Forever Paisley

Like I said before Prague is just drop dead gorgeous!! We met up with Stephanie here two days ago so our tag team has turned into a group of three. There are tourists everywhere which kind of ruins the authenticity, but it is a bit of a relief to hear the English language every so often. The homeless people here dont show their faces, rather they kneel face down with a cup out for money. I am guessing that this is out of shame, a very sad sight. We also saw an older man selling postcards get written up by the police for selling without a license. Poor guy, we went over and bought a few postcards from him attempting to make up for it.

The first night we got here we did a little bit of walking around and then headed out for the evening. The bars here dont close so it is really difficult to keep track of time. 5AM proved to be our limit. We met a group of Irish men while we were out. Stacey impressed them with the comment – You are from Ireland, wow you speak really good English – How was she supposed to know that Ireland was under British rule for a large segment of history. Ahhh … Americans. One of them, Martin, grew up right on the border of N. Ireland. We disussed the politics of the torn country which led into war in general and then to the practices of the Americans. I shared a few thoughts and soaked up everything he had to say – very educational bar experience! The anti-American sentiment here is everywhere. Anti-Bush graffiti covers the streets, phone booths, and mouths of European residents. It is hard to feel so disrespected, however at the same time I have really enjoyed discussing the topic with others and getting a more worldly point of view. I could go on forever with stories and viewpoints but if you really want to hear about it you can purchase my book entitled Cherrettie-isms at any Barnes and Noble bookstore!

Yesterday we took a little hike to the Prague Castle which had an amazing view of the city. We also did a little bit of shopping – a cultural experience of course. The bohemian style of things in the gift shops reminds me a lot of the Norwiegen collections of my mother and grandmothers. Oh heritage. After some touring of the city we went out for dinner – I had my regular mozzerella and tomato salad out of fear that they are going to slip in beef everywhere else on the menu. Our cultural excursion last night was a Marionette show. The Opera was Don Giovanni, which was written by Mozart in Prague. The opera ended kind of abruptly with a ghostly scene and since it was all in Italian we are still not sure what happened. I will have to look that up.

As the sun went down we went out again until the sun came up. We met up with some guys at our hostel who studied at Duke and went to a club that was five stories high. There was a lot of tourists there so it was fun. Seeing that the sun was already up when we got home I opted not to sleep and am regretting that right now!! We are taking a night train to Munich so I should be able to get some rest. Today was pretty relaxing we went to the newer part of Prague and ate lunch by ther river. Stephanies train leaves at 5PM so we are walking her there and then we are off to the plaza to watch the World Cup on plasma screen.

Tonight we are off to Munich to embark in the World Cup celebrations. Speak to you soon!!!

Cherrettie

P.S. I put some more pictures up so scroll down to see them all!!