Saturday Aug 27
So it was time for another bonehead move on my part. A couple of months ago I planned a weekend in Prague while I'm working in Bratislava. Bought plane tickets out of the local airport, it's only 1 hour flight. Cool. My friend Mike from Dudo will join me in Prague so he also bought tickets. Cool. Well come Saturday morning I took a taxi to the Brat local airport. When inside I couldn't find my flight on the monitor and didn't see any counters for Czech Air. Perplexed I finally found someone and showed him my e-ticket. It was a group of 3 workers and they first laughed and then told me that they cancelled this route over 2 months ago and there are no flights to Prague from this airport. It took a few seconds for it to sink in and i realize that my friend Mike has landed in prague by this time and waiting for me. I asked the worker if there are any other way to get to prague and could he help me. I hadnt decided to go after all but let's get all the info first. The orignal plan was to go saturday morning and go back by 6pm the next day. Not a lot of time to begin with and I already lost valuable time. Well, turns out there was a train that leaves Bratislava around noon and gets into Prague 4 hours later. At first I was going to forget the whole thing. Not enough time there and going alone on a train in a foreign country in which I don't speak any of the language? Definitely outside of my comfort zone. I guess in my old age I've lost some of my adventurous (a.k.a. stupidity) spirit, at least enough to make me hesitate. I took the local bus to the train station even while texting Mike that I haven't decided what to do yet but on my way to the train station to get more info. Eventually I got the brilliant idea to go after all and stay until Monday making it worth the trip. By the way Monday was a bank holiday so we had that day off anyway! In a very round about way I got tickets - it was only $50 round trip. I have always wanted to see Prague and who knows when I will get to go. Gary has already been there so it's usually not first on our list of trips.
Train trip was easy enough and I found my way to the hotel. Taxi driver at the train station tried to rip me off with the first quote. I told him the price was too much and I'll just take the subway (it was a bluff because I didn't know my way around yet and it was raining). Miraculously his colleague came to me and cut the price in half, bastards. I can imagine how people they've ripped off.
Mike and I walked around old town a little bit but the rain was a bummer, even with our umbrella. Then we decided to duck into one of the theatres and bought tix to a show. The performance was Carmen. It was very innovative because they made it a combo of an opera on one side of the stage and a ballet on the other side, with a small orchestra playing in a back corner. The singers were fantastic and they even had a marquee on top of the stage to translate the singers.
After the theatre we sat in one of the sidewalk cafe for a pitcher of sangria and cheese. Nice view right next to the astronomical clock in the old square. A few minutes before 10pm all these tourists suddenly appeared in front of the clock and held their cameras poised. I had no idea what was going on but also got out my camera and held it ready. At 10pm the clock chimed a few times and that was that.How lame!! Well, the next day someone told us that at the top of each hour there are 12 figurines that come out of the clock and it's only up until 9pm!
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