European Vacation Part Four: Prague 1
After hearing about a thousand times how Prague was this amazing pristine ancient city untouched by all the wars, yada yada yada, I became convinced that I had to go there. So that became the third destination on my whirlwind trip.
Thus after an uneventful train ride back to Paris from Amsterdam, followed by another lovely but expensive day in the City of Lights, Rachel and I boarded a swissair flight to the Czech Republic, with a quick stopover in Zurich.
It must be said here that, unlike on the typical American-based flights I've taken where they come around once with a measly little bag of pretzels, on swissair flights they bring you chocolate bars every five minutes and you can grab as many as you want. Therefore swissair can have a link from my blog any day of the week. They freekin' ROCK.
Anyway, at first I was a little peeved that we had to spend a few wasted hours at the Zurich airport waiting for a connecting flight, but I'd never been to Switzerland before, and the scenery out the airplane window was worth the layover. The Alps and then the lush green rolling hills, followed by an impeccably clean city -- what a beautiful place. I don't know much about the Swiss, but their chocolate and their cheese are pretty damn good, and those Swiss army knives are a thing of beauty I remember from my boyhood. The cuckoo clock thing aside, I can't say one goddamned bad thing about Switzerland. OK, well, there's that little unresolved matter about collaborating with the Nazis when they were supposed to be neutral and all that, but why let the horrors of history spoil my little reverie, eh? After all, I don't wax so euphorically positive very often; why not enjoy it?
While waiting at the gate for our connecting flight, I found myself bemused by the arrival of a very large man in full cowboy regalia. He wore a gigantic cowboy hat, a western-style pale orange gabardine shirt, a silver cow-skull bolo tie, Wrangler jeans, a ridiculously oversized and overdecorated oval belt buckle, and of course, cowboy boots. Everything but a pair of sixguns. To reiterate, we were in Zurich, Switzerland. In the airport.
The man approached the check-in counter, and I heard him say, in a deep, rumbling, throaty twang, that he was from Texas.
Well, of course he was from Texas. Duh. I could have guessed that; from where else could he possibly be? But the absurdity of it all was just too much; when one encounters such a walking stereotype, such a hollywood-perfect, over-the-top insipid cliche, one cannot help but be awed by the perfection with which nature provides food for the comedians of the ecosystem.
I mean, is it really necessary, Hoss, to dress up like the Lone Fucking Ranger wherever you go? Isn't it bad enough that you wear your ridiculous little outfit to drive your Ford Expedition with factory-installed gun rack around the Dallas suburbs? Do you really have to embarrass normal-looking Americans in airports the world over with your inner five-year-old's Western fantasy ensemble?
Luckily there was also a statuesque Teutonic blonde in a mini-skirt and gogo boots to look at. Rachel was convinced that the woman was a hooker, but I insisted that she was probably another Cheese Rep, handing out free samples of poisonous cheese (see Part Three).
The flight to Prague was quick and easy, aside from the extra-chunky American woman who spoke quite loudly to her equally-chunky child the whole trip. Hey; at least the kid wasn't screaming.
Hopped on a bus from the airport to the Prague metro (along the way, horrified and fascinated by the proliferation of American gas stations and fast-food joints lining the roadway), took the metro a few stops and from there took a tram into the center of town; then began to search for our hotel. Wandered aimlessly for awhile, and then suddenly some guy walked up to us and said, 'Hey, is your name Rachel?'
This, as one might assume, freaked Rachel out a bit. But, as we quickly discovered, the guy's name is Chris, and he works for the hotel we were looking for. How he found us at that exact moment in a sea of wandering tourists when we hadn't even called to announce our arrival, we may never know. It was like something out of Harry Potter. But anyway, he proceeded to lead us to where we needed to go. Luck be a lady tonight.
Aside from having to climb about eighty flights of stairs and unlock several different doors, our hotel room was decent; and certainly a LOT cheaper than the one in Amsterdam had been. Had to share a communal bathroom and shower, which was annoying, but still better than many of my travel experiences, let me tell ya. We were both eager to drop off our stuff and get to exploring this medieval city, eat some local food and drink some ridiculously cheap beer.
The guidebook said that the best way to get started in Prague was to take one of the trams, which wound around most of the more picturesque sights and would help us get the lay of the land, so to speak. So we climbed aboard Tram 22 and sat down, filled with anticipation. The tram took us over one of the many ancient bridges and past some extraordinary buildings from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries; then the architecture started getting newer. Seventeenth century. Eighteenth. Nineteenth, with more and more graffiti marring the charm (ugh -- graffiti on historic buildings; don't these little Czech gangsta-wannabe bastards have any self-respect?). Oy. Soon we were getting a glimpse of Communist-Era Prague, outside the old city. Cinderblock buildings, mostly cheap utilitarian housing. Concrete everywhere; no trees anywhere. Graffiti -- and not even the artistic kind -- covering everything. It got uglier and uglier, until just one word came to mind: Bleak. Like the nastiest parts of Detroit. Just Bleak.
We came to the end of the line. We were all alone on the tram. All around us was post-Communist Bleakness. It was kinda scary. And it was the end, where the trams turn around and go back, so we had to get off and get back on. We decided to go back on a different tram. That turned out not to be the brightest of decisions.
Yes, Prague is beautiful. Old Prague, that is. But outside of the old city center, I'm sorry to say, it's ugly as hell. Did I say Detroit? It's uglier than Detroit. It's ugly in the way only a former Soviet satellite can be. It's Chernobyl-fucking-ugly. And there's a lot of it. The second tram took us in a completely different direction, deep into Bleakville, as we affectionately named it. We kept our fingers crossed that at some point things would start to get all pretty and charming again, and we could get off the tram without thinking we would encounter any depleted uranium or old friends of Stalin.
Eventually the architecture started to get interesting again, so we took a chance and hopped off the tram. After walking a bit, we managed to make it back to the Prague of the postcards and calendars and snowglobes. I doubt that Bleakville will be showing up on any postcards anytime soon...
To be continued...
* * *
Thus after an uneventful train ride back to Paris from Amsterdam, followed by another lovely but expensive day in the City of Lights, Rachel and I boarded a swissair flight to the Czech Republic, with a quick stopover in Zurich.
It must be said here that, unlike on the typical American-based flights I've taken where they come around once with a measly little bag of pretzels, on swissair flights they bring you chocolate bars every five minutes and you can grab as many as you want. Therefore swissair can have a link from my blog any day of the week. They freekin' ROCK.
Anyway, at first I was a little peeved that we had to spend a few wasted hours at the Zurich airport waiting for a connecting flight, but I'd never been to Switzerland before, and the scenery out the airplane window was worth the layover. The Alps and then the lush green rolling hills, followed by an impeccably clean city -- what a beautiful place. I don't know much about the Swiss, but their chocolate and their cheese are pretty damn good, and those Swiss army knives are a thing of beauty I remember from my boyhood. The cuckoo clock thing aside, I can't say one goddamned bad thing about Switzerland. OK, well, there's that little unresolved matter about collaborating with the Nazis when they were supposed to be neutral and all that, but why let the horrors of history spoil my little reverie, eh? After all, I don't wax so euphorically positive very often; why not enjoy it?
While waiting at the gate for our connecting flight, I found myself bemused by the arrival of a very large man in full cowboy regalia. He wore a gigantic cowboy hat, a western-style pale orange gabardine shirt, a silver cow-skull bolo tie, Wrangler jeans, a ridiculously oversized and overdecorated oval belt buckle, and of course, cowboy boots. Everything but a pair of sixguns. To reiterate, we were in Zurich, Switzerland. In the airport.
The man approached the check-in counter, and I heard him say, in a deep, rumbling, throaty twang, that he was from Texas.
Well, of course he was from Texas. Duh. I could have guessed that; from where else could he possibly be? But the absurdity of it all was just too much; when one encounters such a walking stereotype, such a hollywood-perfect, over-the-top insipid cliche, one cannot help but be awed by the perfection with which nature provides food for the comedians of the ecosystem.
I mean, is it really necessary, Hoss, to dress up like the Lone Fucking Ranger wherever you go? Isn't it bad enough that you wear your ridiculous little outfit to drive your Ford Expedition with factory-installed gun rack around the Dallas suburbs? Do you really have to embarrass normal-looking Americans in airports the world over with your inner five-year-old's Western fantasy ensemble?
Luckily there was also a statuesque Teutonic blonde in a mini-skirt and gogo boots to look at. Rachel was convinced that the woman was a hooker, but I insisted that she was probably another Cheese Rep, handing out free samples of poisonous cheese (see Part Three).
The flight to Prague was quick and easy, aside from the extra-chunky American woman who spoke quite loudly to her equally-chunky child the whole trip. Hey; at least the kid wasn't screaming.
Hopped on a bus from the airport to the Prague metro (along the way, horrified and fascinated by the proliferation of American gas stations and fast-food joints lining the roadway), took the metro a few stops and from there took a tram into the center of town; then began to search for our hotel. Wandered aimlessly for awhile, and then suddenly some guy walked up to us and said, 'Hey, is your name Rachel?'
This, as one might assume, freaked Rachel out a bit. But, as we quickly discovered, the guy's name is Chris, and he works for the hotel we were looking for. How he found us at that exact moment in a sea of wandering tourists when we hadn't even called to announce our arrival, we may never know. It was like something out of Harry Potter. But anyway, he proceeded to lead us to where we needed to go. Luck be a lady tonight.
Aside from having to climb about eighty flights of stairs and unlock several different doors, our hotel room was decent; and certainly a LOT cheaper than the one in Amsterdam had been. Had to share a communal bathroom and shower, which was annoying, but still better than many of my travel experiences, let me tell ya. We were both eager to drop off our stuff and get to exploring this medieval city, eat some local food and drink some ridiculously cheap beer.
The guidebook said that the best way to get started in Prague was to take one of the trams, which wound around most of the more picturesque sights and would help us get the lay of the land, so to speak. So we climbed aboard Tram 22 and sat down, filled with anticipation. The tram took us over one of the many ancient bridges and past some extraordinary buildings from the eleventh through the sixteenth centuries; then the architecture started getting newer. Seventeenth century. Eighteenth. Nineteenth, with more and more graffiti marring the charm (ugh -- graffiti on historic buildings; don't these little Czech gangsta-wannabe bastards have any self-respect?). Oy. Soon we were getting a glimpse of Communist-Era Prague, outside the old city. Cinderblock buildings, mostly cheap utilitarian housing. Concrete everywhere; no trees anywhere. Graffiti -- and not even the artistic kind -- covering everything. It got uglier and uglier, until just one word came to mind: Bleak. Like the nastiest parts of Detroit. Just Bleak.
We came to the end of the line. We were all alone on the tram. All around us was post-Communist Bleakness. It was kinda scary. And it was the end, where the trams turn around and go back, so we had to get off and get back on. We decided to go back on a different tram. That turned out not to be the brightest of decisions.
Yes, Prague is beautiful. Old Prague, that is. But outside of the old city center, I'm sorry to say, it's ugly as hell. Did I say Detroit? It's uglier than Detroit. It's ugly in the way only a former Soviet satellite can be. It's Chernobyl-fucking-ugly. And there's a lot of it. The second tram took us in a completely different direction, deep into Bleakville, as we affectionately named it. We kept our fingers crossed that at some point things would start to get all pretty and charming again, and we could get off the tram without thinking we would encounter any depleted uranium or old friends of Stalin.
Eventually the architecture started to get interesting again, so we took a chance and hopped off the tram. After walking a bit, we managed to make it back to the Prague of the postcards and calendars and snowglobes. I doubt that Bleakville will be showing up on any postcards anytime soon...
To be continued...
* * *
posted by brioSphere at 11:02 PM
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