Lots of cobblestones; lots of walking

It's already Tuesday night. We have only one more day in Prague – Praha as locals call it. And I haven't written a thing. Where to begin? Here are the things we have done here on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday:

• Walk around and be stunned by the beauty of each new building we saw. Seriously. If you haven't been here it's hard to explain. But each building is more beautiful than the one before. There is an esthetic here that does my heart good.


• Pose for pictures by the Astronomical clock. On the hour, watch the figures dance and hear the trumpeter play his tune and wave to the four directions. Some people just watch. We waved back. It's good to be corny sometimes.


• Walk across the Charles Bridge. There are 30 statues on this old stone bridge. My favorite was the one with two shiny spots on it. If you touch one of them (which many people have -- hence the shininess) you will be fertile. I didn't touch that one for many reasons, not the least of which I would be overwhelmed with all kinds of unwanted attention if that kind of medical miracle happened. If you touch the other shiny spot (the one right under the depiction of a saint being thrown into the river?!?) you will have luck. I touched that one. :-)


• Take a “free” three-hour walking tour of Old Town and the Jewish Quarter. It is free – but the guide lets you know that they don't get paid – so of course you want to tip them. We chatted with three british middle aged women on a quick three day trip (one of whom told me a memorable story about being in a bar and having a rough looking guy show the crowd the tattoo of his ex-wife's name on his private parts). I spent time walking and talking in my best Porteno Spanish with a young law student from Argentina who was finishing his studies and ready to go home to Buenos Aires. A young American soldier based in Stuttgart who tries to see a new city every month had lunch with us. And Daniel, the Praguer who led the tour, was a nice kid as well. He had worked for a few summers in Montana and really sounded American. It was really cold during this tour, however, and Daniels accent got stronger as he got colder. Our word for the day was "defenestration." It means being thrown out of a window onto pikes. Apparently the Hussites liked to do this alot.


• Eat a hearty traditional Czech dinner. (Second night in a row.) Dumplings, meat, gravy, cabbage. Yes, it will be mortifying to get home and step on the scale.


• Have the best pastry in the history of the universe, with some darn good coffee at the Bakeshop Praha. (The scale be damned.)


• Walk around in circles (Prague is really a labyrinth of streets and squares) until we found a store Jan had seen on the walking tour. Bought a wacky art clock there.

• Take a river cruise/tour in a little canal boat with a tourguide who spoke cockney English. Get in a lot of tourists' travel photos. Everyone thought our little boat was cute and took pictures of us. Again -- corniness rules. We just waved.

• Go to the the John Lennon Wall and find the best quotes. Two Russian girls, also tourists, directed us to the best place for a pose when we asked them to take our picture.

• Try to make it three for three by riding the funicular to the  lookout tower. Walk a long way to get there and realize that it is closed for repairs. Decide to come back another day.


• Eat about a pound of country ham. There was a renaissance fair type festival happening in the Old Town Square. One of the vendors sold potatoes with sauerkraut for 49k. Cheap and sounded good. They asked if we wanted some Country ham with that. The sign said 89k. Great. And smelled really good. They piled up the plate for us and asked for 525k. Jan paid but didn't understand what had happened. I went back to them and found that the ham was 89k per 100 grams. Do the math to figure out how much ham they gave us. And of course we felt compelled to clean our plate!


• Shop for souvenirs. Try to understand how to buy Czech Crystal.


• Go to a string quartet concert at a 12th century church (St. Martin in the Wall). They played a variety of classical songs – all very moving, including Dvorak, Smetana and Bartok -- Czech and Hungarian composers.


• Play 6 games of cribbage in Cafe del Sole, the little cafe in the courtyard of our apartment. (I won five of the games. But who is counting.)


• Repeat the eating of the best pastries in the universe. (Scale? What scale?)


• Walk (far and high) to Prague Castle; wander through the courtyards and by the buildings. Watch the changing of the guard.


• Walk (far and high) to the base of the lookout tower, modeled after the Eiffel Tower. (It is as high as the Eiffel tower. But of course it is built on a hill, so the actual tower is much smaller than it's French counterpart.) Then walk 299 stairs to the top of it. Small note. I am afraid of heights. Seriously, irrationally afraid. I had near panic attacks on the way up and the way down, and wondered how many people just plain freeze on the narrow stairway. And then what happens? Yeeks!


• Go to dinner at the home of Marek and Radka Šedivý. Marek  is a Fullbright Scholar who has done some of his studies at University of St Thomas with Ann Johnson. Ann connected us and Marek was gracious enough to invite us to dinner. They have two small daughters as well. We had a lovely time playing with the girls (I even got to read a Berenstein Bears book to them at bedtime), learning about their families and discussing Czech culture.

[slideshow]If you look at the pictures from the trip, you'll see that I am wearing the same coat, scarf and gloves in every picture. And under the coat are three or four layers. It has been quite cold: ranging from 29 to 40 degrees. That is really cold when you are outside walking all day. Finally today got into the 50s and I could shed a layer. Felt great. Tomorrow is the last full day of our trip. We have a few things planned, but mostly hope to take it easy and soak in the beauty.