The bus trip to Prague from Berlin was a nice and short. We were on the road at 8:30am and even with an hour stop off at Terezin in the Czech Republic we arrived before 5:00pm.
As we cruised through the suburban streets surrounding the hostel in Prague I got a taste of the slight disappointment that was to come. Looking at pictures of Prague and reading a little bit about it I was expecting a fairytale city dominated by gothic buildings and gypsies. After spending three nights here I now know that yes there are gypsies and yes they will attempt to swipe your wallet. On the architecture side of Prague it was a moziac of Gothic churches and castles, medieval bridges and various other building types similar to those I have seen in different European cities thus far. The "fairytale' buildings were suprisingly few and far between and the Prague postcard shot that I have been dying to see have so far successfully evaded me.
Having said all this I have had some great experiences here. On the first night a group of us from Melbourne all went out to a Czech tavern type place and had Mixed beer (Dark on the top fading down to light on the bottom - the beer journey), Blue cheese infused potato pancakes with garlic and onion relish and a mouth watering pork dish with curry flavours and sour cream. We then ventured upstairs to have a game of ten pin bowling... something none of us pictured we would be doing in prague but for about 8 Aussie dollars an hour for everyone it sure beat 2 games, a hot dog and chips at AMF. We rounded out the night with a few sneaky 'Kozel' dark beers (probably a new number 1 beer for mine) at a bar filled with metal sculptures, robots, mezzanine levels with about 1.3 metres of clearance above seats pulled out of czech trams and a crazy euro dance floor. The place was like q bar minus the filth plus a whole lot of cool metal 'things' popping out of the walls, roof and floor.
It was sightseeing for me the next day which meant another walking tour. This tour in contrast to Prague itself exceeded my expectations. Its amazing how expectations influence experiences. Sometimes making experiences better and sometimes worse. It makes me wonder whether we would be better off holding low expectations for everything or having no expectations at all... anyway... Our guide made what could have been another bland 3 hours walking at snails place through a historical centre something interesting and enjoyable. A slightly essentric, bubbly young Czech girl told us all about the history of Prague... the Slavs kicking out the Kelts, King Charles the 4th and his four wives and how if the Czech people have a problem with anyone they through them through them out the window... a process they call "defenestration". Defenestration was probably my favourite part of Czech history and so I was very happy to hear that the process was evolutionary as after King Charles built his bridge (which only took 45 years to construct) they were able to move to throwing people off said bridge and into the Vltava river.
That night we went on another pub crawl and once again I found myself saying "If I saw me in this group looking from the outside in I would be greatly disgusted." I did have some absinthe though (tick) which was 70% alcohol and had a magical green glow to it. It was a wierd short to drink as it went down really smoothly for the first 4 seconds, then upon the exhale phase of the shooting process the gas hurls you into a world of discomfort.
Woke up this morning feeling sick, sinuses blocked and achings with a slight headache. Brilliant. Full english breakfast buffet. Couple of nectarines. Coffee. Back into the thick of it.
Explored the city for a while. Had a ride on the metro. Yet another public transport system of the world had been conquered and I was ready for an afternoon workout at CrossFit Praha. Awesome little gym. Very eastern european but fully decked out with equipment and a very relaxed but no bullshit attitude to training. No mucking around. Warm up. Workout. Go home.
WOD
Skill:
Muscle up practice
Work Capacity:
"Helen"
400m Run
21 KB Swings at 24kg
12 Pullups
Time - 10:19
Then...
20 "strict" abmat situps
Strength:
5x5 Push Press
60, 70, 70, 70, 70kg
Bit disappointed with my time because I know guys go under 7 minutes on this one but two hills in the run made for slower times in running WODs for them according to the trainer. Normal kip pullups felt wierd. Should have done butterfly. Oh well. Happy with the strength work.
After this I took the metro a few stop to the museum. Had a stroll down what is probably the biggest strip in Prague and climbed up the top of a hill which provided amazing panoramic views of the city. After a bit of time to soak that in a a quick snap I was on the tram and back to the hostel.
Prague Miscallaneous...
Development of rock solid pick pocket identification and defence.
"Kozel" dark beer and Czech beer in general is some of the world's best.
Didn't live up to my expectations. Even the women.
Pork Knuckle, Potato dumplings with cabbage and gravy inducted into top 10 meals of all time.
Would not do Busabout again. Too similar to everything I despise about Contiki.
Must go to Russia.
As we cruised through the suburban streets surrounding the hostel in Prague I got a taste of the slight disappointment that was to come. Looking at pictures of Prague and reading a little bit about it I was expecting a fairytale city dominated by gothic buildings and gypsies. After spending three nights here I now know that yes there are gypsies and yes they will attempt to swipe your wallet. On the architecture side of Prague it was a moziac of Gothic churches and castles, medieval bridges and various other building types similar to those I have seen in different European cities thus far. The "fairytale' buildings were suprisingly few and far between and the Prague postcard shot that I have been dying to see have so far successfully evaded me.
Having said all this I have had some great experiences here. On the first night a group of us from Melbourne all went out to a Czech tavern type place and had Mixed beer (Dark on the top fading down to light on the bottom - the beer journey), Blue cheese infused potato pancakes with garlic and onion relish and a mouth watering pork dish with curry flavours and sour cream. We then ventured upstairs to have a game of ten pin bowling... something none of us pictured we would be doing in prague but for about 8 Aussie dollars an hour for everyone it sure beat 2 games, a hot dog and chips at AMF. We rounded out the night with a few sneaky 'Kozel' dark beers (probably a new number 1 beer for mine) at a bar filled with metal sculptures, robots, mezzanine levels with about 1.3 metres of clearance above seats pulled out of czech trams and a crazy euro dance floor. The place was like q bar minus the filth plus a whole lot of cool metal 'things' popping out of the walls, roof and floor.
It was sightseeing for me the next day which meant another walking tour. This tour in contrast to Prague itself exceeded my expectations. Its amazing how expectations influence experiences. Sometimes making experiences better and sometimes worse. It makes me wonder whether we would be better off holding low expectations for everything or having no expectations at all... anyway... Our guide made what could have been another bland 3 hours walking at snails place through a historical centre something interesting and enjoyable. A slightly essentric, bubbly young Czech girl told us all about the history of Prague... the Slavs kicking out the Kelts, King Charles the 4th and his four wives and how if the Czech people have a problem with anyone they through them through them out the window... a process they call "defenestration". Defenestration was probably my favourite part of Czech history and so I was very happy to hear that the process was evolutionary as after King Charles built his bridge (which only took 45 years to construct) they were able to move to throwing people off said bridge and into the Vltava river.
That night we went on another pub crawl and once again I found myself saying "If I saw me in this group looking from the outside in I would be greatly disgusted." I did have some absinthe though (tick) which was 70% alcohol and had a magical green glow to it. It was a wierd short to drink as it went down really smoothly for the first 4 seconds, then upon the exhale phase of the shooting process the gas hurls you into a world of discomfort.
Woke up this morning feeling sick, sinuses blocked and achings with a slight headache. Brilliant. Full english breakfast buffet. Couple of nectarines. Coffee. Back into the thick of it.
Explored the city for a while. Had a ride on the metro. Yet another public transport system of the world had been conquered and I was ready for an afternoon workout at CrossFit Praha. Awesome little gym. Very eastern european but fully decked out with equipment and a very relaxed but no bullshit attitude to training. No mucking around. Warm up. Workout. Go home.
WOD
Skill:
Muscle up practice
Work Capacity:
"Helen"
400m Run
21 KB Swings at 24kg
12 Pullups
Time - 10:19
Then...
20 "strict" abmat situps
Strength:
5x5 Push Press
60, 70, 70, 70, 70kg
Bit disappointed with my time because I know guys go under 7 minutes on this one but two hills in the run made for slower times in running WODs for them according to the trainer. Normal kip pullups felt wierd. Should have done butterfly. Oh well. Happy with the strength work.
After this I took the metro a few stop to the museum. Had a stroll down what is probably the biggest strip in Prague and climbed up the top of a hill which provided amazing panoramic views of the city. After a bit of time to soak that in a a quick snap I was on the tram and back to the hostel.
Prague Miscallaneous...
Development of rock solid pick pocket identification and defence.
"Kozel" dark beer and Czech beer in general is some of the world's best.
Didn't live up to my expectations. Even the women.
Pork Knuckle, Potato dumplings with cabbage and gravy inducted into top 10 meals of all time.
Would not do Busabout again. Too similar to everything I despise about Contiki.
Must go to Russia.
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