PRAGUE - DAY THREE

Prague Friday January 7, 2011

A free day today although Milan and Peter offered to take us to the Castle by tram and then walk down from the Castle to the Charles Bridge. I had looked at the various distances and there was no way that was for us! Those who braved the walk confirmed that it was indeed a loooong way.

The show last night was, as expected, a little long for our taste. Stirring, but somewhat deafening music and frequent foot stamping and Hi-Hi dancing, which always went on too long. The food was interesting - curiously enough, my first course was pea soup and, like the soup Rab had on Victoria Island it was sweet. We landed up sitting with some Emeralders (from the sister ship Emerald) after getting to the venue a little late and although the one couple were very pleasant the other three were a rum lot. One of them - Robyn- was VERY intense. Staring into our eyes, one after the other, she introduced herself and asked who we were saying how PLEASED she was to meet us. Just a tad intense! She was sharing a cabin with old friend and gay schoolteacher Jim who had laryngitis and who I found to be a bit of a dead fish. Rab said he was not to bad, but he seemed humourless to me.

Instead of joining the trek to the Castle, Rab went to Marks and Spencers and found a very nice coat. Much lighter in weight than her old Russian one which she has found to be a bit of a burden on this trip. I think it might not be enough to block very cold weather, although we have kept the lining from then old coat and together she will probably be weatherproof. I spent a fair bit of time people watching and trying to get some good shots of the decorations on the two gorgeous Art Deco hotels. Of course we had to then re- trace our steps yesterday in the forlorn hope that we might be able to recover the ear-ring Rab lost yesterday. No luck, unfortunately. 

As we were walking through the Old Town square we saw a bloke under a brolly advertising the Hop On Hop Off bus we had been looking for yesterday. Turned out he was a Namibian student, working his way through college! Anyhow, we decided to give it a try although it seemed a bit dodgy because they were a bit mysterious as to how we got to the bus, given the traffic limitations in Old Town. Well, we walked for about ten minute before getting to a corner where we waited for the train? Didn't know what they were talking about until a little diesel train and carriage came around the corner, ringing it's bell. We climbed aboard and bumped our way over the cobbled streets for several blocks until we finally got to the bus parking area and transferred to our red bus.

The courier was a young woman from Florida who was teaching English at high school. She seemed very nice and said she was enjoying her time there, mentioning that the English speaking ex-pat community numbered about 20,000. It was good to see a bit of the city. Parts are in very poor condition - magnificent old houses but falling to pieces - and there is an enormous amount of graffiti everywhere. We didn't hop off the bus, at least until we got to the Railway Station, which was the nearest one to our hotel. We paused to share a Prague sausage and a fruit drink and then headed back to the hotel for a snooze and to pack.

We had intended to just go out for a quiet meal on our own, but Ian called us at about 16h00 and invited us to join him and some of the others at a restaurant he had found. We agreed and after a couple of drinks with some of our other pals, ten of us went off to the Italian restaurant about 1 km from the hotel. It was quite a mild evening after the freezing one that had preceded it and Rab was warm in her new coat. The food was excellent and we had a good time. Everyone was exchanging e-mail addresses and telephone numbers. Based on previous experiences no one will be in touch, but maybe this time it will be different. (It was - a little. Two people contacted us - but only once each.)