Coupon Cutter

It's official, I have become a cheap bastard.  I know I have been told not to stress about money, I will be "taken care of".  But I don't take this as an invitation to live the high life without a care, I take this as "I don't have to actually starve myself".  Toward the end of last week I had 28 bucks in my wallet and by darn I was going to make it last until pay day - Tuesday.  I began by spending Friday night with Josephine and Christine. I headed to their place after I had already eaten my lovely dinner of steamed veg, and crackers with cheese and apple slices, yum yum.  We stayed in and watched a movie, actually the most depressing movie ever, House of Sand and Fog.

Saturday, Josephine and I had gotten crazy reduced tickets to the Real Food Festival, about 5 bucks. We figured it would be good for some free samples (like the fair we went to around Christmas time) and boy were we right! As we walked in we got a free canvas shopping bag, good start. Into this bag we placed 2 single servings of cereal that were handed to us - hello school lunch! Next we wandered up and down each and every row sampling cheese, chocolate, brownies, carrot cake, cheese cake, bread, honey, wine, wine, wine! Answer a few questions about organic food and get a free bottle of juice? Count me in. After we had seen all of the stalls I told Jo we should get some more cereal/granola - I was quite excited to have this for my lunch. She says "Won't they recognize us". Well, it's been a couple hours and probably a few hundred people have passed by them, I'm going to take my chances!

Bestest Buds <3 (in Edinburgh)

Sunday, we set out to a coffee and tea festival - you guessed it, free admission! It was actually not quite what we were expecting, but we still got a few free samples of chocolate coffee beans, iced teas and hot teas and some chocolate.  We walked around along Southbank for awhile then relaxed in Jubilee Gardens waiting for a cooking/comedy show that I had gotten us tickets to... for FREE! The cook/comedian was Hardeep Singh Kohli and basically he interviews some local chefs, restauranteurs, musicians, all whilst cooking up a spicy curry. At the end of the show they pass some out in true tv style. And Jo and I didn't get any! Not acceptable, so I take my time getting my sweater on and see a bunch of rowdies run up to the front and start dishing out their own. Again: I'm in!  Up we go as the set director is starting to stress over the people helping themselves so she starts to dish some out and I grab my chance, boy is it delicious! Too spicy for Josephine, but I am not passing up a free meal after a free show!
Next we head to meet up with some friends at a pub since one of our kind is heading back to the homeland. We buy a drink and it costs almost 5 bucks?! Too rich for my blood so I make it last over and hour. I grab my groceries for the week, which come to just under 10 bucks and am still doing good with my self imposed budget.
Payday came, though it was rather small, but it was enough to book my flight for our next term break which is only 2.5 weeks away. I will be heading to Poland for a few days to explore the city of Krakow. Can't wait.

More Praha

Making the treats

Sunday morning we we served another lovely breakfast. European breakfast commonly consists of different breads, cheese, slices of meat, some fresh veg.  Jarmila also got some more traditional things which Jen was a little more daring to try some than I was. These were liver pate, smoked canned mackerel and caviar. After breaky we went into the city again, hoping that the clouds that were around this morning would burn off later in the day.

yum!

We explored the stalls of the Easter markets some more.  Many had little flying witches in celebration of witches night. This seems innocent enough, except that every ten seconds or so a stall owner, or annoying tourist, claps their hands and all of the witches start cackling in unison. We also stopped in the markets for a snack which we have been seeing around the entire trip: Trdlo. It is a sort of sweet bread baked wrapped around a stick so you end up with almost a hollow cinnamon bun. The bread is then rolled in sugar and almond bits. It was quite tasty.

Heading to metronome at the top of the hill

To work this off, we decided to climb up to the giant metronome on the hill and take in another view of the city. This metronome was built in the location where a giant statue of Stalin once stood. It is functioning as represents a remembrance for things past.

As we made our way up the sun came out and we had a beautiful day. The views from the top were fantastic looking out toward to river.  We walked from there over to the castle once again, since they day before it clouded over in the afternoon, so we wanted to see the views from that side in the sunshine as well. Along the way we found some beautiful gardens full of blooming tulips and other flowers.




 

Prague castle in the background

We eventually made our way back to the old city across the packed Charles Bridge where we found ourselves some gelato, then went back to the patio bar for a cool drink by the river.  Once again there was some live music for entertainment. Prague sure does love the oldies! Everywhere we went they were playing oldies, which we found quite amusing. At one point the guy on the patio even started sing Mellow Yellow!

Think he'd trade me jobs?

Finally it was getting towards dinner time and we had told Jarmila we wanted to take her out for a thank you dinner. She had said she would call her brother who has his own restaurant and see if we could come.  When we met her she told us that she had talked to him and gotten it all set up, but then he had called back a short time later and turns out he had forgotten one small detail - his restaurant was closed that day! So she took us to a little restaurant right near her place instead. It was a lovely dinner. Jen got the fish and said it was delicious despite coming with the head and tail still on! I got chicken breast baked with pears and goat cheese and it was scrumptious. Jarmila's brother met up with us at the restaurant for a glass of wine and we very much enjoyed listening to their stories of growing up and their cottage on a lake in Sweden where they trained squirrels. They also liked sharing their memories of long ago visits to Canada.
We were in bed early that night and left in the morning for the airport to make our way back to London. We had a long lay over in Cologne which made it a rather drawn out day, but what an amazing trip.
Glad I get to put Prague on my visited list.

Easter eggs at the market

Market stalls and horse carriage rides

Prague, the Golden City

After two weeks off we were "back to work" Tuesday after Easter... Most primary schools had an inset day (Pro-D) and teachers had 2 weeks to recuperate, so we weren't too hopeful for work.  To top this off one of the the two bank holidays per year in this country is the first Monday in May AND add to that the Royals decided to get married on a Friday, and heck let's make that a holiday too, all means that there were very few working days in April and Michelle is VERY poor :(  But it also means lots of time to travel and spend this money that I do not have.

All this said, Friday morning I kept with the recent pattern and was up just after 4 am, way to early for my liking. I jumped a few buses, scoffed at the Wedding enthusiasts who were also up at this unnatural hour, and met Jen at the train station to head for our 8 am flight from Stansted airport to Prague via Cologne.

We arrived in Prague around lunch time and caught a taxi to Jarmila's house. How do I know someone in Prague? Well, about 20 years ago I was camping in the Okanagan with my parents and a lady from Czechoslovakia (yes, even before it became the Czech Republic) and her friend were camping next to us. On the weekend they locked their keys inside their car.  Apparently BCAA was non existent at this time because they were unable to get their car unlocked until Monday. So we invited them to our campsite for some food, and in good Canadian style eventually told them to come on over to the island to stay with us and see the sights. Which they did. And twenty years later, Jarmila, who was studying to be a journalist at the time (a ruse my Dad actually used to take them into the bush to work with him!), tracked down Dad on good ol' facebook! When I told my Dad I was heading to the Czech republic, he told me to send her an email. I did, and she graciously asked if I would like to stay with her, along with Jen who I was travelling with. We were very excited at this news for many reasons: we had not yet booked anywhere to stay, we were both feeling very poor, it is awesome to have insider tips when visiting a new place, and who wants to spend a night reading hostel reviews to get one that is affordable without being a risk to health and safety.

Some Easter Markets

Back to Friday. We grab a taxi from the airport and arrive at Jarmila's. She is there to greet us and she has made us lunch! We are happy travellers.  After lunch we head in to the city and Jarmila points us in a few directions, but by this time the 4 am wake up is making our brains foggy so we end up wandering aimlessly around the city in awe of our surroundings.

We walk through the Easter stalls where a man calls out "Hi Angel" then squirts at us with a water gun - not my idea of a great way to entice customers.  Another man looks at me and says something in a language I definitely do not speak and seems to offer me a bite of his falafel? I will pass, but thank you. The sun is still shining so we find a little terrace with live music down by the Vltava River for a nice drink.  Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita than any country in the world, when in Rome...


We continue our sightseeing and make our way across Charles Bridge, a beautiful and extremely busy bridge over towards the castle side of town. Getting hungry we stop for dinner on a patio after reading about some delicious pizzas on the menu.  But we are told that the pizza is only sold downstairs in the restaurant. So we make our way downstairs into a psychedelic cave painted in many different neon colors with paintings of dragons and unicorns and topless faeries on the walls. Interesting ambiance, but the pizza was devine.





Saturday when we woke up Jen turns to me and says, "Sorry, did you hear my phone ring last night?"  "Nope, did you hear my alarm go off just after 4?"  "Nope." - Guess we make good room mates. We were served an amazing breakfast by Jarmila before we went into town for the free walking tour. The tour started at the gastronomic clock right in front of city hall. We were told that every hour on the hour the clock comes to life and someone gets married at city hall.  We laughed at first, but then started to believe this story as we saw no fewer than five brides that day.

Our tour guide was a girl from Texas, making for a lively and entertaining tour of the city - called the golden city because they used to store the city's gold on the roof of the castle, the castle largest in area in the world (though they all seem the same to me: big).
 

The last day of April is also Witches Night in Prague, a combination of Halloween and bonfire night. We had to check this out. Legend has it they used to burn the witches brooms, or light big bonfires to show the witches flying in the air, but what fun is that? Let's BURN THE WITCH!

Burn the Witch!!

Families crowded the park that we went to, kids and adults were dressed up. Some ladies dressed as witches sang for awhile. The songs seemes to be traditional as many locals were singing along. Then came the fun as a witch effigy was toted around the crowd and others dressed as witches and henchmen danced around. Finally she was paraded over to a big stack of wood where she was set alight. It was a very exciting, and slightly confusing ritual. While the witches seemes to enjoy random cackels, I took to randomly shouting: Burn the witch! Which brought strange looks from some, and chuckles by fellow tourists who spoke English. On the way home we stopped for some dessert then made our way home just as the thunder and lightening started. Of course the skies opened to the rain right before we got off the bus. Luckily it is a very short walk, but we were still soaked by the time we walked through the door.

Welcome to Prague, we are really starting to like this place!