Official Day 1 Praha

(as I write this it's actually officially a week since it was officially day one but we've been on the go and Tyler has been extra clingy and fussy being out of his element so finding time to write has been a major challenge! when the time does present itself i feel more like taking a load off, as i do right now, but the trip is getting blurry already so i figured i should get some more stuff down!)

SO, Wednesday May 12 began with Tyler doing an adorable thing that he's never done before, and it may have been mere accident/coincidence but just when he needed a change he picked up a diaper and the wipes from the suitcase and brought them to me! too funny! We got a bit of a late start and walked 8 long blocks to a nearby mall called Palac Flora where we had a little brunch at Cafe Paul inside - a non-smoking, yummy, swanky'ish euro decorated little spot April likes. She had the typical Euro breakfast - a coffee and a baguette with butter and jam. I opted for the tuna baguette, it just looked right and felt right and boy did it taste right - once I removed the tomato of course! From there we hit a few stores in the mall for some necessities - toilet paper (I'm sure you can find big, soft, squishy toilet paper like we get at home but it costs a lot more and just isn't as common so hence the rather stiff, colored, small roles of tp they use here) and a few groceries at Albert, the main grocery store here. Grocery stores here are nothing like at home of course, they are much smaller and not filled with as much junk! Incidentally, they don't seem to have applesauce here (just like peanut butter which I mail to April every few months from the states) but since it's just for Tyler's oatmeal I bought a jar of babyfood that had a picture of an apple on it :) Oh and one last note, you have to pay for your plastic bags here at the stores, we should do that at home and maybe we would all recycle more.
Of course in San Francisco we have banned plastic bags from grocery stores, so that's a start.

After unloading our grocs at home we headed back out, taking the tram to Letna Park which is this georgeous expanse on top of a hill overlooking the city. Appropriately, there's a large beer garden where you can sit and enjoy said view. We hung out there a while, catching up, giggling as only sisters can, drank a couple beers and were on our way. From here the details get fuzzy, we walked around a lot and saw a lot so I guess I'll have to defer to my photos. We walked through Old Town Square where there were suddenly hoards of people/tourists, esp. in front of the famous Astrological Clock which April said wasn't worth standing around craning your neck at until the top of the hour to watch some minor little display of "cuck-oo" - hardly a reward. I suppose I should really check it out for myself though, just so I can say I've seen it, but it was only ten past the hour. I'll have to try to plan to be passing by at the top of the hour before I leave and then report back! Here in the Old Town Square I saw my first Starbucks since leaving the US! I figure if I get desperate I know where to go - however, I did bring along a bag of my own ground coffee so I wouldn't wake up each morning and freak out wondering when and where the start of my day was going to come! I forgot my single cup cone coffee jobbie tho and actually used a spagetti collander over a big bowl the first morning with my filters until April showed me that her flatmates owned a wonderful little metal euro coffee maker where you screw the top and bottom together, put water in the bottom receptacle and fill the middle container with coffee and put the whole thing on the stove. I feel rather silly to admit that we have one at home but I've never asked Tony how to use it!! I've fallen in love with it though so I'm glad to know we've got one!

There's all kinds of "stuff" in the souvenier shops here that is tempting to buy...but what is the significance and is it truly Czech? For instance, there's a ton of Matrushka (sp?) dolls here, but I saw all that and bought those in Russia! I guess we are close to Russia and maybe the dolls aren't just from Russia, but regardless - been there, bought that. Next is a lot of Czech crystal in the form of georgeous etched wine, apertif and liquer glasses as well as decanters, jewelry and then all kinds of animals and other crap! There's a lot of puppets too and I'm not sure why, but there are whole stores devoted to them. Many of them are kinda creepy but some are cute. April and I had a good chuckle walking through Old Town past some puppet shops where the woman working the shop was standing in the doorway casually working the wrist and fingers of one hand, manipulating the puppet below in some pretty impressive dance moves, as if it were nothing, as she watched the tourists go by. Other random "Czech" items include Cannibis Vodka, Absinthe, Mucha memorabilia (having to exert major control for not purchasing in this category, but we're going to a Mucha museum this weekend and I'll likely splurge then), some funny little mole or groundhog character, etc. etc.

We ventured over the very crowded Charles Bridge next, with all its amazing statues lining both sides. The views both up and down the river were beautiful and the statues very impressive but it was cold, windy and did I mention crowded?! Typical though. There were all kinds of artists doting the bridge, selling handmade jewelry and offering caricatures but most impressive were the photos of the bridge, in black & white, in sepia, in the summer, covered in snow, in the day, in the night but all of them without a single person on the bridge! Was this some sort of photoshop trick? I don't know, but I'm very tempted to buy one, they are truly breathtaking - which the bridge is, if you can manage to zone out the crowds of people and noise of dozens of different languages being spoken.

We walked through the Jewish Quarter. This is when we saw the statue created after some Kafka book? where this dude is riding on a headless suit. It was disturbing but I don't know the story. I assume it would still be disturbing in some sense if I did know the story. We also saw lots of crazy graffiti which is everywhere. The artistic kind is at least amusing, interesting and somehow passable regardless of it being all over the sides of buildings; however, the kind that just look like kids tagging their names - which is really everywhere - is just shit. We stopped for a snack (of nachos!!) and Tyler ate his first green olive - enjoying the first one, spitting out the second one half chewed ;) More wandering after this and then home. It stays light so late here, we hardly realized it was 9! Figuring we had a late lunch and weren't yet hungry we just went home and relaxed from the day and hit the sack!