Travel Wednesday!

So for my first Travel Wednesday I think I will pick Prague. It's a good easy start and I know so much about it and I love it there.

I went to Prague for the spring semester of 2007. I lived in a dorm with a few hundred other foreign, mostly american, students. Prague has a reputation of being a little bit of a party city and, I can speak from experience, it is well deserved. I have never been in a city where it was common for people to go straight from the bars to work. I am talking about business men not bartenders.

Albeit the crazy drinking and wonderfully affordable party scene the city itself is a wealth of history and sightseeing attractions. On my daily walk down the hill to school I walked through the presidents castle and right next to the royal gardens. The building where I had classes was where Vasclav Havel was teaching and beginning the velvet revolution. A few blocks, if you could call them that, further into the heart of the city the old town square with the doomsday astronomical clock. Beware the doom of you wallet to the hands of idle pickpockets at this attraction. Further still into the city and you could find yourself in Wenceslas Square. It's a huge rectangular plaza with a large statue at one end and plenty of shopping through out. Let me not forget the most famous Charles bridge fabled to hold the lost sword of the hero for which it is named said to return when the Czech people are in the time of their greatest need.

In visiting Prague to get away from the beaten tourist roads there are several things I would recommend:

1. Have a picnic at Vysehrad. It is a beautiful castle and less frequented than the presidents' castle. Right along the Vlata it gives you a splendid view and if the weather is night it makes for a splendid afternoon.

2. Watch the sunrise from the observation point on the side of Petrin. On top of this hill (Petrin) is a monastery and walking southeastward from the monastery and a tad to the right is a little train that goes up the side of the hill to a little observation point. My best mornings in Prague were spent drinking cheap red wine with my compatriots and watching the sun rise. Don't judge us for the booze... we hadn't slept yet.

3. Probably the most touristy but most certainly a worthwhile endeavor is right off of Wenceslas square is a wine cellar bar called U Sudu. It is an underground labyrinth of little rooms with various tables, Foosball, and wonderful pitchers of wine. I cannot even count the number of nights we spent in this bar before making the mandatory fried cheese sandwich stop on the way home.

And speaking of Czech cuisine try the potato dumplings and, of course, the fried cheese sandwich. I also tried pig knuckles one night which are not as bad as they sound and a fairly standard bar fare. An absolute must is honey cake or medovnik. There are not words to describe how wonderful it is.

Last but not least I feel that I should touch on my favorite gay bar, Termix. When entering the bar you must ring a doorbell out side a random sheet metal door. It plays Fur Elise. Once inside you will stand in a small coat check with a stairwell which after descending leads to a long bar room with a car sticking out of the wall. Yes a car. There is a private room up top that can be rented out but other wise is available for sitting and a nice small dance floor. They play all the right gay hits and several of the wrong ones. With all the cheap beer you can drink and hours that usually last until the sun is up.

I hope that each and every one of you has a chance to visit some day. Prague is one of my favorite places in the world and I miss it all the time. Maybe I'll see you there!

Chapter 2

If you haven't read last week's first post (the very first post on this blog) you may want to read it here as I am just going to dive right in head first.

Chapter two
An introduction to my drinking habits

So in 2007 I lived in Prague, CZ for a semester abroad. I was in a dorm with 120 some american students. We attended classes together, went out together, got lost together, and basically had the best semester long vacation of our lives. Our teachers seemed to be encouraging us to bring beer to class. Beer was a dollar for half a liter IN THE BARS (or the school cafe...). Be jealous.

One night we decided to go out in a fairly large group to a bar called Mecca. Now this bar is located in an inconvenient location where once there it is more worth your while to not come back until morning because the train stops running at midnight. It was a more expensive bar (still amazingly cheap just not Prague cheap). I did not want to be there after about an hour.

The one special they had that was a really good deal was Absolut shots. So I was drinking straight vodka. I was drinking lots of vodka. This may be a good moment to stop and explain my relationship with vodka. I love it. I drink it always. I have a decent size collection of booze in stock at my home and by far the most of any one liquor that I have in store of a rainy day is vodka. I was trashed.

Trashed James decided to travel to his favorite bar, Termix. Now for those unfamiliar with Prague there is a large river, the Vlatva aka the Moldau, that winds through almost the middle of the city. I needed to cross that river. First I went cab hunting. Now the cabs in Prague will try and rip you off. The solution is to set a price before getting in. Whatever these cabs wanted me to pay I was not having it and decided to walk. Did you catch that? Mistake One: Deciding to walk.

I had my handy dandy pocket map and set off on my merry way. The first problem arose quickly. I was not finding bridges across the river. They seemed to all be elevated and not clearly marked on my map. I kept walking. Finally I find a bridge that I should be able to cross the river on ONLY a few small hurdles stood in my very disoriented path. First I needed to climb up a muddy hill to match the height of the bridge. Done. Second I needed to climb a fence. Alarm bells should be going off here. Mistake two: Don't climb fences drunk. I did it anyway and I started walking across the bridge. I should point out that around this time I noticed that this was not a normal bridge. I was walking on train tracks. About halfway across it occurred to me that this was highly unsafe. I hurried up. Mistake three: do not get caught stuck on train tracks.

Upon reaching the other side of the bridge I was once again presented with a challenge. There was no hill to aid my getting down from the bridge on this side. I just kept walking. Eventually I was able to sneak through a train station yet somewhere in this fiasco I had lost all track of where I was. I kept wandering totally ignoring my trusty little pocket map. Mistake four: use your map moron! Finally, fairly sobered up, I found a tram number that I knew. I went to look at the sign to see how far I was from a station that would get me where I wanted to go. After several minutes of careful study I discovered I had ended up back on the wrong side of the river (I have no idea how) and not anywhere close to where I was trying to go.

Now at this point I decided to give myself point for trying and go home. The tram I needed was not running so I simply followed its route for at least two more miles to the station that would have a tram that would take me home. The best part of the story is as I in my muddy, tired, sober, disgruntled state boarded the tram I was greeted by all my classmates that I had left at the bar.

Moral of the story: I should not ever be left to drunk wander in unfamiliar territory.