Prague

My unintentional creeper shot.  Sorry for stealing your moment, random Czech couple!

 



It would have been pretty cool to take that hot air balloon, especially at sunrise or sunset!

I was a bit unsure about going to Prague.  I was a bit concerned about how easy it would be to get around, as I speak no Czech (though I learned one word while I was there, which I'll show you guys at the end of the post).  Turns out that there was no need to worry.  I got around just fine and was able to communicate with the locals, even the ones that spoke poor English.

A fine example of Cubism.  Apparently this style of architecture can only be found in Prague.



This is...  uhhh...  known as...  pink Egyptian.  Probably also only found in Prague (I hope, lol)

Statue in honour of Franz Kafka.

That guy's job sucks...



What I did:

• September 1, 2012 - Train from Vienna to Prague, ate dinner, and went to bed.
• September 2, 2012 - Walking tour of Prague, explored the city a bit more on my own.
• September 3, 2012 - Jewish Quarter, the Old Town, Prague Castle, Museum of Communism.
• September 4, 2012 - Departed for Pisa.

This thing was creepy as hell, especially when you're walking by it at night.



This is a mummified hand hanging from inside a church.  Our guide told us the whole story, but the gist of it is "Don't try to steal from the church."  LOL



Highlights:

• History - There is so much history in the Czech Republic.  They are right in the centre of Europe, so they've been a part of so many empires (and at the head of the Holy Roman Empire for a while) throughout the ages.  The Reformation of the Catholic Church, WWII, and the Cold War have all left their mark too.
• Drinking - This is the booze capital of the world.  The per capita consumption of both beer and alcohol is higher in the Czech Republic than anywhere else, and they proudly (?) declare this to any and all visitors.  Personally, I thought the beer in Germany was better, but I suppose sometimes quantity matters more than quality?



I really felt like eating a burger.  This turned out to be the best burger I had in Europe!  Also...  the first...  hahaha

This food stall may have ripped me off, but their food was still pretty good!

Lowlights:

• I know there are a few bad apples in every basket, but I suppose I encountered more dishonest people in Prague than I have in any of the other cities that I have visited during the course of my travels here in Europe.  A few restaurants, bakeries, and food stalls tried to cheat me (they succeeded more often than not I think) by "miscalculating" my bill or charging me a ridiculous mandatory service charge that was NOT standard practice, based on what I'd heard from others or seen at other restaurants in the area (19%).  If it only happened once or twice, I could believe that it was an accident, but based on how many times this type of thing did occur, it makes me suspect that I was getting taken advantage of.





Verdict:  I know a lot of people highly recommend Prague and the Czech Republic, but I guess it's just not my cup of tea.  I have visited so many amazing places in Europe and had such great times in all of them.  If I could have planned this trip again, I probably would have skipped Prague and spent these three days somewhere else.  Still, this was a cool experience!

Absinth with the wormwood still in the bottle, in case you didn't believe it was legit.  They also carried mj vodka (no, not Michael Jackson or mah jong).

My name means "push" in Czech!  This does NOT give you an excuse to push me and say, "He was asking for it."  :P

I found a BC Lions fan in Prague!  Reminded me a bit of home :)

 





Vienna Part Hahaha

Yup, here we go again!  :D

Apparently Austrians are tired of being mixed up with Australians.  :P



BBT in the middle of Vienna's main shopping street.  OK...



McDonald's showcasing their adaptation to each local market.  Such as...  uhh...  BBT in Vienna???  OK...

 

The herald of Lombardy and Venetia.  Seriously?  A snake swallowing a baby and a sad looking lion reading a book?  lol

You better follow the road signs in Austria...  The guy on the left tried to enter through the gate and the guy on the right tried to park in the handicapped parking spot.  Something tells me he'll be able to park there soon...  :P

The guy on the bottom must be thinking "Seriously dude?  Could you do that when you're not standing on me???"

Off with his head!  So that I may drink the wine...

She's naked and sitting on a hedgehog.  I...  can't possibly add anything more in this caption...

The boy is sad.  The man offers him a lemon.  The boy doesn't want it.  The woman is not impressed with either of them...

He's pointing and laughing at the idiot who is going to fall out of the tree.  In a second, he's probably going to fall into the water himself...

For some reason, I couldn't stop laughing at this artist's self portrait...

What's for dinner?  Oh, no thanks...  I'm not hungry anymore...  (Serious note - this is actually a biblical reference to the death of John the Baptist.  They have a lot of paintings illustrating this, for some reason...)

Baby John the Baptist points up at Jesus Christ, saying "He's the man!"  Baby Jesus holds up his hand and says, "Yeah that's me.  I'm kind of a big deal..."

"Special" beer for sale in Vienna.  I didn't try it, but apparently it's legal in Austria, for anybody who will be visiting.

I don't know if anybody remembers my posting from LA (waaaay back) where I had a good laugh about the Messerschmidt sculptures and wished that I could have seen an actual exhibit of them.  Well, I got the chance to do so in Vienna.  They had about 20 of them and I laughed my ass of.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any photos of them.  But they were pretty funny :D

Vienna Part 2

Stephansdom, the huge cathedral in the middle of the city at the heart of the old Holy Roman Empire.





The proper spelling for Vienna is Wien.  For some reason, English speakers spell the city as Vienna (German speakers, which Austrians are, pronounce the "W" as English speakers pronounce the "V", but I have no idea where the "a" at the end came from).  I took a walking tour organized by my hostel and it was pretty good, as the guide had lots of stories and anecdotes for us.  Apparently, the guy who invented the hot dog was a dude from Wien who had moved to Frankfurt.  Germans called it "Weiner" because the inventor was from Wien, while Austrians called it "Frankfurter" because it was invented in Frankfurt.  Apparently neither side wanted to take the credit for this fine culinary innovation, hahaha



The Kunsthistoriches Museum (literally, Art History Museum)



 

Highlights:

• Schloss Schonbrunn - The former summer palace of the royal family of the Holy Roman Empire.  I wouldn't mind spending my summers there!  :D
• Weiner schnitzel @ Figlmuller - Wein is world famous for it's weiner schnitzel, and no place is more famous than Figlmuller, even though they don't exactly do it in the traditional style.  Not only is the serving size enormous (see pictures below), but it's also delicious too, and the staff are super friendly, as it's still a small locally-owned operation.  I kept expecting Weiner schnitzel to contain sausage or hot dog until I recalled the the walking tour guide's story and realized that Weiner schnitzel just means Viennese schnitzel (the tour guide also emphazied that you eat this without sauce in Austria because, and I quote, "We're not Germans!").  But wait a minute...  so if Weiner schnitzel means Viennese schnitzel, then shouldn't the Viennese waltz be known as the...  Weiner waltz???
• Haus der Musik - As Vienna has made such outstanding contributions to music in the past (Mozart, Hadyn, and Beethoven immediately come to mind), I had to include some sort of musical component to my visit here.  I left this to the very last minute (8 pm the night before I left Vienna).  Fortunately, the Haus der Musik closes at 10 pm (no I wasn't just lucky, I planned it that way).  It was pretty cool and really made me wish I had some training in classical music so I could really appreciate it properly.  The thing I found most fun about this museum was the virtual orchestra, where you were able to pick up the conductor's baton and conduct (a virtual version of) the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on a few symphonies.  If you waved too fast, the music would be played too fast and if you waved too slowly, then the music would be too slow.  Unfortunately, the system was pretty buggy and didn't pick up the movement of the baton.  This meant that everybody failed miserably and the bulk of the time, the orchestra was silent.  However, that was awesome because it led to the hilarious scene where the orchestra puts down their instruments and starts to yell at you.  I made sure to get video of that!



Schloss Schonbrunn

Part of the gardens at Schloss Schonbrunn.  Seriously, this place was huge...

Lowlights:

• Too much to do in Vienna, I didn't budget enough time for this city (never mind the whole country)!  I'll definitely be sure to come back again sometime :)

C'mon, that's gotta be some false advertising.  There's no way it's bigger than the plate...

Wow.  OK.  And that's not a small plate either...



All done!  :D



The famous Sacher cake!  Believe it or not, I saw imitators trying to copy this in Italy too (same name and everything).

Can't Miss:  I really want to say food but I'm going to go with the art & palaces.  Fortunately, many of the art museums are in old palaces so you get to kill two birds with one stone.  However, there really are a ton of museums and palaces, so I probably could have filled 4 or 5 days here!  Luckily for me, some musuems close late on selected nights (do your research before you arrive to make the best use of your time) so that helps you stretch your days out, especially when you're a late riser such as myself :)

The (probably unintentionally) creepy wax Mozart that composes a song based on your name (or whatever sequence of letters you choose to enter) at the Haus der Musik.

Here's your chance to conduct an orchestra!  Any kid who ever played with chopsticks at the table will know what I'm talking about...