Katherine a Lauren navštívily Prahu!

Note: This all happened November 9 -11 and I'm just now getting around to posting it.

This weekend Katherine and Lauren flew in from Rome for a visit! Unfortunately we were cursed with some shitty weather but it was still a really fun time. I picked them up from the airport a little before noon on Friday, and after dropping our stuff off we hit the nearest KFC. Lame, you may say. But they’ve been in Italy for two and a half months, where there is neither fried goodness nor meat. So some fried chicken was in high order.

Then we started our superspeed tour of Prague (which really isn’t that superspeed because the city is not that big.) First we went to the Loreta, which is a 14th-16th century church by the castle. It’s a cool little place, but what makes it really worth seeing is the Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows, because there’s a bearded lady on a crucifix there. Explanation from my guidebook of Prague: “She was St. Starosta, pious daughter of a Portuguese king who promised her to the king of Sicily against her wishes. After a night of tearful prayers she awoke with a beard, the wedding was called off, and her father had her crucified. She was later made a patron saint of the needy and the godforsaken.” Weird. You’re not supposed to take a picture, but I did.

Next we went to St. Vitus Cathedral. I would have liked to walk around the castle gardens a little, but it was rainy and cold so didn’t seem worth it. We then made our way to the Charles Bridge, and walked over that into Old Town. We walked around Josefov and saw some of the synagogues…walked around Old Town, saw Tyn Church and the Astronomer’s Clock…walked around New Town and tried some hot mulled wine, which I wasn’t a fan of. Then we went to the Palladium, the AMAZING new mall that just opened a week ago. The shopping there is good, but we really went so I could show them the top floor, where there are something like 15 different restaurants that are all ADORABLE and different kinds of food – Italian, Lebanese, Japanese, Indian, French, Mexican, etc. We had drinks at one of the bars located in the center. And there was a cute bartender, which is rare in Prague, so, yeah.

By then it was around 5 pm so we decided to head back home and rest a little before dinner. We got dinner with Brandon, Bill and Clay at a restaurant right near my apartment. I just had the usual fried pork, but Katherine and Lauren shared a big two-person meal that basically hit them with every traditional Czech food in one platter. It had roast pork, duck, and more meats, two types of cabbages, potato dumplings, bread dumplings, and possibly more. Ridiculous.

We went back and hung out a bit more before going out to Cross Club, the one place that every single person visiting Prague is dragged to. It was a little more crowded than I like and we were really tired so we weren’t there too long. For some reason a German guy started talking to all of us and he was telling me some story about Bill Clinton and racism, and I’m not sure what his point was but he kept using the n-word and I was like ooookay, bye now. I got fried cheese from a stand on the way home. It was yum.

The next day we got up and tried to decide what to do. Ideally we could have gone to Petrin Hill or Vysehrad, but it was still rainy and freezing. The girls were NOT used to cold weather; they had to wear tights under their jeans (something I’ve been meaning to buy but haven’t got around to.) So instead we went back to the mall for lunch, and ate at the Angus Burger place. There’s both a restaurant and a service counter, and we got burgers from the counter. They were decent but overpriced, so I don’t think I’ll be trying that one again. We then went back to Old Town so they could find postcards and souvenir-type stuff. We looked at the Astronomer’s Clock again to see it chime, and I realized that some of the figures on it were missing! I guess maybe they’re out for cleaning?

We were pretty cold after walking around more so we found a nice café and had hot drinks and apple strudel. Then Lauren decided it was time for some new shoes. The shoes she’d been wearing all day were thin flats and her feet were soaking wet, so we went to Humanic and she bought a pair of boots. We went home after that and took a two-hour nap.

When we finally got up we went to a restaurant I like on Vinohradska for dinner. We ate SO MUCH. I’m kind of used to it, but they weren’t, so even though we had planned on going to Futurum that night we just stayed in and let our stomachs deflate.

Then this morning they woke up at 8:30 to get to the airport. Nothing remarkable happened except…IT WAS SNOWING! It’s snowing right now as I’m writing this! I love snow and it’s going to look awesome, but: it’s November 11th. I still have another month of snow in Prague!?