Similar to everyone else on my bus, I was asleep within 5 minutes of the ride. Unlike everyone else, my breakfast consisted of 1 banana. I also had bought a bottle of water, which was unfortunately the only food and beverage I would have for the next 6 hours. I woke up to the monotone voice of our tour guide saying she couldn't tell if I was awake or asleep because of my glasses. After she woke me, I went right back to sleep until we arrived at the first castle. When I walked into the first castle, I was still somewhat intoxicated and the cobblestone was quite tricky. Luckily we went to the less exciting castle first so that I would later enjoy the cool one more. The castle was from the 14th century, but the only two rooms I found cool were the carriage garage/dungeon/torture chamber and the library. Turns out that back then they had cages to put women in when they wouldn't shut up. Ingenious. That might have only been in this style castle though because it was a hunting lodge and they didn't want to be bothered. Or it could be just an universal item from the time.
Being told that we were going to lunch as we left, I had no expectation that there would be an hour drive first. Then a 20 minute walk. Then a 15 minute wait. Then a small bowl of salty water with 3 meatballs in it. Others at my table threatened to murder people. I only sulked in my arriving sobriety. When we found out that we were getting a meal in addition to the soup, I was ecstatic. CIEE was even nice enough to give a drink of our choice. The .33L water that I got wasn't really enough to help nurse my dehydration from the excessive whisky 12 hours earlier. I then went to the bathroom and filled up my old water bottle (which I felt like an idiot for carrying for 3 hours), happy not to taste anything similar to Mexican tap water.CIEE scheduled another scavenger hunt for us at this next castle, an event that I've become all too familiar with given the countless useless ones (including this) that I have been involved in over the past week. Even though this castle was so much cooler, I think it cost more because CIEE wasn't willing to pay for our tour of it. Another 14th century hunting lodge, this one was owned by Charles IV. They did have some funny T shirts and some cool looking sweet dough in the tourist town. I also saw the cheapest beer that I have seen at a bar so far; 11 kc for a half litre. Wow. We walked around the castle in the town but weren't allowed into it. Damn their cheapness; at least they decided to go all out on our lunch for us to make up for it.
I slept on the ride home, and learned a new, even crazier game of foosball that Robert and Jarda challenged Dillon and I in. 4 players, 3 balls, 2 teams, 1 table. Absolute insanity followed, as following 1 ball is hard enough for me. The 1 game turned into 10, and the hunger hangover from all day hurt more. The 3 of us went to our corner restaurant where Dillon and I ate the first night. My potato pancake had tons of veggies and chicken baked in, and was absolutely delicious. It also helps that everything goes down well with a nice Budvar or two.Below I am including some images from Prague Castle, where the statue of Tomas Masaryk stands. I apologize for not including my good shots, but I have been having trouble rotating the images for some reason, and most of those shots are vertical. I couldn't include an image of the whole cathedral because it's too tall to get in a shot, so the bottom image is the bottom quarter of it. The top can be seen in the first image, which is taken from within the castle too. Depending on popular demand, I may setup a flickr account that allows unlimited photo uploads, because I already have gone over my monthly allowance in just one upload session.
No comments:
Post a Comment