Friday19:30 Dinner at
Ambiente Brasilero begins. Brazilian buffet, tempting. Salad, seafood, sushi, meat, grilled pineapples… But we are cheap, and broke indeed. So no Caipirinha, no suspicion about how they keep oysters fresh in the Czech Republic, no jokes about the discovery of the smallest sushi we’ve ever seen, just keep attacking. Everyone ends up close to explosion. Good food, good company; the journey to the endless fun has started well.
22:00 Have some time to kill before the night starts, so there is Bingo nearby. A Czech local live singing bar. You pick a song from their list, and a live band will be ready for you. We see “Hej Jude” on the list, Czech version, but decide not to risk. Enjoying the local people singing is just fine. They actually sing very well. What a triumphant return. This time also to find the most exciting bass player in the world. This 300 something grandpa looks so excited on the stage that the only time you know he’s not falling asleep is when he looks up and shakes his head to the amateur singers at the end of every song. A legend, ladies and gentlemen… a legend.
23:00 Off for the big night.
Deep Dish and
Ed Rush & Optical’s shows are starting at midnight. Good timing. Deep Dish’s Dubfire has a larger venue and more fresh air. But after a couple of hours of House, it’s time to check out the Drum ‘n’ Bass next door. We jump in, and almost get knocked out of the door immediately by the overwhelming heat and smoke. Let’s try it again. Soon we are at the front. Ed Rush & Optical rock. In Al’s word, “Drum ‘n’ Bass is my element.” Also a few new dance moves are created. A futsking excellent time, no matter how bad we smell afterwards.
Saturday6:00 Home. Drum ‘n’ Bass and House night is over. After changing to three different trams and finding out no tram goes to Anděl for this weekend, we finally made it to walk home. Three guests are sleeping in my room, two on the floor, one in my bed. What? Nuria runs in after me. “Don’t worry, Jenny. I’ll get him out.” Next thing I hear is a big “Bam!”. Rashmi’s head just got banged against the floor, and Nuria is still grabbing his arms pulling him out of my bed. “Nuria, take it easy. I don’t want to kill him. It’s OK.” Fortunately none of us was sober and as we found out later Rashmi doesn’t actually remember that Nuria almost managed to hurt him big time. So we are good now.
20:00 Dinner at
Dog’s Bollocks. Also try to decide if we should still do
Český Raj tomorrow since it’s been raining for a whole day. There are people bailing out. The big group of 20 travelers is 6 now. Good. Al is staying in tonight, so a message is sent to him: Let’s meet at 8 am tomorrow, Florenc.
22:00 80’s & 90’s party at
Futurum. My last attempt to try to like 80’s party. But it just doesn’t work out. Aruna, Claire and Nuria have some fun stuff to distract themselves, and it works. 1 hour after the absinth shot, Claire is carried home. Half an hour later, Nuria is taken home and Aruna decides she’d better vomit it out before she gets home. At 2:30, Lukasz the birthday boy is still having fun but I’d better call it a night early since we are going to travel early morning the next day. I’m serious about the trip.
Sunday6:30 Alarm starts screaming. But it’s raining hard out of the window. Claire walks in, still drunk, and says “I think we should go back to sleep.” I say “Let’s ask Aruna and see if she still wants to go today.” So we go to Aruna’s bed. I don’t want to wake the others up so I push her a bit, no response; I push again, “Aruna!”, still nothing; I slap her face, “Aruna!”, she doesn’t even stop snoring. So much for the trip. I turn around to Claire, she shrugs. Back to sleep it is.
8:00 My phone rings. Al. “Hey Jenny, where are you?” “Huh? Where are YOU?” “I’m in Florenc.” “Eh? What?” “I’m in Florenc!” Yes, this is exactly the time when you say “Oh-my-futsk”. Luckily good boy Al chooses to feel it quite funny rather than very upset. And we agree that me buying him a pivo will just make both of us feel a lot better. Deal. But really, I’m sorry, Al. Look at the bright side, at least now you have your favorite place in Prague – Florenc, and I can even manage not to call you Alex for a while, even though it will be less fun.
15:00 Vyšehrad. The weather turns better. Nice view from the hill. Explored the cemetery where
Svatopluk Čech and
Jan Neruda are laying in peace. We have to run though, because Hugo needs to meet his friend in Sazka Arena at 4:30. So I ask “Hugo what are you doing in Sazka Arena?” Hugo: “Well my friend is in town and she is working there now, for Euroleague Final 4.” “The Euroleague Basketball Final that’s going on in Prague today?” “Yeah… Actually, let me call my friend and see if she can get tickets for you guys too.” After a phone call we have 6 free tickets to the Final 4 games. What a lucky day and wise decision of not going to Český Raj today! Oh well, as Claire says, absinth made the decision for us...
17:30 Sazka Arena.
Euroleague Basketball Final 4. First game was
Winterthur FCB vs.
Tau Ceramica, both from Barcelona, for the 3rd and 4th places. The highlight of this match was yelling at Winterthur FCB “Go Fucka!”, because we like No. 7 of Winterthur FCB:
Gregor FUCKA. The next game was between
Maccabi Elite from Israel and
CSKA Moscow, for the 1st and 2nd places. The rumor has it that 9,000 Israeli fans have come to Prague this weekend for this game. Great game. Since we are not in fan clubs of either of the teams, we decided to stay neutral and develop our own cheers – the PIVO cheers. Al is such a genius. Of course, he’s Al(coholic).
Monday8:15 We finally dragged ourselves out of the bed and got on the bus to Český Raj, which means the Bonemian Paradise in Czech.
11:06 We reach the town. See no sign of the castle
Trosky. Walk to the centre, and see an arrow "Trosky 5km". Well, we knew Český Raj is all about hiking. So off we go, happilly walking in the nature. The nature is beautiful! Great weather. We saw lots of cows, a happy goat, turkeys, chickens, fake turkeys (turkey-like birds that we don’t know what they are), and a few ugly, loud, cute or happy dogs. It was so fun walking along and taking fun photos that we didn’t realize we had walked for more than 5 km and still hadn’t reached the castle yet, not even close. We ran into a bistro booth, so food and local pivo time, otherwise our destination would be changed to starvation. After a good rest with Aruna whining about how Lonely Planet lies and Claire about how she doesn’t like the word "nice", we started to use our excellent Czech skills to find the way from the local people. "Kde... Trosky Hrad?" ("Where... Trosky Castle?") But apparently we weren’t prepared well enough to understand the answer thrown back. "Uhhh, Deutsch?" "Yo yo yo." Brill! Geri speaks German! "Geri, come over here and make yourself useful!" Yay, on the road again! The castle ruins – the two towers built on the peaks of two volcanos – were eventually conquerred by us after a whole lot of hiking across the field and forest and up the hill. Amazing view! Bohemian Darapise indeed!
15:00 Have to race back to catch the train, but get lost again. We are in the middle of nowhere, the road seems endless, and we are expecting another 5 km walk, maybe even more. We’d better ask again. Aruna standing on the road side and yelling at people driving or cycling by "Prosim! Pomoc!" ("Please! Help!") was absolutely the funniest moment of the whole trip. But what wasn‘t so funny was that no one actually stopped for us. Oh well, can’t blame them, four girls looking hungover try to stop your car, how dangerous it is!
18:00 Back in Praha. Aruna frantically unpacked and packed, getting ready for her last night in the Czech Republic, which inevitably involved drinking. Our "fake Andeler who doesn’t even live in Prague but sometimes even has extra keys, aka the Mother of Futsk" is going away! Bon Voyage and have a futsking dobře time traveling, kid, prosím. All the best.
Slivovice... plum brandy. Somewhere along the way, though, the 50% alcohol level ran over any remnant of plum flavour and left it writhing on the road side somewhere in Moravia. This is no sipping drink, but something to get wrecked on quicker than Charlotte Church on Holy Wine. Equally suited for de-greasing car parts.
