Lisbon by mid-day. Last night some of the cousins got together for a dinner send off for Martin who lives in Italy. All in all it was an awesome trip and now it is time to try to buckle down and start studying for my exams that start next Wednesday!

Hope everyone is well back home and that classes are going well if you have them.

Much Love Always,

Phil