The Amazonian Vibe: Day 10: Beer, beer, and more beer

Dobri vecher from Prague! We're here safely in the very hostel-like air bnb I found. There are also some Dutch girls and mystery people staying in this suite and we happen to be next door to not only a strip club but also some kind of techno gay bar. As I type, I can hear their shitty music with beats indistinguishable from one another and songs that seem to meld into each other. Oh well, none of it matters because we're in Prague and I love this city with all of my heart!

We're in much more of a party area than I was last time. We're in Praha 1, just down the street from the big museums and walking distance from the trains station. I just spent some time writing some more couch surfing requests so I'll try to keep this short, particularly since today was a travel day and not too much happened.

First, we woke up in Berlin at an early hour for us--like 6:30--and had a quick breakfast, then ran to catch the train, which we missed because the trains didn't transfer where we thought they did or where they promised to on the map of the underground. So we sat in the train station for a while and talked, then got onto the train heading to Budapest via Prague.

I'm not sure what it is today but people kept coming up to us asking for directions, advice, and whether the train they were waiting for was the right one. I don't think I was wearing anything that marked me as train tourist informational staff and neither was Casey. Apparently, we just seem to look like we know what we're doing, to our great amusement when Germans who speak and read German perfectly come to us asking when the train is going to leave.

In case you were ever wondering what Czeech money looks like, this is it.

We checked into our home for the next few days and went out for food, which we desperately needed, being starving from travel and not having packed too much for the ride. We found a little restaurant that gave us an enormous beer each. Casey had goulash, which looked and smelled delicious, and I went with veggie risotto and picked off the cheese. I also tried some sour cabbage that came with his meal and it might be the best thing I've ever tasted, it was so good.

After dinner, we went to the store to buy a couple more beers since Prague is one of those cities where it's legal to drink outside, and walked around some more. I took a few pictures of the city at sunset and we wandered in the direction of the Charles Bridge, which is also walking distance from our place.

The light was beautiful and I love the architecture of the city so I took a lot of pictures. There are many bugs here this season and we saw a massive amount of spider webs and enormous spiders, which kept us away from railings and street lights out of fear for our very lives.

Just before we got to the bridge, we were accosted by a Russian woman selling prints of pictures you can find in the tourist shops. I heard an accent and she immediately switched to Russian with me. We bartered for a painting, which is half the fun of buying anything in my opinion, and ended up getting the piece at a much reduced rate from her asking price. It was a lot of fun to pretend to not be interested in something again. The whole experience reminded me of China except she kept asking if we had any foreign currency to throw into the deal, which is slightly more sketchy if understandable considering how much I'm sure tourists get ripped off while changing money.

After we bought the print, she let me in on a good place to change more money if we need it. We probably won't but it was funny the way she explained it, like the money changers is some big secret. She said the people in the streets practically steal from you when you change your money with them, so let that be a lesson to all you would-be Prague travelers: go see a sketchy Russian woman selling prints by the Charles Bridge for advice on where to change your money. She apparently knows a guy.

We walked across the bridge to the statue about the victims of communism I found a few years ago, then went to the grocery store to replenish our much-diminished supply of snacks and food, where we discovered something amazing about Czech grocery stores. Some of them have beer on tap you can fill your own bottles with! What a great country. Of course, knowing I wouldn't believe such a tale if someone told me, I snapped some photographic evidence.