Eurotrip 2013, Day 3: Prague

Guys. GUYS. Listen up, I gotta tell you about Czech snacks. (Also real food, but mostly snacks.)

So today I was hanging out on Old Town Square, and I had some Czech crowns burning a hole in my pocket and nothing but a bunch of acid burning a hole in my stomach,and I saw all these snack booths and I thought maybe it would be a good idea to check them out. BEST IDEA EVER!

Exhibit 1: they just call it "potato". Which is pretty boring, because potatoes are kind of boring. Until you cut them so that they spring out into a spiral like a Slinky, deep fry them on a stick (the stick is crucial), and add salt and chili powder. BAM:




Exhibit 2: if you're walking around Prague, and you think you smell a churro, then yes, you're hallucinating. You're in the Czech Republic, not Mexico. But if you think you smell something almost like a churro, but not quite, with a bit less cinnamon, then congratulations, you're still sane. Meet the trdelnik, sweet dough wrapped on a cylinder then barbecued over coals (!) then covered in more sugar:


So, actually, the trdelnik was merely OK. Churros are probably better. But the spiral potato is a big winner!

There was real food today too. $9ish gets you this massive piece of work at the Hybernia "Needle House" restaurant (nicknamed for the skewers, not for heroin addicts). Chicken skewer, horseradish sauce, thousand island-ish sauce, and for a couple bucks more, some horseradish mashed potatoes:





Ok, so I did things other than eat today too. Since I was already eating in Old Town Square, I would have been remiss to not see the sights there. The most famous is certainly the Astronomical Clock, or Orloj. Apparently it will read off the time, time of year, Zodiac, and who-knows-what else. I had to consult the normal clock just behind it to the left to tell the time. At the top of the hour, the skeleton on the right pulls a cord and you hear the bells ring. At the same time, the two blue windows above the clock open up and the 12 apostles run by. There's a huge crowd of tourists standing by just before the hour, but the spectacle is really not that amazing. Just seeing the intricate design is more the point.




Right next to the clock is St Peter's, a cathedral in the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. The Hussites are one of the early Protestant sects, and a homegrown Czech phenomenon, founded by Jan Hus. The church itself is small but pretty, with a chandelier modeled after the crowns of the czars:






You can also see tour groups heading into the church, sometimes with interesting group leaders:



The buildings around the plaza are clearly very old, and it's interesting to see how much people have grown since they were built. I'm not particularly tall, but...:



After seeing the sights it was time to rest and recharge with a latte at a cafe on the square. While I was sitting there, I had the opportunity to see some Czech street sweepers come by, with a really clever street vacuum. It seemed quite powerful, but was super quiet, and vacuumed straight into a garbage can. This seems way more efficient than the brooms and other manual contraptions you see in the States.



Another highlight of he guidebooks is the Museum of Communism. The Czech Republic has had quite a bit of experience with Communism, and the curators of the museum were clearly not happy with this externally-imposed phenomenon. The museum forms a walking path with a number of exhibits showing the rise and fall of Czech Communism over time...but it could have been done quite a bit better. The museum itself feels very dated and could use some refreshing; there were a handful of interesting exhibits but they weren't presented all that well. Somehow, they managed to take a very interesting slice of history and make it almost boring. But then again, I was also jet lagged and sleepy. It was worth the $3 to get in.



I want this poster.




No, it doesn't mean "Kerbal Space Center"


The last sightseeing stop of the day was Frank Gehry's "Dancing House", with a shape designed after Ginger Rogers dancing. Nice building, but shame that it's not occupied by someone more interesting than Accenture.



After the Dancing House, it was time for a quick nap...which ended up being not so quick. It was once again too late for a proper dinner, but luckily there was a burger place on the same street as the hotel.

Eurotrip 2013, Days 1-2: San Francisco to Prague

It's not easy to get to Prague -- at least, not if you're trying to be cheap and buy inexpensive tickets using credit card points. Your journey begins with a 630a cab pickup from San Francisco (it turns out that cab companies can at least schedule those, even if they are completely useless after 5pm). An 830am flight will deposit you in Chicago 4 hours later. As you taxi in to the gate, you'll see a Lufthansa 747 approach and then recede, and you realize that with every extra foot of taxiing, your walk is increasing. After a brisk walk to the other concourse, you get to your gate, change your seat at the counter (because United can't change Lufthansa seats, and Lufthansa won't help you over the phone if you're already checked in), scarf down some pretty decent Mexican food (try the torta milanesa), and board your 8 hour flight to Frankfurt. Lufthansa is, at least, a bit nicer than United (high bar, I know), so you'll have some decent movies on the plane, but it's an old plane with those blasted dual-connector headphone jacks.

At 7am you land in Frankfurt with an hour to clear immigration and make it to the next plane. Charging down the hall to beat the crowd, the lady guarding the staircase down to passport control inexplicably sends away a crowd of Malaysian tourists (and you) to some unspecified point down the hall, at the other end of the terminal. Protip: let the Malaysians wander; ignore her and hang out right at the top of the stairs, because she's just a metering light. (Ignore this advice and you'll follow the lost Malaysians for 10 minutes before cursing and just going back). Famed German efficiency gets you through the line and through passport control in 15 minutes; the short walk to the gate leaves you 10 minutes before boarding the flight to Prague. Don't bother with the bathroom by the gate; it's mostly broken, and the cleaning lady will chase the line away before more than two people have managed to use it.

On the hour-long flight, you may be seated next to a very friendly and talkative pastor (wouldn't they all have to be?) from St. Louis but living in Prague, returning from a mission to Addis Ababa. His advice, though well-meaning, will rapidly vanish from your travel-addled head, so smile and make polite small talk. Upon landing, you can safely bypass the Travelex ATMs and exchange booths inside the terminal, inside baggage claim, and outside baggage claim; once you turn the corner near the taxi reservation station you see the ATMs associated with real banks. A taxi to the city center would run you 600 CZK ($30), but the shared van to the center (conveniently a block from your hotel -- how well planned!) is only 150 CZK/person.

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The room wasn't ready upon arrival, so the first course of action was to wander around Prague's Old Town for an hour or so. The Koh-I-Noor pencil company sells some sweet pencils - boring black pencils, pencils that are giant sticks of graphite, mechanical pencils, multicolored pencils - so that was time for gift-buying. Just down the street, there was a long pedestrian mall full of food stalls and shops; it wasn't until several days later that i realized this was Wenceslas Square. I'm pretty sure this store sells sausages, but they might also just sell videos of Psy's Gentleman:





A pub near the hotel offered a quick lunch of spaghetti con carne, and soon enough the room was ready. After a shower and quick nap, it was time for more evening wandering around Prague. It was late enough that a proper restaurant didn't seem worth it; so instead I followed the map to Bakeshop Praha, which sold a delicious goat cheese and tomato quiche.

One thing about Prague: even though there are a ton of little (and big) squares scattered about old town, there's not much in the way of public seating. That means you end up closing out your day trying to people-watch and eat on Namesti Republiky (Republic Square) like this:

Location:Prague, Czech Republic