Sunday, February 06, 2005

Week One

We've visited some of the touristy sites and decided the Chequepoint city map of Prague has the best guide to the Metro/tram/bus routes, but another map is needed for tourist spot locations.
The girls visited Prague Castle (Prazsky hrad) catching a tram to Prazsky hrad stop at the top of the hill rather than walk the steps up from Malostranska Metro station. They watched the changing of the guards, walked the snow filled gardens and stood in awe of the majestic St Vitus Cathedral with its gargoyles spurting water from the constant dribble of rain that day. Inside and out the Cathedral is spectacular with mosaics, frescoes, carvings and statues.

The girls visited the Museum Hracek, a toy museum, with European and American toys made between 100-150 years ago. Included lots of tin toys, teddies, dolls/houses, trains and a Barbie doll collection(from the 50's to Spice Girls, including designer collections complete with Barbies' in real mink coats and diamond earrings). It took over an hour to get through it all.

Spent Saturday at the Ikea superstore organising furniture for our new flat. Absolutely no English on any of the items. I know the word for Bed (Postele), so how hard could it be, right! Wrong, try this out - Pruzinove Matraces Ramen. This is part of a bed, a spring mattress frame that a mattress sits on, then they have a mattress that goes over that or a potah (cover), plus legs. No one on the floor seemed to speak English - but we now know that if an employee has an English flag on their badge they speak a little English.

Sunny, freezing Sunday. Our daily 7am wake up bells didn't ring til 8:45. Yes, Monday to Saturday at 7am church bells ring for 5 minutes. We were off early to Old Town Square(Staromestske Namesti), visited the astronomical clock, found the Anagram bookshop in Tyn to buy a Czech dictionary - now I can read the Ikea catalogue! Finished the day off at Obecni Dum http://www.obecni-dum.cz tea and apple struddle with Claudia and Ziggy(Claudia's husband, not our cat who is staying at grandmas).

2 Comments:

Blogger Portmans said...

Mcdonald's looks and tastes the same, complete with Big Macs and Happy Meals(same toys - the Incredibles at the moment). There is an economic monitor called the Mac Index based on prices of BigMacs all around the world. Companies like Unilever seriously use this as a monitor for prices. I think the happy meal was 59CZK about $3.30AUD.Straws and serviettes are kept with the cashier.

1:58 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

JenDen:
Obecni Dum is a little more plush than the local here at Rubys! So what's your local McDonalds look like?:-)

Still having 30degree sunny days, beach was like a big pool yesterday and crystal clear. Glad to hear you're already out and about soaking up that culture - no majestic gargoyles around here unless you count Jen at the end of humid day with Byron living up to the witching hour.

2:09 pm  

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