Pragurkreece: The Praguean List

We flew from Athens back to Prague (via Budapest, where there were once again free booze samples in the airport), and Prague was a balmy 18 degrees when we arrived.  Leah put on a cardigan.  It was a giddy moment.

Remember that list we made the first day in Prague?  That was pretty much the end game of our final four days. 

Visit the Mucha Museum?  Check.  And worth it.  Photos not allowed, so just have a gander at this instead.

Paddleboats and beer?  Foiled.  It had apparently been raining the entire time we'd been gone and the river was too high for anyone to risk their paddleboats with us.

See a live soccer game?  Almost foiled, because Team Sparta was out of town.  Team Slavia, however, was present and accounted for.  Like a bunch of tourists, Joel and I bought team gear.

An errant ball flew into the stands, and Joel punched it back onto the field.

The fans to our right were the opposing team's fans, and they were kept in a gated region so we couldn't beat them up or vice versa.

The fans immediately across from us were the bad-ass-core fans, with their coordinated cheers and dances and this business:

The beers, instead of being Canadian-sporting-event-eleven-dollars, were two-for-one (so, two for two-fifty).

'Get caught in a thunder storm' wasn't on the list, but we headed up Mount Letna after the game to see the view and found ourselves in a lightning storm.  On a mountain.  The lightning was incessant and awesome.

Once the rain started we headed home, and it wasn't drizzle or a good, heavy Vancouver rain that'll soak your pants to the knee in half an hour, but the bathroom-shower-like rain that you figure'll have to let up within ten minutes.  It kept up for hours.

Go to the zoo?  Check once again, although as though the rain wasn't content with ruining our paddle-boats-and-beer plans, it also drowned out the water-taxi to the zoo so we had to take two buses and a metro to get there instead.

Well worth it, though.  SO! MANY! GIRAFFES!

Also, we saw the hippo feeding, and I fed some goat-corn-pops to a goat.

Castle tour?  Easily the single most expensive activity on our trip, but very nearly worth it for the Window of Defenestration alone.  If it wouldn't immediately result in their death, I'd love to defenestrate someone some day.  It is the dirtiest-sounding way to murder someone without getting blood on your hands.

Get picture taken by the astrological clock so I can put it up next to our painting of same at home?  Check.

Buy that pop-up book for boo that I saw on the first day?  Almost foiled again, but Mike was committed to the list.  I had already given up on the book, because we'd been in every book store in the part of town we were in, and the only place I knew it was was across town where I'd first seen it, and it was our last day in Prague.  While I was off somewhere buying shoes, Mike popped into one last book shop which became two last book shops, the latter of which had the book.  So...check.

Flaming absinthe shots?  Check!  No photos of this, because you're trying to wangle a spoonful of flaming, melting sugar without setting yourself on fire.

Carve initials into a lock and then lock that lock to Love-Lock Bridge?  Check!

Eat a trdelnik?  That word needs more vowels, but check.

Paddleboats and beer after all?  Check!!  On our way to dinner the final night, we saw two lone paddleboats on the river so we checked the rental places, both of which were still closed.  Further searching uncovered the Paddleboat Pirate, for whom safety is not an issue.  Paddleboats and beer!!!

And then we had dinner and rolled home and Leah made brownies and Mike burned all their photos to a disc while Joel and I packed and then we got up at 5 to take the bus to the airport and were there so early that the duty-free wasn't even open and then we were awake for 25 hours and flying with the sun is bizarre because by your body-clock it's closing on evening but it's midday the entire way there and then we came home and crashed into our beds and it was so good to sleep.

Thanks to Leah for arranging everything and booking all the hostels and letting me comandeer your strapless bra and then sweat into it heavily; thanks to Mike for being so committed to The List and for not letting me die on the Perilous Stairwell of Death; thanks to Joel for holding my hand in the dodgy bits of Athens and making me eat when I was too hot to know I was hungry.  This was the best trip.