Will you Prague with me?

Well folks, as you knew, or know now...Penny and I were in Prague last weekend. The first thing I need to let you know before I go any further is that we got engaged. Yup, it scared the hell out of me leading up to it, but it's all good now. I've taken my bikes off 8 foot drops that scared me less than proposing to spend the rest of my life with Pennyfish. So now that that's out of the way, how was Prague?



Thursday Night

We arrived at 9:30 pm and got some decent directions to our hotel...except when we got out of the underground train, we in some random bus outpost where there were two tiny men about 4"6 with big barbarian mustaches and long hair to their shoulders. They had beer in hand, and were amusing themselves by battering each others brains off the bus shelter. Nice. Welcome to Prague. There wasn't a bus to be seen, and the only other soul in the stop was a big ole lady with peroxide blonde hair shorter than the two barbarians. So needless to say it was a sticky situation! To add to the excitement she spoke no English, so that was cool. She did however speak German! Excellent! So with my understanding of the German language being minimal at best I somehow managed to explain to her in German that we wanted to go to the city, to which she explained a bus comes in half an hour. Of course for all I know she may have been saying she reckoned we had half an hour to live.



An hour later the bus arrived, and we got dropped off at a section that had two underground walkways that crossed under the main road onto the other side. These were well graffittied and by now it was midnight and there wasn't a soul to speak to, and not a sign or indication of any sort as to where our hotel was. We followed Penny's gut instinct and low and behold after 20 mins walking up a road (I do mean up, as it was a painful hill we had to climb) we found our hotel and checked in to what was not what was advertised in the brochure. Ah well. Shower and sleep.



Friday

We had our brekkie which was pretty good, yoghurt, cereal, rolls and (plus meat slices for Pen) juice or coffee. Then we headed into Prague for some exploring. We went to a wee market and bought sandals for about £8 each or $20 off a wee Vietnemese dude, and he originally wanted twice that...man it was just like being back in Asia! Then we wandered about a bit and ended up in the city center. There were some awesome buildings, which you'll see in the photies. We stopped in a little sidewalk restaurant for some grub, and beer. Schnitzel for me, and salad for Pen along with 3 beer cost us around £7 or $16 man how good was that? That was the theme for food and drink the rest of the trip...good food, decent beer, and not a lot of money. We then walked through a wee park and lay down in the shade for a bit to watch Prague go by and just chill. Then we walked over the Charles Bridge which is famous for it's statues and vendors and made our way to the astronomical clock which is pretty cool. It's an old clock that apparantly tells you what season you're in, where the sun is on it's annual journey..oh, and the time. It was built by some dude for the king at the time around 5oo years ago, and legend says that the fellow that built the clock was blinded by the King so he couldn't make another. The dude was so not happy about it that he climbed up the tower blind, and disabled the clock. Wow, talk about a case against you're employer. On the hour the clock kicks into action. Christ comes out as do his desciples out of a door in the top of the clock, and the skeleton representing death rings the bell. It's a mechanical wonder for sure considering how old it is! After marvelling at the clock we found another wee cafe for more beer and food, plus I tried the national drink....slivovic (slee-vo-veetz) which is a clear liquour with a strong alcohol taste and content...not unlike vodka, but with a pleasant sweet flavour. It's apparantly a plum brandy. It was different anyway.



We then went to see a classical performance of Mozart, Vivaldi and Dvorak with a Soprano who had an amazing voice. So amazing it left Penny with goosebumps. After the show I was feeling pretty loved up with my little Peach and so after some persuasion I managed to convince her to go for a wee glass of champagne to top off the night. It was about 10:00ish at night so the streets were dark and the light from the lamps was setting a nice glow over the table. I asked the waiter for some champagne, and went to the toilet to make sure the ring I had planned to put on Penny's finger very shortly wasn't upside down or loose in the box. I went into the toilet and took a few deep breaths, very aware that I was about to ask my girlfriend of a year to spend the rest of her life with me. I wasn't exactly terrified, but enormity of the question did weigh upon me. For all of you out there that have done this already, I certainly appreciate now more than ever how difficult a question it can be. I went back upstairs from the toilet hoping she wouldn't see the mysterious bulge in my pocket, and sat down and took another deep breath!



I started by asking her how much she loved me. She said, well lots. I said, ok, but how much is lots? She replied, I don't know, just lots. I replied saying, that's cool, but it doesn't make my next question any easier. At this point I pulled out the ring and put it on the table. I opened the lid of the box and there shone a shiny diamond solitaire in a yellow gold ring. She took one look at it and then me, and then the ring and then proclaimed "Oh my hat", "oh my hat Scotty, Oh my hat". She was quiet for a few seconds and I noticed she had tears in her eyes, which for a split second left me wondering what kind of tears they were. She then very quickly said to me "Well? Are you going to ask me?" ooops, yeah sorry Pen....would you marry me? Yes was the answer. We kissed, toasted, kissed again and held hands that were inseparable for the rest of the night. As we walked back I reflected that once the ring was on the table, there was a remarkable calm that had settled upon me. It was almost like the quiet after a storm. It felt good. So Friday, was quite the day, especially the night!



Saturday

We woke up and went to a place called Kutna Hora, which was about an hour outside of Prague. We went to an "Ossuary" which was basically a chapel that was in Sedlec the next little town over and there we encountered what is honestly one of the strangest things I've come across on my travels. The chapel is over 900 years old, and had a small cemetary that was full when the plague hit back a few hundred years ago. So they pulled all the bones of the bodies out of the graves, and put the new bodies in. So what do you do with the 40,000 bodies you've pulled out? Well you use them to decorate the chapel obviously. There were all sorts of bones decorating the center of the chapel. The main focal point though, is the chandelier that is made of human bones and skulls and hangs at the center of the chapel. The photo's tell it all really. We also had what equated to a 30p/70 cent pint of lager in a small pub where not a soul spoke english! It was amusing when some local wandered in, ordered his beer passed over a 2 liter bottle to the barmaid and proceeded to down his pint. She took the bottle put it under the tap and started to fill it up. By the time he'd finished his pint she'd filled the 2 liter bottle up and he walked out the door with what equated to 4 pints of lager for about £1.20 or $3!



We went back to Prague and had just enough time to make it to the ghost walk. This was completely useless. There was a czech girl in a black cape who took us two 5 spots told us five stories of how people died at some point in Prague's history within the area we were in, sometimes not in the area we were in, and then every once in a while a guy came running out with a mask to scare the bejesus out of us. It was the equivelant of about £6 (450 K in their money) each so not exactly breaking the bank there, but that was the cost of two meals, two rather nice meals. We would have rather had the meals in retrospect. Anyways we finished our food, grabbed a Gelatto and headed back.



Sunday

We went to Prague Castle or Prazsky Hrad as it's known in Prague. It was awesome. It's apparantly over 900 years old, and the largest old castle in the world, whatever that means. We spent all day in it. We explored the dungeons which had some pretty horrific devices that make you shudder when you think about what they did to a body, then on the opposite end of the spectrum we went to St Vitus Cathedral which is about 1000 years old in some bits, but obviously has had more recent additions. However it is amazing. There are gargoyles all around the outside that act as water spouts, which must be amazing in the rain. Inside is a 257 step tower which gives you incredible views of Prague, and left Penny's legs a little on the sore side! The stairs wind up a narrow passage that is no more than 2 or 3 feet wide, not much room for people going up and down....it was pretty tight!

Elsewhere in the castle, we stopped in a little cafe for a glass of wine and to fill out some post cards which some of you will get in the near future. Then we went to get our bags, have one last meal and bid Prague na shledanou (good bye)!



Monday

Pen and I caught a train to Thirsk in the North of England to catch up with Stuart and Tracy friends of mine from back home in Georgetown where I grew up. They were over for a family trip to visit the relations and brought their two sprogs Jacob and Cadence. We had a great day just hanging out back at their wee cottage, kicking the football around with the kids, and then later had a walk into town for a classic pub lunch.



We went for ice cream and then had a few beer back at the cottage chatting and catching up. It was brilliant to see them, and the great thing about good friends, is nothing ever changes. So as we had to be up at 5am to get our train home, we called it a relatively early night and head off to bed. It was absolutely brilliant to catch up with them. Just not enough time!