10 OctNove Mesto, Praha 1

On Saturday we explored The New Town, as the name suggests, this part of town has a different feel than The Old Town, yet rich in it’s own history. Here are some pictures:

Estates Theater - Where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni.(And technically in Old Town.)

Wenceslas Square - In 1989 it was here that the Czechs and Slovaks claimed their freedom.

National Museum, St. Wenceslas Statue, and Memorial to Victims of Communism

Municipal House

Dancing House

Beer

On Sunday we took a walk through the winding streets of the Little Quarter (where Tom had some absinthe) and rounded out the rest of the Castle Quarter before taking one more stroll over the Charles Bridge. They say Prague is a magical place, and I believe it is…but it’s time to go home.

08 OctStare Mesto, Praha 1

Today we spent the day in The Old Town of Prague.

As a side bar: just about every Scottish person is in town for the Scotland vs Czech Republic football match that is being played locally tonight. It gave Old Town Square an entirely unique feel, as that is where they all congregated to start drinking eight hours before the game.

It was finally a sunny day, the first five pictures were taken in Old Town Square:

Astronomical Clock

Church of St. Nicholas

National Gallery

Tyn Church

Jan Hus Memorial

The next couple of pictures are from the Jewish Quarter (Josefov):

The Old Jewish Cemetery

Ceremonial Hall

We walked across the Charles Bridge on our way home and took advantage of the sunny day for some more pictures. We also stopped on Kampa Island to see the Lennon Wall:

On the Charles Bridge with the Prague Castle in the background.

All you need is love.

Lennon Wall

We plan on exploring The New Town (Nove Mesto) tomorrow. But right now we need to find a pub to watch the game! Update: Czech Republic won.

06 OctHradcany & Karluv Most

As we stated walking towards the entrance of the Prague Castle a sign caught our eye that read: “Cartier at Prague Castle”. We both did a double take and without hesitation went through this amazing exhibit of over 350 Cartier pieces. It was absolutely breathtaking and a pleasant surprise.

Then we passed by the guards and saw the sights of the Castle which included the Old Royal Palace, St. George’s Basilica and St. Vitus’s Cathedral including the 287 step walk up the South Tower.

A peek at St. Vitus's Cathedral on the way towards the Castle.

Part of the St. Vitus's Cathedral, South Tower in top left of photo.

View of the Charles Bridge from the top of the South Tower.

Vladislav Hall in the Royal Palace. You can't tell from the picture, but this room is large enough to joust in.

We took a lunch break before heading across the Charles Bridge. And yup, I went with the special again…

Knee of pork.

Then we walked across the Charles Bridge (Karvuv Most) for the first time. With photographs of over 30 statues that line the bridge, here are just a couple:

Charles IV, the bridge's namesake.

Thought y'all would like this one.

Exiting the bridge to Little Town Square.

After walking for nearly seven hours we headed back to the hotel for a nap, but first stopped for some groceries:

Just the essentials.

We however overslept and once again went looking for dinner late at night (after 11 pm), this time we were too late and ended up with just a snack, luckily I was still pretty full from the pig’s knee.

Don't judge us...we will start planning dinner time a little better.

Tomorrow we are going to the Jewish Quarter and our first venture into Old Town.

05 OctGoulash

With our internal clocks still off we went to dinner at 10 pm (22:00) to the pub, Zlaty Klas, across the street from our hotel. I learned from Cafe Savoy to get the “special” not so much because it is better but rather it comes to the table much quicker.

At Cafe Savoy the specials were on the table written in Czech only and I wasn’t quite ready to ask, “what does that say?” I ordered pea soup with bread and cheese, it was really good, but took forever. Meanwhile some sort of lamb chop was being served all over the place. People were eating and leaving before our soup arrived. But seriously, the soup was delicious when it did arrive.

So when we got to the pub I asked about the specials (which didn’t translate perfectly, but we got there) and the waiter started rattling off a list of dishes when I heard goulash. Hey, I know what goulash is, I’ll get that. Tom pointed to a dish on the special page and hoped for the best.

The goulash was not ground beef with pasta but rather a beef stew, but just the beef part. It tasted very good and came with bread, two little potato pancakes (I think), and a little bite of sausage (like a kielbasa). Tom’s dish was four types of meat (chicken, beef, ham and bacon) in a creamy mushroom sauce. That was good as well and not as much food as it sounds like. And we didn’t wait while others ate. Now it’s after midnight and hopefully we can fall asleep with full bellies.

Big goulash, late night.

The first page of the menu had the house specials in photos. Tom is trying to figure out what he just ordered.

Cheers!

05 OctAndel, Mala Strana, Praha 5

Even with heavy downpours as we drove through the Bronx we arrived at JFK with plenty of time to spare. Everything was running smoothly, we got to our gate, enjoyed stale french fries from Wendy’s, popped a Xanax and boarded the plane. Our seats were in the emergency exit row so we had plenty of leg room. Then we sat there, on the tarmac, for two and a half hours before taking off.

We arrived in Prague at 9 am and I wouldn’t exactly say I was ready to hit the ground running, I more or less felt like puking, the Xanax wore off just in time for the landing. We whizzed through customs, purchased 5 day public transportation passes, took a bus to the metro station and 9 stops later arrived in our hotel’s neighborhood, Andel, located in Mala Strana, Praha 5. What I like to call, “the other side of the river” of Prague.

We checked in and almost immediately headed out for lunch at Cafe Savoy. The cafe is about 12 blocks north of the hotel, the walk gave us a chance to get some of the cobwebs out of our head and get a better feel of the neighborhood.

These little piggy's went to the market.

On our walk we passed the Memorial to the Victims of Communism.

Before heading back to the hotel room, to finally freshen up from the flight, we stopped at the villa Bertramka to see if Mozart was home. Here we stood in the room Mozart used to finish composing Don Giovanni. That was pretty cool.

Our hotel is next to a grocery store were we bought water for the room. I struggle with the money, I understand how much stuff costs, I just have no idea if something is expensive or not. I am still tired from travelling and hope that I adjust to the time sooner than later. I don’t understand the language, at all, and even though everyone we have interacted with speaks english, we have struggled to communicate with some, but are getting by.

Tomorrow we will start our day at the Prague Castle.

19 AugLunch Break

Our cafeteria closed at work just over a month ago, which meant it was time to start brown bagging it. It took some trial and error to find a lunch that was tasty and kept me satisfied for the afternoon, but I finally settled on turkey sandwiches, sounds boring, but they do the job. And while I am making my lunch in the morning, I go ahead and make one for Tom too. Once I got in the routine, taking a lunch to work has gone smoothly (for both of us). But that’s not to say you don’t need a break from the routine every once in awhile. So on Wednesday I went to the At the Plaza Food Festival with Melissa and Vicki. I could resist taking a picture of every bite!

One of the first vendor’s I saw really caught my eye, I thought I had seen it all, but this was new to me, Mozzarepas. It’s like a grilled cheese sandwich but instead of bread it’s cornbread and the cheese inside is mozzarella. As I was trying to make sense of this creation Vicki turned to us and said, “Do you want to start by splitting one of those?” Why yes, I do.

Now, the real motivation for going to the food festival was that Vicki wanted a crepe. For some reason she was convinced there would be crepes, and she was right, Maison Crepes was there. I got on that bandwagon and enjoyed one myself.

Mine is the one without the chocolate, and I know this is going to sound weird to 99.9% of the human population, but I don’t find anything appealing about putting chocolate on a perfectly good crepe. Or much else for that matter.

Melissa stuck with a more traditional vendor offering, the Gyro. Don’t be fooled by the pic, there is plenty more in that pita than just veggies.

Not done yet, there was a fried pickle vendor there, Spacey Tracy, and after reading the AOA post on Where to Find Fried Pickles I had to give them a try. I love fried, I love pickles, I now love fried pickles.

Probably a trip to the gym and a light dinner would be a good way to end the day, but instead the three of us split an order of loaded nachos and disco fries at Bombers later that night. Oopsie.

10 JulChelsea Lately

A staple on both DVR’s in our house is Chelsea Lately. I have watched every episode since finding her. I guess you could say she “speaks” to me, the way Madonna “speaks” to me. We just click, you know, and I don’t let the fact that she has no idea who I am get in the way of our relationship. So as soon as I heard that Ms. Chelsea would be in town I immediately prepared to stalk her, which pretty much consisted of buying a ticket to the show.

But first things first, a liter of beer with Melissa at Wolff’s Biergarten to start the evening.

A liter of beer with Melissa at Wolff's to start the evening.

Then we purchased books for the signing after the show:

The show was great, but I am biased, ’cause I luv her.

We waited in line for the signing with absolutely no air conditioning, the sweat dripping down my butt was totally worth it. When we got to her I said something that she misheard so she called me weird, but that’s a compliment coming from her. (no flash allowed in next pic)

Chelsea also signed Tom’s bottle of Belvedere Vodka, then he made friends with the Belvedere ladies. No real surprise there.

On Monday’s show she mentioned what a great time she had in Albany. Thanks girl! We had fun too!

16 JunPublic Speaking

Loud and clear is how Logan sounded when he read his winning essay in front of a packed auditorium. He won 2nd place in an essay writing contest and was awarded a $50.00 savings bond (and a $20 Borders gift certificate from the Aunt & Uncle who like to spoil him so much). He stood up in front of the room with poise, spoke clearly and told us how he learned to not to judge a book by its cover.

Good Job Lo! We are proud of you!