The day after my gruesome hangover, I was feeling well enough to get on to Prague. I booked my bus, had breakfast, and sat at the hostel nursing a couple of eggs. Finally I went out for a little walk, got myself a sandwich and a bag of churros, and set out for the bus station. No problems there; I arrived, took another little walk, and boarded the bus. I had downloaded “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman” and was really enjoying it. The ride was a little long, a little tiring. We had a break in Bratislava (what a cool town name) and I took another walk there. By the time I got to Prague, despite the churros and several bananas I’d packed with me, I was starving and ducked into a McDonalds. Then I walked to the hostel.
Snap! A miscalculation. Mayhaps, a blunder. The reception desk had closed half an hour prior to my arrival. I was tired and irritable. What to do?! I called the reception number, but neither of my SIMs gave me calling ability. So I looked up the hostel on Facebook–the one in Budapest had a Facebook profile that you could message. I lucked out–this hostel had one too and the receptionist, on her way home, managed to get the message and inform me that my keys were in keeping at a nearby pub. I picked up the keys, went in and crashed… or so I thought. Turns out, just as I was nodding off, my house-hunting buddies at the UW had turned up a real find, a beauty of a house in the wealthy and gorgeous neighborhood of Laurelhurst, 2500 square feet for the five or us. We naturally needed to fill out the application IMMEDIATELY lest someone poach the house out from underneath us. But we didn’t have the application yet! We’d hopefully get an email in a couple of hours. I stayed up and we got the application and I tried to fill it out. I had an issue with my identity verification :P and needed to call customer service, which was closed, but at least it was clear I’d tried to start the application. My buddies’ excitement about the house, especially Alex’s, was heartwarming :)
On my first day I met Aleks and we took a long walk up the hill to an outlook and moving statue of a metronome, over to the Castle. This great complex housed a gorgeous cathedral within its walls, and the rain did not lessen the grandeur one bit. We went to this Lobcowitz family museum, which was quite hilarious. Although it was true that these fellows had been quite a powerful family, the pride with which the Lobcowitz narrators on the audioguide recounted their history and lovingly went over each family portrait was a little much, it seemed to me. We split
The next day I went on a walking tour. The guide was really nice :D They mostly seem to be middle-aged moms with one or two young kids. We got some history, some architecture, stopped in at a cafe. I socialized briefly with a bunch of yokels, including a friendly gay couple from London and a pair of Texan gals. For some reason there are a lot of Texans in Europe right now! After the tour, I walked with them for a bit. We hit up the John Lennon wall. They spent like half an hour getting some picture for their instagram just right. They did get one of me that was pretty neat though. We parted ways and I walked up through a park to a monastery, which was pretty but the interior was closed. There was an acclaimed brewery nearby and I stopped in for a pint in the cellar under these cool stone-brick arches. Thence I went back to the hostel, rested up for a bit, and met Aleks for dinner. The restaurant was pretty tasty. I got fried cheese (a local specialty) and mashed potatoes. We both got starters of sausages. That sounds odd, but nearly everything eaten out in Czechia is meat of some kind, including starters.
The second day