Prague 2

I won't lie, Prague seems a very long time ago sat here in Oslo in front of a computer properly for the first time in days. I'm delighted I write everything down...

The Day of the Faust:

If there was one strange happening from Prague, stranger than all the others, it was making a friend over Kebap-Olympics. As I said in the first day's account, waiting for the train to Prague we found ourselves very bored and entertained by the slightest of events - the sale of Kebaps from a train station vendor
. We got too into the kebap-mentality, and when security turned up to move on a tramp, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd asked us to move on as well. But Kebap Olympics brought with it a girl in stitches next to us, and friendship. Her nickname was 'Faust'. She was Chinese, and small-world moment for us all here, she attended Cardiff University. (tick the box that say's "meet your next door neighbour while half-way round the world")
Faust joined us on a whilrwind ramble through the main sites of Prague. Unfortunately we found with politics taking precedence in the area (Mr Obama was in town), we couldn't view the fairytale Prague Castle, so instead headed to the quirky and less well-known 'fake Eiffel Tower'. A 2 hour hike later to get there (via bridges and water fountains and the usual Kodak moments) and 300 steep winding steps exactly we found ourselves staring out at the best view of Prague you could imagine. 360 degrees unobstructed, apart from the two police officers carrying guns and giant spy binoculaurs who decided to use it as a military watch-tower into the castle.
On the way back down we took a detour through the steep hilly park and I, being the three-year-old that I am, headed straight for the swings. We found an amazing toy, a cross between a gym cross-trainer and a skateboard and Phil was VERY keen to see me injure myself and grabbed my camera to film. Unfortunately there's no 'You've Been Framed' footage this time. The detour DID have an upside to it however, as it brought us to a high vantage point, away from the main pathways and sheltered from the wind. Here we found a lover's corner where people had only too keenly scribed their 'heart's foreever' into the bare rockface. The first 'love forever' was dated 1849...and so were the others around nearby. Love is either always in the air in Prague, OR the people of Prague love a good joke.
With Faust in toe and struggling to keep up with our endless walking, we DID take on some culture here, just to give us a rest. We ended up in the National Museum, and whether by accident or design found ourselves with only 30 minutes before closing. We opted to skip the audio guides and realised in an all Czech museum that's a big mistake. Nevertheless, the blue whale carcass suspended from the ceiling is an incredible site, even for the idiots that can't learn anything else about it.
One person we did NOT fall in love with was our crafty waiter. Here is a word of warning to the travelling. A cheap meal has expensive extras. A beautiful 3 course meal of beef stew with dumplings,strudel, and a tradditional potato soup was soured by the hidden charges for the bread that accompanied the soup and the nuts that were placed when we sat that cost as much as the meal itself...
The evening brought with it some texts from Sam encouraging us to meet her out. But a drink with our other hostel-mate Steve in the 'bar' downstairs (picture cellar with a fridge and you get the idea) soon saw end to that idea. Both tired from the antics the night before and the speed of our travels the beers soon saw me need to take a '20 minute power nap' from which I never returned. Phil and Steve weren't too far behind!
 Sam probably thinks we hate her now, I shall use the last of my minutes before heading to the train station to Stockholm to pen her an apology.

Berlin and Oslo shall appear post my 7-hour sleep/dribble filled train journey x x



Prague on the second night didn't bring with it much in the way of madness I'm afraid, except that we DID go for a drink with one of our other hostelmates - Steve - who was in our hostel in Vienna the day before we arrived, and strangely enough bumped into us in Berlin!