Last night in Prague

Its been nice looking back on the trip and I'm glad I decided to write about it.  It was a time that was so condensed with activity it was hard to process it all.  This has given me a chance to look at the pictures and really remember everything that I did.

The last day in Prague was the day I realized the trip was going to end soon.  Because of the way the tour was organized some people on the tour only joined for some of the cities.  Several of the friends I had made only signed up for Berlin and Prague.  Though it'd been less than a week, I knew I would miss Natalie and Amit and several other people that were leaving after Prague.

This was also the day that the lack of sleep caught up with me.  I was sleeping about three of four hours a night.  I was pushing myself to stay out and do everything. 

While we'd had plans to go the Prague Castle in the morning the wake up call came and I told Chris to go without me. I was too damn tired. They had a good time at the castle climbed 200+ steps up a spiral staircase. I slept until almost 1 p.m.

I spent the day taking short walking trips.  I would leave the hotel for an hour or so walking in a random direction.  I went over the Charles Bridge.  I found an old clock tower surrounded by a small park.  As I've mentioned that Prague is full of tourists, but what surprised me is when you get away from the sights the tourists vanish rapidly.  I went over the bridge and took a random turn and in five minutes walk I was alone.  It was nice.

I watched the locals go about there business.  There were people out shopping for groceries.  Or walking their dogs. It was a very low key afternoon.

That night we went to a great restaurant.  There was traditional folk music and dancing.  The music was really great, violin, upright bass, and hammered dulcimer.  The dancing was really entertaining too.  Even though we didn't understand the language we still laughed at the funny parts.  The food was wonderful too.  It was duck, ham, and pork with potato dumplings and pickled cabbage.  Dinner was followed with an apple stroudel.  And lots of yummy beer.

After dinner we ended up back at Jan Hus in time to see the Astronomical Clock strike the hour (10 o'clock maybe?).  Its something to see.  The skeleton on one side rings a bell and the other figures nodd their heads.  Then the rooster crows and everyone cheers.  I was thinking this would be the last time I'd see it before we left. 

After that we ended up at the bar across the street from the hotel.  I think everyone on our tour was their this time.  We were a very noisey bunch.  The band was a latin band from Cuba.  There was an older gentleman that was flirting with Chris.  Though she didn't understand him because he didn't know very much english.  Natalie tried to speak to him in Russian. Then Luc from Quebec tried french. (His exact words were: "That is not french!") Finally someone on in the group spoke spanish. 

We were there until late dancing and drinking and laughing. ;-)