A rather pleasant day by and large, however as always there is a bit of confusion and difficulty in a foreign country, especially one as foreign to me as the Czech Republic. To begin the day, I woke up, rather against my desire, at 8:30 due again to the rustling of all my roommates. After this, I thought it best to go get some breakfast and start the day. I decided it best to go to the metro station, and catch a train to Prague Castle, but unfortunately I got off before the Vltava river, and the castle was on the other side, but this actually worked to my surprising benefit. Having done this, I walked over one of the great attractions of Prague, the Karlos Most, or Charles Bridge in English. It was an incredible thing to be on, and crossing the Vltava was very nice, because you could see so much, and it was such a charming river to have in this most enchanting of cities. I finally made my way up the rather steep incline to the castle, which was a very neat place both to see and to be. It was neat to see in that, it was this old medieval castle that was over a millennium old. It had much inside it too, and I got a ticket to see the St. Vitus’s Cathedral, as well as St. George’s Basilica, and also the Golden Lanes as well as something else that I cannot at this time recall. Unfortunately, the Palace was closed for renovation, but that was alright by me, because I could just take my time and enjoy my solitude.
I went to the Golden Lanes first which were very lovely, the shopkeepers inside wore period costumes, and they had medieval music playing, one of the songs I actually recognised from my Philip Pickett collection, but not done by him. They had the armoury and clothing ‘museum’ there, which had all sorts of things, and it was very neat, the thing that probably impressed me the most about this was the archers’ windows that were holes in the castle wall with big logs in the centre that could turn and had narrow slits in them so that the archers could aim upon raiders. Following the lanes, I decided to go out and try to see my way through St. George’s Basilica which was nice, but as a nice Australian I met in Vienna called it, ABC- Another Bloody Church. Then there was St. Vitus’s and it was spectacular from the outside, but I was deterred from entering because of the huge mass of travel groups trying to get in, and I did not feel like waiting that long, so I just walked along the periphery of the wall. This part was so exquisite I felt like I was genuinely in bliss, because it was so filled with foliage and few people, but you could see the entire city, especially the old medieval part. I found a nice little building outside very solitary yet, overlooking the outside of the walls and rather beautiful in its own right, and I took some pictures there, including one of the British, and then the American embassies.
I decided then to go and leave the castle, happening upon a very nice and serene park. That was essentially the hill next to the castle. I walked along the path, eventually going away from the paved part and I thought it to be quite nice, and clarifying to my own mind to do this. I walked along a path that was fairly well defined yet not paved, and upon walking up near the top, I found a series of caves that people were apparently camping out in, which I guess beats the price of a hostel. One in particular I must have walked by around 11:30 or so in the morning and found some people sleeping inside, as I walked past, I finally reached the top of the hill, and found a castle wall, which I eventually walked through a small doorway in the centre, there was no castle or anything on the other side of it, there were some people about, but not many. I came to a small park with many roses in it, and I thought they were quite pretty and dulcet sitting there, so I took some pictures of what I thought was a brilliant colour scheme. I kept walking and discovered a neat little patch of land beneath me covered in yellow leaves for a large area or so it seemed to me. Finally, as I kept walking I found a very relaxing spot to sit down on, during such a calming day, and this was on the other side of the hill, there were some benches set up with only a little walking path behind them. Here I rested for probably over an hour, simply realising how fortunate I was to not have any obligations to speak of, no rushes and no responsibilities, this being one of the benefits of being in a city such as this alone. From here I had an attractive view of the city, including the Vltava river, and I also just felt great not being disturbed by the busyness of life in a big city like this. I listened to a lot of music, and came to many realisations and revelations in my thoughts, which to me, there is nothing more pleasing than this. After this lovely interim to my journey, I started back for my hostel, arriving there via the old town square, which is actually rather close to where I was staying. In the old town square, I took several pictures, because in this place particularly, it had such an old world feel to it, in a quaint yet, lovely manner. Plus, three of the biggest sights in Prague are supposed to be there.
On the way back, I noticed my hunger, so decided to go to a little supermarket that was below ground called ‘Albert’s’. This was a strange grocery store, and I could not find anything I wanted especially, not having the utensils to cook anything really back at the hostel, and even if I had, I could not anyway because the directions were all in Czech. One thing there that really caught my eye and made me laugh incessantly was a can of sausages because of its picture on the front. This was basically a young man eating a sausage, but the best part about it was his expression and the fact that he seemed to be sucking this phallic symbol with much vigour. Not only this, but my favourite part of all, was the fact that from his chin for some reason was dripping two drops of white fluid, which I do not think of often when I consider sausage consumption, but for fellatio it is a rather different story, and I could not believe anyone would put such an image on their product in seriousness. When I did get back to the hostel and just sat around for a while just kind of doing nothing, I decided to start playing a little game or two on my computer called Sim Ant, and Sim Earth, but this soon bored me. I met some fellows later, an Australian guy, of Asian descent named, John, and a British bloke, named Benjamin who was rather eccentric and reminded me much of an archetypical character, though he was rather nice, and a bit too informative but nice all the same. Also a girl walked into the room, named Halley, or something like that, and she talked to us a lot mentioning how her passport was stolen, this had me a bit concerned naturally, as she was also American, and was thus detained here working with the embassy for a while, before she will be allowed to leave. She said that at the embassy the people at the passport control are not American but in fact Czech and barely understand English, which was a bit disturbing to me to think my government would do that.
After a while, John and I decided to go get some food, and we wandered down to the Old Town Centre. We found a place that was a little more pricy than I should have liked, but we ate well, I got a mushroom pizza, though it was a bit soggy, and he got some traditional Czech dish, or at least I assume it was traditional. We talked about many things, and he lives in Cork, and we talked a lot about, TV in Australia versus the US, and things in Ireland etc. After we left we walked again through the Square, and this one bugger came up to me, and tried to sell me marijuana, which he was very persistent about, the thing that bothered me most here was that the same thing happened the day before, and my abhorrence to the stuff was, I thought, rather apparent in my responses to him, but he became cross with me after I refused to have any part in his illicit transaction. It bothered me a lot because I felt that not only do people often solicit me more than anyone else for such things (I do not know what it is about my appearance), but also that I was very firm with him from the start, without a hint of acceptance for what he was trying to push upon me. Not three seconds after this bastard finally left us alone, did another guy try to come up and push some sort of strip club, or prostitution or something sexual upon us (from girls not himself). The only thing I remember him saying was in a very Slavic accent “big boobies”, which if I were in better spirits, not having been put off by the chap before him, I might have laughed at what he was suggesting, but as it was, I just said “No!” rather forcefully. He then asked me what I wanted, and I was very tempted to say “little boys between the ages of 7 and 11" but thought better of it, saying instead ‘nothing’. We finally got back to the hostel and just hung out talking for a while and finally got to bed.