Cristen navštívila Prahu!

NOTE: This should have been posted about a week and a half ago, but I went on my 8-day trip to Moravia, Slovakia and Austria and didn't get the chance. Also, Blogger is such a pain in the ass for some reason about uploading pictures, so I only managed to get one in here.

Cristen came to visit me this past weekend all the way from Brussels, Belgium! It was an awesome weekend. We hit my favorite clubs – Futurum and Cross Club – as well as much of the sightseeing attractions that I’ve neglected so far. Living here, it’s very easy to become complacent with all the interesting things surrounding me.

Saturday we originally planned to go see the castle…but that was shot down when we didn’t wake up until noon. Instead we wandered around the city, walked across the Charles Bridge and along the river and then back to Staré Mesto. We ate lunch at Kavarna Slavia, which is a café where the intellectual/artist types of Prague used to hang out (it’s right across from the National Theater). Now it’s a huge, busy tourist restaurant with little selection and poor service. I wasn’t a fan.

After lunch we met up with Brandon and walked around the Jewish quarter (Josefov) a bit. Josefov is kind of strange – there are basically a half-dozen synagogues amidst the most expensive shops in Prague. We didn’t actually go into the synagogues, because in order to do so you must buy a ticket that costs around $25; we were there too late to be able to see all of them, anyway. Then we had dinner at Pizzeria Grosseto, an Italian restaurant near my house whose normally delicious pizza was not up to standard for some reason that night.

Sunday was a much more successful day. We got up “early“ (aka at 10 am) and hopped on the tram to go see Prague Castle. First we went through the Royal Gardens, which were very nice. There’s a small area where they keep some birds of prey, and it was sad to see the birds sitting on little posts with cords around their legs so they couldn’t fly away. Then we went to St. Vitus Cathedral. It was the most touristy cathedral I’ve seen – they actually had numbered signs up at different parts of the nave so that you could read about it in your guide, and there was a woman waving people past the tomb of St. Vitus because they took too long standing around taking pictures.

After St. Vitus we walked to the Senate Gardens, which were also pretty cool with big hedges and a lot of interesting statues. There was also the Grotto, which is a fake dripstone wall with creepy monster faces, snakes, and other animals hidden in it.

Our final stop was Petrin Hill. We took the funicular up to the top of the hill, which has an awesome view of the city. There we went to the Mirror Maze, which was built for an exhibition back in the beginning of the 20th century. It was fun to walk through but a little short…until we came to the room with wiggly mirrors. Brandon was exactly the right height so that his head looked HUMONGOUS while the rest of him was midget-sized. It was, quite frankly, amazing.

But the apex of Cristen’s visit was definitely the Black Light Theater show we saw Sunday night. I can’t really describe it as anything other than a 90-minute-long what-the-fuck moment. There was an alien swallowed up by swiss cheese. There were flying geometric shapes. There were birds, and Egyptians with tin cookie sheets, and a butterfly, and pillowcase creatures that bit one another. I still can’t decide if I’m glad I went or not. The only thing I’m certain of in life now is that I am VERY glad I wasn’t high when I saw that. Holy shit.

Anyway, we went to bed around 11…and woke up at 4 am so Cristen could take a taxi to the airport for her 7 am flight. I was very sad to see her go. So sad that one might call me a saaaaaaad octopus.