Friday night in Prague

The phone rang and it was Sara Faatz, her and her younger sister Malorie (I’m sure I butchered the splling) had finally made it into Prague - -they had to detour through Amsterdam because Malorie’s passport expired in 75 days.  The airline in London SCREWED up and let them board, in Amsterdam for their changeover they realized the mistake – uh-oh!  Turns out though the airline forwarded their bags to Prague, even though they weren’t on the flight.  They were almost out of luck, but since the airline faced stringent fines and ‘endangered’ the lives of hundreds, they tried to cover it up.  Helping them get to the consulate, rebooking their tickets.  They met the consul general, and got a new passport and were able to get into Prague by around 6:30.  We met on the Charles Bridge where we also joined John Robbins, one of their colleagues.  The 4 of us took on a bit of nighttime siteseeing, exploring the Prague Castle, its related cathedrals and grounds and a bunch of breathtaking city views.  It was empty everywhere.  Inside the cathedral we had run of the place, no one around except for 10 people taking in a service (we were careful to be quiet and not disturb).  There was an old man dressed in purple sitting in a throne like chair in the back of the altar – he never moved or said anything.  He may have been a statue – but I think he was alive.  Or at least I think you can make that argument.

It was cold so we stopped for Grog – a hot rum drink – the glass came out so hot that I was scared to taste theirs.  I ordered a beer instead.  We ate dinner at a traditional Czech restaurant – very fancy on the advice of the concierge at the Boscolo.  My impeccable sense of direction got us lost 3 times.  It was snowing – I was officially a moron.  Although, I was able to redeem myself later (or so they led me to believe).  Dinner was amazing – duck breast, the best goat cheese I’ve ever had in my life, and a fabulous white goose liver appetizer.  We had Czech red wine (cab) – everyone locally had said, “avoid the red wine here, it is terrible”  -- we tried, but got it.  It was OK – not fabulous, had a bad aftertaste and had its bitter moments, but I survived.  They tried to make some Gnocchi with my duck – they failed miserably… such is life.

After dinner we planned to do a bar-hop – we started at a little (turns out it was huge) bodegito (yes Cuban place in Prague) – it was cool, Cohiba’s everywhere, great tequila, awesome décor, people salsa dancing – packed wall to wall.  We found a table in the back  and began piecing through the menu – they had Absinthe… and so the night begins.

They brought out a round of very traditional 140 proof (70%) Absinthe – a hint of greenish blue, in a rocks glass – filled slightly less then halfway (definitely a 2oz+ pour).  On the side were 4 spoons (1 for each of us), 4 packets of sugar, and a small pack of matches that looked like a miniature pack of Camel Blue cigarettes.   The waitress realized we had no idea what we were doing and I was designated the guinea pig.

First you put sugar on the spoon, then you lightly coat the sugar in Absinthe – light the match, and then the alcohol coated sugar.  Let it burn until it caramelizes.  Put it into the glass, stir it and shoot quickly.  I think I didn’t stir it enough, I singed my throat, made a fabulous face of (oh my god please don’t let me vomit) and some how survived.  (picture coming soon).  After that I decided Absinthe wasn’t my thing and move don to beer.  Sara and John definitely felt otherwise – and had 2 more shots each.  John was a bit tipsy, but Sara was gone…  old stories, information prefaced with, “I shouldn’t be tell you this but” – great stuff – I swore to secrecy, but know she divulged all kinds of fabulous secrets J

The night ended around 2am – we had a guided tour of Prague at 10am the next morning.

Guided Tour

We met the guide at 10am – and toured around – we saw the National Palace, a beautiful structure with gold roof – supposedly citizens rich and poor donated to the project as a sign of national pride.  Pretty amazing place.  We traveled South to see the “dancing building’ – which I must say is AWESOME (pictures coming soon too) – it is highly criticized in Prague because it’s architecture is ultra-modern and doesn’t exactly fit into the motif of the city, but it is designed to look like a Man and a Woman dancing – its very clear to see – and a very very cool idea.  The building is beautiful.  We took the tram up to the castle and did the tourist version of the tour, seeing the grounds, the museum, the royal palace.  Most of what we saw was 17th/18th century – but they also had some original walls from the 9th and 10th century.  This was old stuff.  The royal palace was pretty cool, there was one grand room that was just HUGE – turns out they used to have medieval jousting matches on horse back in the room… it showed – you could have played a football game in there easily.  From there we walked down across the Charles Bridge, taking in the statues – one statue has Hebrew writing on it, that was supposedly anti-semetic and a joke.  I don’t recall what it said, but now it is just history … all the statues are actually replica’s because the originals are locked away in a museum (smart).  There is another statue and people rub the virgin mary for good luck.  Everything has blackened over, the bronze is dark – except where people rub the virgin mary – there it is extremely polished – amazing.  A walk through the old town and an explanation of the bldgs there, a very old clock that was still unimpressive (from before) and then we headed back to the hotel.  Sara and Mallorie had completed there 22 hour adventure and had to leave.  Toby, a friend from college, had just arrived into town (from Manchester, crazy world) and we were meeting up with her.

Jewish Quarter

We swapped guests, out with Sara and Mallorie (sad, but they had fun), in with Toby (yey, she lived in Prague for 6 months and was ready to party / be our guide to the jewish quarter) – John was still with us.

Funny thing the Jewish quarter is – it was Saturday – and everything was closed – DUH!  Kind of sucked, but we walked the streets of one of the largest jewish quarters in Europe – I think it was like 6 or 7 square blocks.  We saw the Spanish Synagogue – we saw the old cemetery – we saw the old new synagogue (or was it the new old synagogue?  I remember making fun of the opposite of whatever it was called, but not the exact name. silly me.  I think we saw another Synagogue too but everything was closed.  Very sad, but Toby is going to give me pictures so I can pretend I was there.

To be continued…