February 28: The Slog to Prague

I got up at 5:00. I prepared myself to leave and got on the local commuter train to go to Essen where I would catch the next train to Berlin then to Prague. I got on the train and met some entertaining drunk people smoking up a storm on the train. The train is one of the few places in the country that you cannot smoke. They were coming back from downtown and playing jokes on each other and having a good time. I even tried out some German on them with mediocre results.

I got to Essen and switched into the posh Berlin bound ICE high-speed train. I got onto the train and saw something that I found truly German: there was a middle-aged couple with their daughter. The daughter was balling her eyes out and clutching a toy bulldozer. I thought to myself that this is what mechanical engineering parents do. In my over tired state I quickly cobbled together a back-story for them and had a little chuckle.

I got to Berlin and made my reservations for the next train to Prague. I grabbed some Mc Donald’s and was on my way. This train meandered along the Vltava River and skirted beautiful limestone cliffs. Rustic houses and artillery hole-filled buildings lined the river; this was a completely different sight from Western Europe. I felt truly grown up sipping a coffee, writing in my journal and watching the countryside zoom by.

I got off the train and walked into an environment that had a completely different vibe from Western Europe. I could not read a word on any signs, my Czech is not too good, I had a tingly feeling all over; I was in Prague!

I switched my Euro to koruna; I got 1300 for 50 Euro, and was on my way. I felt balla clutching my 1000 koruna bill.

2.5 hours of going the wrong way down the same street four times, it is possible (trust me), and I found the white small sign for the Clown and Bard Hostel. I walked down the stairs and into the rich wooden bar area of the hostel. It was empty except for an attractive Swedish girl at the desk. I began booking my room. This is when I met Jim and Kim from Australia; we agreed to have a beer together later that night.

I was handed my key, attached to a large piece of wood, and headed up the stairs to my room “Residence 4.” I headed up a large staircase and saw that all the rooms had sweet names “Justice,” “Loyalty,” “Honor,” “Winter Garden,” “Nice View,” “Best View,” and then “Residence.” I got into the room and met Billy, Fiona and Nicola, Fiona and Nicola from the UK and Billy from Australia. These would be my partners in the misadventures to come. We talked for a while and agreed to meet up after dinner for a pub crawl that was going on.

I asked the lady at the front desk where a good, reasonably priced restaurant is. She replied “do you like meat?” I said I did and she pointed me in the direction of a local Czech place that apparently was good. Before leaving I had a beer with Jim and Kim and discussed possible plans to meet up the next day to explore the Prague castle.

I followed the directions and managed not to get lost on the way to the restaurant. I sat down in the non-smoking section and ordered a Pilsner Urquell. The guy brought me a menu, which fortunately had English on it, and I ordered an onion/cheese soup and some ribs off the “for big eaters” menu.

The soup was delicious, sort of a Czech take on French onion soup. Then the main course arrived. I can best describe it as the definition of manliness. 700g of meat covered with a tomato/onion sauce sitting in the middle of a wooden cutting board. The meat was overlapping the sides of the board and I sat in awe of the largest piece of meat that I had ever seen delivered to someone at a restaurant. There was no veg to separate me from the meat, just the meat and me. Time to begin. I finished about 20 minutes later, another victory for man over meat.

Another sweet, sweet Czech beer washed down the rest of the beer. This most excellent meal only set me back 250 Crown (10 Euro), dope. I headed back the hostel. Here I had a drink or two with the Auzies while planning the game plan for the night. We decided to try to catch up with the pub-crawl. So we showed up at the bar that apparently the pub-crawl meets at and they were no place to be found. We asked around and figured out that it was not going on tonight. No problem, we just asked the nice fellow at the bar next to us where a place with loud techno and jumping people was, he said he had just the place for us.

I will spare the details of the trip to the club, but it involved loosing Billy and asking for directions. We showed up at the place. There was sparkling white lights shining from between twisted rebar-welded into odd shapes reminiscent of a certain statue behind a UVic art building. This however was MUCH cooler; all the rebar was combined with car parts and pieces of pipe to form the interior of the main club. Large moving chandeliers fabricated from car components rotated on the ceiling sending off a neon glow from the florescent tubes attached to them. Loud techno music boomed from the dance room which had a wall covered with the motherboards of computers complemented by more LED lights. A funky looking DJ spun some mad beats. We took a seat and ordered a beer. The only available seat was with a Czech guy. He tried to teach us some Czech but it was a futile effort.

We spent a while on the main level and then decided to check out the basement. Magic. The basement had an electrical theme. Everything was decorated with the large ceramic insulators found on high-voltage lines as well as massive transformers and Telsa-coils. Bad Ass. We got into the main room of the basement which had low ceiling supported by brick arches. The music playing was AMAZING. It was a DJ spinning some techno with a hard-core looking Czech guy with a shaggy Mohawk rapping away faster then I had ever heard anyone rap before. Then a guy with a flute started playing in the DJ box. NO WAY! This was awesome, was all I could think for the next hour, I faux-danced away with a massive grin never leaving my face.

We cabbed home after some more shenanigans and I go to bed at some unearthly hour in the morning.