This morning began with a bit of a lie-in, because the bed was ridiculously comfortable.  Seriously.  I don't think it was just because I was used to lumpy and possibly bed bug-ridden hostel beds.  This is a legit comfortable, high-end bed with feather pillows and a fluffy comforter and everything.  Breakfast is served in the lobby of the hotel, so I took my time, considering it was only about nine in the morning when I woke up.  It was glorious.  I lay in bed and finished my book. 

Sidenote on the books I ended up bringing with me: at Gill's place, I realized that I grossly over-packed, and decided to leave three of the five books I brought with me behind.  This was easy, since I'd finished two of them by that time.  I left behind Breakfast at Tiffany's and Wiseguys.  I had one book I needed to leave.  It was a toss-up between Chip Kidd's sequel and The Eyre Affair, since I was definitely set on bringing The Dharma Bums.  I had to; it's the perfect subject!  I'd read great reviews of The Eyre Affair, and the jacket described the book as "A mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Stephen Hawking, and Top Gun."  How could I not?  Word to the wise: don't pick up this book.  Seriously.  It's difficult to get in to, the main character is so Mary Sue that I want to barf, and the formulaic mystery barely had any redeeming qualities.  I mean, there was a car chase scene for God's sake!  She's in a multi-colored race car going after a low-flying airplane!  The villain, Acheron Hades, is a little too wrapped up in the 'villain' role, and far too self-aware to be potentially-redeemable, which is what makes a good villain, anyway.  Except Voldemort.  He's all bad, and it's good.  Hades is playing the part of a villain too much to do anything really, honestly, and irreparably bad.  There was a portion in which the main character goes to Richard III, and it turns a little Rocky Horror style, which made me laugh, but the author thinks he's much more clever than he actually is, and overall, I was exceedingly underwhelmed.  New York Times Best Seller it may be, but I'm getting rid of this damned book as soon as I possibly can.  I haven't been this let down since The Pillars of the Earth turned out to be an informative porno. 

Back to business.  So I finished the book, and Gill came in, informing me that she and her dad had already eaten, and they were going down to the train station for one reason or another, and that her mom would let me know when she was ready for breakfast.  I told her I'd be ready in about ten minutes, and Gill left.  I got ready, rolling out of bed.  I realized that my back ached ridiculously, and I could hardly put weight on my feet at first.  The ache seemed to be all over my body, and I couldn't do anything about how tired and misused my poor muscles felt.  I have bruises up the sides of my shins, and am developing excellent callouses on either side of my feet from where my hiking boots don't exactly fit me perfectly.  I will need three pedicures in a row once all of this is over.  But I digress, yet again.

Breakfast was a buffet-style affair, with attendants coming by every few minutes demanding you take more coffee.  I was drinking tea, and got to try out my "svenaiti" ("excuse me" in Ukrainian) on the waitresses.  They looked at me amusedly once I'd caught their attention, and didn't comment on my mutilation of their language.  I had some real food, and a baked poof with Nutella in the middle.  Delicious, and heart-attack-inducing.  From there, we went our separate ways for thirty or so minutes, during which time I attempted to connect to the wireless Internet, failed, and walked up six flights of stairs only to find the rest of the group ready to head out.  I left Genghis (the clever nickname of my notebook, since it's small, portable, enjoys travel, and vaguely Mongolian) in the room and readied myself for the day ahead.

Outside, it was bitterly cold with a chilling wind and little sunlight.  I was glad I'd been forewarned, and had donned a long-sleeved sweater-like top under my fleecy jacket.  We walked to the tram stop, discussing the similarities between Czech and Russian words, the likelihood of it getting any warmer, and how comfortable the beds had been.  Judy and Jim were slightly less jetlagged, and ready to face the day.  We climbed onto the 24, transferred to the 22 about a block away from the Praha Technical Institute, and the train station where Gill had bought her strudel the day before, and went all the way up the Kamelilska street to Prazsky hrad (Prague castle).

A knobby tree in the King's Gardens

A statue I thought was nice

Beautiful scenes on these walls.  I think they were inlaid, which makes it even more interesting.

The flowers make a fleur-de-lis pattern on the lawns

Judy, Gill, and Jim in front of the moat to the actual castle area

Some pretty flowers, and a groundskeeper's (or school) cottage

The cathedral

They're painting the roses red!

Another view of the cathedral

This reminded me of Breakfast at Tiffany's, where Holly gets Fred an ornate birdcage, and then makes him promise he'll never keep an animal in it.

The gardens were fine, lovely, and very much empty.  The actual area where the castle is, however, was chock-full of tourists.  Many of them were Italian.  I have nothing against Italian people, but in large groups, they turn into a huge mass of inappropriately-shoed, overlarge glasses-wearing, loud, boistrous, swearing imbeciles.  In short: an impediment to the actual enjoyment of lovely architecture.  The Russians are no better: they're pushy, smelly, and rude.  At least with the Russians, I can overhear conversations like the following.

Her: Why don't you smile in any of the pictures I take of you?
 Him:  Why do you keep asking me to smile in the goddamned pictures?  If I smile in the picture, I'll look like a toothy fucking idiot.  (The actual word he used was "debile," but there's no real English translation for it.  It's the root for "debilitate.")
Her:  You know, you joked around with your mother about being like this, but you really are like what you joked about.  You suck the fun out of everything.
Him:  Shut up about my mother.

And they thought no one was listening.  ^_^

Once again, to take pictures of the sites, you need a special pass, which costs additional money.  I didn't care enough, but snapped a few of the public areas.  The cathedral in the area of the palace was absolutely breathtaking, and very Catholic.  St. Vitus' Cathedral.  I lit a candle and walked around until I felt like my feet were in immediate danger of falling off, and then walked some more.  There's an old school for aristocratic women in the area founded by Empress Maria Teresa (The Habsburgs ruled Bohemia for a while, until a revolution occurred) and a monastery (St. George's Basilica), which was in a very Romanesque style.  In contrast to the beautiful High Gothic of the main cathedral, it wasn't much to look at, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.  All the buildings were amazingly cool, which led to severe shivering, because the day outside was the coldest we've had yet.

The outside of the cathedral, where you can clearly see the Rose window, some towers, and the different stories inside.

A lovely stained glass window

The merging of the Czech impulses: mourning and national pride

A good shot of the pillars, some pointed arches, and the arcade, and the clerestory.

Another stained glass window.  The tracery on this one isn't as intricate, but it's beautiful nonetheless.

Breathtaking

Welcome to Prague

From the cathedral, we traipsed around for hours, looking at the different buildings and reading about the history of the commons.  Apparently, they've had at least three fires in the area since construction began, and each of them meant more destruction to the natural buildings.  That's why the outside of the cathedral is so blackened; the age, of course, and the scorching from the numerous fires.  At one point, they lost all the municipal records from the area in a fire. 

As I mentioned before, they had a revolution against the Holy Roman Empire, or the Austrian Empire, as it would later be called.  Prague castle has seen a lot of very different rulers.

The second window from the left is the Window of Defenstration, from which key government officials loyal to the Habsburgs were thrown during a revolution.  They miraculously survived the fall, but for some reason fled the country.

Just a pretty wall along the edge of the commons

After the castle and the surrounding buildings, we found a post office that sells boxes.  I realized that I'd overpacked by a lot, and Gill had some t-shirts to send home, as well, so we bought a box to ship back to Diogo in London.  I was acting as translator, and the woman understood me, though I didn't understand her in the least.  She was speaking Czech to my Russian, and it was all muddled, but I managed to buy postage stamps for Jim and Judy's post cards as well.  I don't know what the woman thought of me and my attempts at Czech pronunciation, but it got the job done, so I'm satisfied.

After the box encounter, we walked to a tram station, and caught the next one to our area of town.  Gill was being buffeted by wind, since she was carrying the box, and it turned out to act a lot more like a sail than anything.  We got to the hotel, dropped the box off in our room, and went out again because Jim wanted some klbasa (sausage, very famous in Eastern Europe) for lunch.  We made our way down to the old town square, and Jim got his klbasa.  I tried some trdelnik, which was delicious, and we looked around for a time.

We got to the square right at four, as indicated by the mass of trumpeters on the highest story of the old town hall.  Every few seconds, they would play about four notes, and then move on to another side of the hall, waving merrily at the crowd gathered below.  We thought it was a fun way to bring in each hour, but when we looked at the entrance to the hall, we noticed a newly-married couple coming out of it, the bride glowing in her virginal white.  Her witnesses/bridesmaids were all sluttily dressed.  One was in over-the-knee white boots and a sailor outfit.  I think that Prage might be at the top of my list of fantasy wedding destinations.

Trdelnik, which is essentially a grilled piece of dough which has been wrapped around a stick and covered in sugar.  Like a churro, but with no center, covered in almonds, and delicious all around.

Since it's Easter very soon, all of Prague has been COVERED in faberge eggs.  These are made by drilling holes in the tops and bottoms of ordinary raw eggs, and painting on them with oil paints.  They can be very simple, but some people get into the design so much that it looks like a mini work of art.  Each one is hand-painted and unique.  If I were traveling any way but with large backpack, I would consider buying them as souvenirs for everyone I know.  Unfortunately, I must content myself with taking copious pictures.

This adorable woman must get a lot of business, since she looks like she's been making these since circa 1903

This has nothing to do with anything, but look!  The red book!  In Czech!  -drools-

A stand which sells the eggs, shortly before being mobbed with a crowd of French tourists, all demanding to know how these are made.

I've seen the eggs hanging all over the place here.  This year, instead of a Christmas tree, I want an Easter tree!

The eggs, close up.

After our outing, we returned to the hotel, and took an hour's break.  I blogged, Judy slept, Jim showered, and I think Gill blogged as well.  She's been using the wifi downstairs in the lobby, because her computer has no place for the connection cable to the land line for the Internet.  After that, we went out to eat dinner. 

Jim ordered a skewer of fish.  You should've seen our expressions when the waiter started fixing a large hook to our table.

A view of our table :-)

After dinner, we walked to our hotel, and everyone else decided to stay in.  I'll miss Prague a lot, so I went out for a little while to say goodbye to the city.  It was different walking around alone, but I saw a lot of the streets I'd seen in day time, and tired myself out even more. 

This really is a beautiful city, especially at night.  The tourists are a little annoying, but I'm one of them, so I can't really judge.  I don't understand people who are simply here to party; it's an amazing place to get lost, to dream, and to gain insight into a very complex series of personalities that exist nowhere but Eastern Europe.  New city tomorrow!  Exciting, but, again, very sad.  As I was walking back to the hotel, I saw the marriage party again, and it was like a sign of something.  Maybe good. 

I feel like as soon as I get used to a place, I need to leave it.  That's the pace of this trip, and that's the way it needs to be, but it still bothers me a little.  I haven't seen all of Prague, but that's impossible, even in four or five days.  Hopefully, I'll come back here some day.  Until then, it's time for bed.

The old town hall, and a stand decorated with flowers, and a faberge egg.  Dobri noche, Praha!