PRAHA! Arrived in the place where my girlfriend spent her last summer missing me in (while I re-serve the nation). Too early to check in so we deposited our bags in the train station's luggage storage; grabbed some breakfast in Burger King (for a change!) and used their wifi for a little bit; withdrew/changed some currency (where Huihan got slapped with a 20% commission margin!) and off we go to the legendary main Prague Square. Reached the square with some time to spare (for once) and located the Sandemans Free Tour's red umbrella.
The one thing I really enjoyed in Prague came as a surprise: after attending so many Free Tours with Sandemans (and other tours and also those with other agencies), I must say that this is the best tour guide I have ever had - John Paul (aka JP; not the pope though). For one, when he was talking about the break-up of Czechoslovakia, he began with all the background stories and suddenly "the Slovaks reached out his hands and held Czech's, looked him in the eyes and and said, 'Baby, it's not you. It's me.'" And then he brought us to the Astronomical Clock (which was voted the second most disappointing attraction in Europe after the Mona Lisa; so many different voting, what happened to Manneken Pis?) and told us how anti-climax the whole clock show was but he somehow made it a climax for us when he imitated the figurines' actions like a clown. He then brought us around the streets, cathedrals, saw some David Cerny's provocative statues, to the Jewish Quarter, synagogues, and told us all the interesting history of Prague along the way (which I, as usual, don't quite remember). Tour ended just before we cross the river over to the Prague castle and we gave him a bigger tip than I usually would recommend (also cos the girls were super mesmerized by his humor, but yea, we were convinced too!) Got him to recommend us some non-tourist-trap places to try some Czech food and he did. So we went for lunch (which wasn't as impressive as the Polish ones I must say; but then again, I have limited sample size to be fair) and headed for the Castle after that. Castle was... a castle. Nothing really impressive after you've had your fair share of castles all around Europe (but also because we didn't wanna join another tour round the castle; I would think that knowing its history and significance would have made the old building more charming). Explored this side of the river before we crossed the Charles Bridge back to the railway side of the city.
Found our way back to our bags and managed to catch the 2nd most disappointing attraction in Europe as the time struck 7 pm (and the cheat code he taught us, to look at the normal clock at the top of the building was really quite useful). But at 30 seconds past the hour mark, some digital art display on one of the building across the square totally stole the whole limelight away from the clock. Anyway, after some confusion at the metro station we managed to buy the metro tickets and headed off to our hostel. PLUS Prague was repeatedly voted number one hostel in Prague despite its location being slightly off the city center, and it wasn't difficult to see why: they have super friendly and helpful stuff; clean environment; swimming and sauna facilities; and the whole atmosphere was just very relaxing. What made our stay even better was that they actually didn't have full occupancy; so our 8-men dorm was left with 3 empty beds and we had the whole room to ourselves! We didn't have much time to exploit it though; after heading out to have some Chinese food at a restaurant we passed by earlier on, it was already 10 pm. But we did use the room to play (and taught the girls how to play) bridge and did some workout. One more nice service they had was airport transfer! It wasn't too expensive considering us having 4 people to split the cost and so we could afford to wake up later and had more time to bid Jiahan goodbye as he pangseh us for Vienna/Budapest.
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I'm back here in Lappis and posting this two days after I've reached Stockholm cos it was a mad rush preparing for Developmental Economics presentation which happened yesterday; and now, time to start studying for finals in 5 days' time...
