We had a great time in Prague and want to say a big “thank you!!!” to Grant, Chase and Vicky for being wonderful hosts. Chase even gave us a pro-tip and told us to go visit Cesky Krumlov, which is a little town south of Prague. We took the train to Cesky Krumlov and stayed in a hostel in the historical town center. It was a lot like Rothenburg – crawling with tourists by day, sleepy and peaceful at night. The difference was that all the tourists in Cesky Krumlov seemed to be, well…old. Apparently that’s the official town to visit in your golden years. Or perhaps even in your post-golden years. We spent most of our time there visiting the hundreds of art galleries. They’re all over in that town. We didn’t go to any of the tourist sights in town. I guess we’re just over that at this point. The main attraction in town is a castle. It’s an odd little castle because the outside is covered with faux brick. The brickwork pattern is painted on. I’m sure a tour guide would have explained why that was but Keith and I just figured they’re cheap. Keith said, “it took us $600 and a whole 3-day weekend to build this castle!” I thought that was a very Yackov Smirnoff sounding joke. The other thing we noticed about Cesky Krumlov is that the town mascot seems to be the dauschund. I think everyone in town has at least one. They were everywhere! Our hostel had a bar downstairs and the bar tender brought his dog. The dog was a super sweet yellow lab. He excitedly greeted everyone who came into the bar. He seemed to like Keith and I a lot. Probably because we petted him at lot. We named him Bela BarDog and took a picture with him.
The next night a tragedy occurred in Cesky Krumlov. My camera was dropped by a drunk man and is no longer working. Drunk man was trying to take a picture of me with his dog. His dog is a Moochie dog! It’s a boy dog and it was a lot bigger than Mooch but he had the same muscular hips and beard. He made me miss Moochie. The dog’s owner spent the rest of the night apologizing profusely in Czech. I’m not mad at him for dropping the camera, but I am really bummed that it’s not working. I’m going to try to get it fixed here in Berlin, but if it’s going to be expensive I’ll just pick up a disposable camera for the rest of the trip.
After 2 nights in Cesky Krumlov we headed to Berlin! Berlin is a HUGE city and it has the most extensive and complicated public transportation system we’ve seen so far. Last night we went into the hip part of town that is supposed to be like Europe’s Berkeley. It was like Berkeley! A LOT like Berkeley. It had all sorts of hip restaurants and hippy shops, the air was scented with marijuana, and the sidewalks were alive with drunks and bicyclists. There were definatly colorful locals around just like you’d expect in Berkeley. On the metro on the way there we sat near an old man wearing a round hat with a long white braid hanging down the back of it. He had small round glasses that looked like they were built in 1820. He was flinching and blinking and making odd faces. I wondered if he was high. He had a big ring on at least 8 of his 10 fingers, each one with a big (like nickel sized) rock in it. Not diamonds or any other precious stone, but big fat rocks. He got off at the same stop as us and we knew we were in the right place. We explored but didn’t really go anywhere because Keith is super broke. His vacation pay got messed up at work and now he won’t be getting it until we get home. On the way back we shared a train car with a dirty sleeping man. We didn’t mind him until he let out a long, loud, dirty fart. We moved to another car. We wondered how these fart stories keep happening to us and we decided that our new stereotype for Germans is that they fart a lot. We found an Ikea in Berlin and we’re going to go see it today. We’re also hoping to get a tour today. And some sort of working camera.
