Prague

March 22

I get up at 4 am and I can't get back to sleep. I toss and turn for over an hour before I fall back asleep. I get up again a little after 8. Fortunately breakfast is literally next door. It's a cool looking attic with exposed beams and tile. It a pretty typical European spread. 

 The bacon goes nicely with strawberry yogurt filled crepe.

After breakfast, I get some blogging done.

As we are getting ready to head out I notice my lens cover is missing. The string came untied. I know I had it last night after taking the bridge pictures but maybe it fell off when I tucked my camera in my coat. Fortunately I have an extra one. After the San Francisco incident I carry an extra one. As my buddy gets off the couch to leave he says did you hear that? I just figured it was the noise of the sleeper sofa. I look under the couch and find the cap. It must have fell into the couch when I was downloading pictures. I guess I still have an extra. 

We start out for the castle but head off in the wrong direction but fortunately we catch it quickly. It's up hill but it's not terrible and it's to start off. At least coming home will be down hill. 

The color guard.

As we walk around, I notice my lens seems loose. Crap, it's broken.

I think a screw broke and no longer holds down the lens cover on that side. Fortunately it's not part of the optics but I need to be careful so I don't break the other side. I think this might have been damaged with it fell off a table in San Diego and finally broke somewhere along the way on this trip.  Hopefully, it survives the rest of the trip and won't be an expensive repair.  

We get our tickets and pay an extra 50 for a license to take pictures indoors. I wonder if they really check but for $2.50, I don't mind.

 We start in the courtyard.

Walk past the cathedral to start in the palace. You really don't get to seem much of the palace besides a ballroom and small chapel. Next we move on to the "the Story of Prague Castle". There are a lot of artifacts here like old clothing and papers but you can't take pictures in here. We decide to go downstairs and I think that when we lost our friends. We wait around the exit for awhile but don't see them so we head to the Basilica.

We still don't see them so I text them we are going to Rosenberg Palace. Still no site of them. Apparently they sign the guest book to let us know they were there but I didn't bother to sign it so I don't see their note. We move on to the golden lane. Inside the amour exhibit we run into them.

I like the fake eyes below the eye slits.

It starts to lightly snow but it's not really that cold out. We stop to eat a light lunch. Crocodille sandwiches anyone? 

They are just paninis.

My buddy signs into the wi-fi and finally gets my iMessages about where we've been. After lunch we head to the powder tower but by the time we reach the cathedral, we don't see it. Oh well, we will double back after the cathedral.

We can see on the map where the tower should be. Maybe you access it from the other side? We walk back to the main courtyard and around and can see the tower but obviously you can't get to it from the outside. We double back and only see a marionette store. Since its the only break in the wall, we walk into the entry and can see the tower is closed. Oh well.  

I think we just missed the changing of the guards. We decide to head back to our hotel.

It sure seems steeper walking up the hill. We decide to relax and figure out where to eat. While they figure out where to eat, I try to catch up on blogging. As you can tell, it's been really successful.

They decide on a medieval place close by. We read about the dungeon it has. If you look closely you will see a skeleton in there. 

Beers and mead.

The garlic soup has a strong flavour of garlic but not overpowering like raw garlic. It surprisingly nice.

This next dish is a little translation fail of sorts. Pork drippings and cracklings with onion and apple is how it is described on the internet. I thought it was going to be crispy pork skin but it turns out it is crispy pork skin but its in a ton of lard. It is basically a spread that no one is impressed with but I eat. The onions help cut the fattiness. 

Flaming venison, sausage, beef, chicken and vegetables. This is very heavy on the cracked black pepper.

Roast pork, smoked meat and sausage with dumplings. I didn't the smoke flavour but the sausage was good. Again the dumplings are dense so that just must be how they are.

Sauerkraut pancake with a tomato based filling. It's really flavourful. I was thinking based on the description we'd get several pancakes with the topping but it's like a large omelette.

Surprisingly we are all tired and decide to head back and play more cards. After cards, Aparna and I stream the Michigan basketball game. I didn't bother bringing an DMI cable and the TVs are hooked up with coax so I can't mirror the iPad on the TVs. 

With the help of VPN to our house, we can stream like we are in the US! We blow out Texas A&M, while fun make for a late night. Good thing we are just heading to the cruise ship tomorrow and don't leave until 11 am.