Day 33-34: Prague

Ahoj, from Prague! We have reliable internet again which means we should not fall as far behind in our updates. Yesterday, being a travel day, did not make for much of a post by itself so it gets grouped in with today (Day 34).

Yesterday was a scheduled 4 mile run, plus four Gentle Pickups (gradually increasing speed over a distance of 100m and sustaining that speed for 20m, then recovering and repeating), and a scheduled 13:08 train out of Dresden so we hit the cobblestones early. We were far from posting one of our best times but the runs are starting to feel better. Afterwards we ate our breakfast, packed up, and caught the inter-city train to Dresden.

At the train station, as well as in some subway stations in Berlin, is a coffee shop called 'Le Crobag'.  We used to joke about the name a bit, so we decided to actually patronize one of their outlets today before we left Germany. See if you can SPOT anything out of the ordinary:

We caught our train, and rode 2.5hrs to Prague. Everything afterwards went pretty smooth. We found an ATM, Jackie was pretty good about having the local transit mapped so we knew exactly which station to head for and where to go once we got off, and the apartment owner was waiting for us at the gate. After getting the keys and dropping off our stuff we found the grocery store and scoped out a place to have dinner.

Czechs don't eat the healthiest meals. We both loved our dishes but they were both hearty, stick to your ribs, plates. I had the wild boar with creamed spinach, and Jackie the beef stroganoff. Of course, both dishes were washed down with delicious Czech pilsners.

Today was dedicated to orienting ourselves with the city. We first headed towards the old town square. We were told that Prague is 'like Disney world' an enchanting city full of tourists. Based on that square it seems to be a fit description.

 
In a lot of ways the city reminded us of Rome, both good and bad. The streets are all original old cobblestones that wind and twist, but the shops along the way are all hawking the same tourist crap. Worse still, there are no ancient monuments or history that we're familiar with so it just seems like a busy tourist city. We saw this advertisement which also reminded us of Rome:

We had lunch at a vegetarian restaurant which was not only surprisingly cheap, but also very delicious (soup and main dish for both of us, plus fresh apple/carrot juice for $12). We have already planned on visiting their sister restaurant near our apartment. We've also started making plans to see a 'Black Light Show', similar to the Famous People Players in North America, as well as the symphony orchestra, which is reputedly one of the better orchestras in Europe.

We did have a secondary objective today: we had to find a print and copy shop so that we could print, sign, and scan the paperwork to officially accept our job offers from GE. It has been a decision that we have been slow to make but ultimately we feel it was the right one for us.

Afterwards we stopped into a busier looking bar to have a couple pints. While talking about our frustrations with the city to each other and trying to get a new perspective we realized that we were looking too hard to be critical of the city. Before we arrived we were warned about pick-pockets, scam artists, and rude waiters, and I think that we were on edge since arriving. Kicking back in a bar with the worlds best beers tends to mellow you out a bit and we both had a pretty drastic change of heart. Unlike Berlin, which we took to immediately, Prague is a difficult love, but worth the effort.

By now it was evening so we wandered around a bit back to the old square. It was close to the hour so we stopped by the old astronomical clock to see it strike the hour. Two windows open up and a bunch of animatronic puppets representing saints and important citizens roll by to look out over the crowd. There were quite a lot of tourists (ourselves included) gathered around under the clock, some of them looking super-psyched about what they were about to behold.

It being twilight, Jackie got some really neat photos of the buildings around the square before we called it a day.

Till next time.