Yesterday morning, we went to an internet café to check messages and get some real coffee, since the java at our rental is sub-standard by any conceivable measure. We tried our best to order a hot chocolate for Cal, but when it arrived, he had an entire mug full of hot fudge. Just that – hot fudge. So much for our superpowers of communication. Many gestures later, we narrowed it down to half milk/half fudge, but that’s the best we could do.
Later on, we went to a café that our guide book hailed as family-friendly. There were even toys in the corner, waiting for young guys just like ours. Alas, the waitress turned out to be the darkest, most depressed citizen in Bohemia. That’s saying something in the hometown of Kafka! We did get served, however, and Blake sampled a local micro-brew with the strangest label ever. Kind of like Pee-Wee’s playhouse brewery on hallucinogens. Here’s the label. You get the idea.
(I"ll have to add the pic later) - Cone 5/16
Favorite quotes from the boys in Praha:
Connan: This is nice.
Declan: It’s not a statue of two guys pissing.
…after an hour spent looking in vain for a statue of two guys pissing. We ended up in a local park instead.
Connan: What did you guys learn today?
Cal: Today we learned that peacocks don’t like bananas!
…after the boys spent their time in said park chasing a loose peacock around the grounds, trying to lure it with various food items.
Blake and Declan went on a ghost tour of the old city. It was mostly old stories from medieval days. Our tour guide was a Canadian gal who had moved to Prague, and most of the customers were young goths dressed in black wearing Bauhaus or Kafka t-shirts. But the tour did end in the actual torture chambers underneath the town cathedral. It was eerie and sad and moving.
While Blake and Dec were learning the various ways that Czechs/Bohemians were tortured, maimed or haunted in days of olde, Connan and Cal went to what might rank as the worst live theatre performance, ever. They have various tourist traps around town called Black Light Theatres. “Why not? “, I thought innocently when Cal asked if we could see one. Not too expensive, every night at 8. Can’t be too bad because they have a performance EVERY night. Somebody is going to see it. The show is a series of modern dance routines performed in skintight body suits where reflective tape strategically placed. Remember the weird costumes from the opening ceremonies at the Olympics? They were like that, but worse. Set to bad 80’s techno music. Every time the dancers came onstage, Cal groaned, “Oh God, here comes ANOTHER one.” After each dance amusement there was a scene from an extended sketch comedy routine that can only be described as bad mime meets Benny Hill meets Russian snuff film. Guns, drugs and fishnet stockings, all mimed for the international crowd. Luckily, Cal didn’t get most of it, but the sold-out house was entranced. Makes you weep for the future of the theatre.
Our final night just happened to be the big Czech-USA hockey game, part of the world championship of hockey. Yes, friends, there are people who pay attention to this stuff more than once every four years during the Olympics. We got flogged by the Czechs 3-0, and the crowd gathered in front of the giant screen downtown went wild! Much flag waving, beer drinking, and pig eating.
With Prag, Prana, Praha, Prague behind us, we now head for Greece.
“Agamemnon, was a nasty Greek!
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