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| Erin's Journal for 9-26-02 Today we took it very easy in the morning, had breakfast in our room, and did some journals before heading out to the city for our last full day. Neither of us had any particular thing we wanted to go back and see based on the horrid tour of the day before, so our only agenda was to make our travel arrangements to Vienna. We'd gotten schedules and pricing the day before, but wanted to compare prices on the bus first. As we left the hostel, we remembered that there was a flea market listed on our map not far from the hostel, so we decided to hit that first. Sure enough, it was only a few blocks away, and had lots of clothing and other items at pretty good prices. Due to the bad weather (cold, still rainy), not many customers were out, so the vendors were very competitive. I'd been sharing Glenn's gloves for the past few days and was frustrated with their too-long fingers, so I found a pair for myself (nice, warm fuzzies!). I didn't really barter for them, as they were 120 crowns (about 4 bucks). I got her down to 100 though! Then I went looking for another long-sleeved shirt, as the two I had with me were getting pretty used up already. We found a nice sweater and bartered back and forth with the vendors (a man and his wife), who tried everything from wheedling to pushing to guilt-tripping me to pay more. But following the protocol of bartering, we started to walk away and got him down to 310 crowns (about 10 bucks!). Satisfied with our shopping, we brought our finds back to the hostel before hitting the tram across the river. We found the bus station (a dingy affair) and priced the trip to Vienna - it was almost just as expensive, left later in the day, and took just as long to get there. We decided on the much more comfortable option of the train. We then went to the train station and bought our tickets for tomorrow. After this we had no real agenda, so we wandered down Wenceslas Square, window shopping and getting rained on. We found an internet spot to catch up on emails again (still no journal-transferring capabilities), and enjoyed hot beverages to warm up. Then we headed back up to Old Town square and visited the Torture Museum there. We'd seen it earlier in the week and thought, why not? We went in and marveled at the horrifying things people did (and in some countries, still do!) in the name of justice and the church. You may remember just a few techniques from the end of the movie Braveheart! After this spectacle, we wandered a few shops and picked out some postcards to help us remember what we'd seen from the day before, then just missed the animated part of the astronomical clock (there are some figurines on it that move and little puppets that parade by the doors every hour from 9am to 9pm). We decided to eat dinner to kill time for another hour to see this, and went to a cheap Italian restaurant on the other side of the square. I say cheap because the menu on the outside had good prices. We went in and sat down, had the meals we wanted, and then choked at the price. They'd added in 30 crowns each as a service charge, then added in 15% as their tip as well!!! So a meal that went from about $3 each went up to $8 each! Not so cheap any more! I was furious about this 'tourist charge', which we'd heard about but didn't believe we'd be caught on... We paid the bill and left, knowing that it would be worse to raise a fuss and have trouble with the Czech policie (who were conspicuously everywhere). We wandered back over and joined the crowd watching the clock. It was cute, but nothing special. The cuckoo clocks I've seen back home are more entertaining...but we had to see it! After that we went back to the hostel, even though it was only 7pm. I am sorry to say that I have been less enchanted with Prague than I had expected to be. It definitely has its beauty, but isn't the 'most beautiful place in Europe' as everyone had said. I am happy to have seen it and will enjoy the art prints of the city very much, and will also be happy to move on tomorrow! |
| Erin & Glenn on a gloomy day in Prague |