Prague day 4.

(sorry for the delayed posting, figured this would happen if I didn’t post right away. One more to go.)

Got up slightly earlier today, long breakfast again. Took a tram to the base of the big park and too the cable car to hill. It was really really cold again, at the top of the hill last nights frost was still frozen across the grassy lawns. like a thin layer of snow. The was a big crowed of tourists jammed into the cable car. I went with the flow of people and ended up at the mini Eiffel tower lookalike. Went up and took photos. Beautiful view across all of Prague in all directions.

Walked around the top of the park, sat on a bench and looked out through the winter trees. It’s still odd to me to see a hill full of trees and no leaves. Sucked in the frozen air a while.

Walked over to the Castle via the monastery. Bells started ringing at 12 and went for around 15 minutes. Paid for a matinee concert. It was kind of sleepy, maybe because one of the people in my room last night was snoring a lot. It wasn’t nearly as good as the chamber group the other day.

Took a tram down the hill again. I was trying to find an ATM, which took me about an hour or so. Wandered around for a while, found a nice park, it was dead quiet, there was a fountain that was in the process of freezing up. The top of it was mostly ice, I poked a hole in it with my foot. I’ve always wanted to do that.

Found a couple of marionette shops. Some really cool puppets there. I thought about buying one, but the good ones were really expensive.

Finally found an ATM and wandered back to the metro at the bottom of the hill, had some take away crepes and hot chocolate from a hole in the wall type place, then took the metro back to the town centre.

Went for a late lunch at the thai place again. Had noodle, beer, cappuccino.

It was still too early for the ballet I’d booked. So I went into one of those grand cafe places and had pancakes and ice chocolate. Really great pancakes, berries, sour/lemon cream, that sweet butter stuff. Yumm.

Went across the road to the theatre and waited out the front with a milling crowd. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t open yet, but the crowd made me think it was just running late. I met a couple of Americans that are studying in London, they wanted to buy tickets and had a brochure of all the stuff on. We checked my performance and discovered I was totally in the wrong place, Swan Lake started in 5 minutes.

There was no direct way to get there, so I had to take a tram then walk a while. Gah. Waiting for the tram the americans caught up and decided they’d try to get late tickets with me. I felt slightly less silly having people with me.

When I got there I showed a woman my eTicket and she escorted me up, but told the others it’s too late to buy tickets and waved them away. I felt kinda bad for them after all that, but was being escorted away.

I had to sit on the floor at the very top until the intermission. I hadn’t missed too much though, and besides it’s not like I didn’t know what happened. During the intermission I got loads of dirty looks off people for wearing jeans and a tshirt. People dress up a lot more here. I wandered around with a big smile refusing to bow to their superiority complexes. How dare I seek to get past them in their fancy gowns and impressive suits. Hah! The second half was great. I was really close, just 6 rows in. I liked the company, but I think the Australian ballet is just as good.

After the show I had a dilemma, there’s this punk rock gig I found on last.fm I was thinking of going to, but it’s really long tram ride, then a long walk, and it started hours ago. Hmm.

I decided to toss a coin between going to the gig, or going to the hostel and drinking beer. I had one coin. Tossed it then discovered it didn’t have a head on it. Hmm. Walked to the tram stop and decided to let whichever direction the tram came first from decide for me. They both turned up at exactly the same time… At the last minute I decided to choose between action and inaction, I chose action and crossed the road to go back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, beer and laptop in action, met a new friend Rebecca. We drank more Pilsner.
Bar closed went to sleep.