Day 7- Seeing Prague

We woke up, as I mentioned, pissed off about missing an evening out. However, we woke up well rested, which was a first for the trip. I cannot remember if or when or how we ate breakfast. For some reason, I thought this was important enough to mention.

The more I write about Prague, the more our time there seems like some hazy drug trip. This is mostly due to the fact I was completely disoriented throughout our stay there. The memories are lost in a blur of complete directional ineptitude and a confused collection of characters ranging from odd to bizarre that we had the good luck to meet and talk to.

Somehow or another, we ended up downtown. We took a trolley, I know that much (the place we were staying was well south of downtown) but what we did afterwards and how we got there is also a matter of some confusion for me.

We saw a significant portion of the city, though most of it, as mentioned, is pretty hazy due to my being lost the entire time. If I lost track of Troy, I probably would have never returned to this country. I do recall visiting a museum the likes of which we will probably never see repeated. It was a museum of mineralogy, art, photography, anthropologic natural history and tectonics. I suppose the best way of describing it is as a museum of general studies. Photographs of crystal formations, statuary of great musicians, writers and thinkers, skulls of mammoths. There was an area that loosely covered the whole of human history as well as a room showing the military medals of Europe. The mineralogy exhibit covered several rooms, though it frustrated all of Troy’s efforts to find kryptonite.

There was some discussion as to what this building was previously, though no consensus was ever reached. It was, obviously, pretty old (like everything else in the city) and very regal. Arches and vaults were used with aplomb and filled with artwork. The central atrium with paired staircases covered by red carpet would have been quite stately in its day. However, when the building is used as a museum filled with geodes, animal skeletons, half finished displays of stone age villages, meteorites and modern photography, the building looks like a once dignified, still talented, but now tired old silent movie actor subjected to working with a bunch of snotty punks. Actually, probably one of the most intriguing aspects about the building was the fact I have no idea what it was used for, leading to some entertainingly distracting mental conjecture on my part while I’m just sitting here writing this.

At some point in the day we hit the outdoor bazaar that is located in some square or another. There was a wide selection of merchandise, to say the least. I did not buy anything there, which is unfortunate, as some of the merchandise was truly unique. Most of this lack of purchasing was due to being rather unsure about the idea of haggling with someone in a foreign language, especially considering I am very bad at haggling even in English. The simple fact is that I really should have gotten something along the lines of a knight’s helmet or battleaxe to set next to my imitation Ohio State helmet. Or I could have gotten old Soviet Army surplus. Let’s face it, walking around in the winter with one of those big fuzzy hats with the star on the front would be pretty darned cool.

We passed some stuff we’d seen before, some of which was interesting but I did not take a picture of because I was both lost and stupid.

The Charles Bridge is the next thing I can remember with any certainty. It is called the Charles Bridge because it is a stone structure with a road in the middle that crosses a river. The river was the Vltava, also called the Moldau for reasons that have never been established. The Bridge upheld numerous sculptures of Jesus and various saints and apostles with related Bible stories in bronze relief on each base. Mind you, this is a very long bridge, so there are art museums without as much sculpture as this bridge. Presumably the Charles Bridge is even longer when you are engaging in The Stroll, a dubious Prague tradition introduced to us by the group of Canadians at our hostel. This involves hitting the bars, getting loaded up on absinthe and walking across the Charles Bridge naked. No, I didn’t do it.

The object of our crossing the Charles Bridge was to visit what we like to refer to as a "castle".