Pragurkreece - The Raging Materialist Edition

This post is mostly for my mom, who loves a good shop.

Ok so part of me doesn't want to be all LOOKIT MY THEEEEENGS! because that smacks of...something.  But then most of me loves seeing what people bring back from their vacations, PLUS we just got a new camera (moooooore materialism!) to replace the one that died in Ephesus, and I want to play with it because it. is. bitchin.

Anyways, my things.

I bought this dress in Istanbul so I could walk around Istanbul without feeling uncomfortable.

And then I also bought this dress in Instanbul.

And then also this one.  Istanbul was good for dresses.

We knew Istanbul was going to be cheapest, so we did the bulk of our shopping there.  But it was also earliest, so anything we bought we'd have to lug around for two weeks.  Dresses were a good and useful call, because they doubled as Things I Would Have Packed Anyways If I'd Already Owned them.  Also a good call?  Rings.

And more rings.

And an orange purse, because I've been looking for one for years.

And this lovely, mouldy-looking scarf.  My mirror is clearly very dirty.

And then also, because we like to buy practical things that we will use often and think of our travels, these wikked kebab skewers.

Sooooer Turkish, no?

And then in Cappadoccia I bought a whirling dervish.

He whirls.

And then in Samos I bought this pretty little number.

And then in Athens everything was too expensive so we went to a flea market, and I bought this happy little guy for 2.50 euro

And put him on a chain.

The chain is very long, so he hangs by my navel and when I walk, he flops like a live thing.  He has a secret compartment, where I could keep a secret...or drugs a drug (it is very small).  When it is open he looks like he is yawping delightedly.

And then in Prague I bought these incredibly Communist-looking moccs

And a mug from which to drink Communist beer.

And that is all.  I will be exercising great thrift from here on in.

Pragurkreece: I Ate Fried Dough In All The Countries

Our little travelling band had many happy commonalitites, one of the most excellent ones being that our favorite part of travel is the eating.  Also, that we are frequently hungry.  Also, that we can never turn down a mixed platter.

It is almost impossible to turn down a mixed meat platter, because there are such varieties of things to eat, and this is like getting a bite of all of Prague's best offerings.  Like bacon dumplings.  And sausage.  And duck.

It is similarly difficult to turn down a mixed kebab platter when it is your first evening in Turkey, and how are you supposed to decide which kebab you want?  You want all of them.

Or when it's your second night in Turkey and the mixed kebab platter can easily feed four people?

And comes with a bread-baby?

Or when the mixed appetizer platter lets you choose which six appies you want?  So obviously you go with baba ganoush and hummus and grilled eggplant salsa and croquettes and fried cheese and sundried tomatoes with pomegranate and mint sauce?

And then are overwhelmingly unhungry for your lamb platter when it arrives?

The mixed meat platter took a haitus mid-trip, only to return with a vengeance (and with a mixed seafood grill) in Samos

as well as in Athens (this was...an obscene amount of meat for two people).

When we weren't eating mixed platters in Turkey we were usually eating burek, which is essentially croissant dough wrapped around spinach, meat and cheese.

One evening on our wanders we passed a churro vendor, and I can never turn down a sugary fried dough product.

It was much denser than the churros I'm used to, and cold, and drenched in honey rather than tossed in sugar, but it was so delicious that we immediately got another one.

The restauranteurs were varying degrees of pushy and welcoming, and the street-donair vendors would always accost you with samples of shaved meats.  It worked on us literally every time.

One cheerful batch of restauranteurs two down from our hostel greeted us so cheerfully and un-aggressively every time we walked by that we ate there thrice.  Our last night there, I was dying for some rice pudding but they were out so the waiter whipped up a kadayif for me instead - 'very special Turkish dessert, my favorite' - which is basically cheese wrapped in fried noodles soaked in honey.

I have eaten fewer more delicious things.

Eating wasn't always a whimsical delight.  Sometimes they would bring you something exorbitantly more expensive than you'd ordered, and then charge you for that instead.  Sometimes a wasp would die a horrible, sticky death in your breakfast.

Sometimes the guy running the hostel was the only guy working at the hostel, so you would get your continental breakfast in shifts - the toast would be much delayed and you'd be giddy from all the coffee on an empty stomach, or the eggs would be late and runny, or the coffee cups would materialize but an hour later there would still be no coffee.  We never left our Samos hostel before noon, and it's not (completely) because we were lazy.

Sometimes the guy at the hostel would have no idea where anything was, and would send you tramping out with restaurant recommendations, the first of which was closed down, and the second of which you'd spend two hours searching for. 

But then sometimes your hostel would serve yogurt, honey and muesli for breakfast, and after your 'hot cheese salad' lunch (it was basically a 3-cheese paste, and you dip bread in it) the restauranteur would bring yogurt, honey and nuts for dessert, and then your hilariously old dinner restauranteur would also bring you complementary yogurt and honey for dessert, and you would eat yogurt and honey thrice in a day and not regret it.

And every meal we ate would literally be the best meal ever, but then these gyros really were the best meal ever.

And then we came back to Prague, where there are no gyros, but where there are crepes with marscapone and cherries, or with raspberries and whipped curd.

And then we had mini-donuts drizzled with chocolate at the zoo and were chased by wasps.

And then we had fried camembert and goulash at the monastary.

And then it got chilly so we put on sweaters and had hot chocolate so thick it was like pudding.

And then we had rum-raisin pancakes with cottage cheese and hazelnuts, or waffles with strawberries.

And the world's most elaborate cafe au lait.

And then, to end it all off, we had ribs and fries and beans with bacon.

And then we rolled ourselves home.

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.