Priyatam Mudivarti

Oct 1, 9:45 pm : Reached the sta­tion. Trains were dirty, so was the plat­form. Peo­ple looked “dif­fer­ent”. Czech, athough in EU, doesn’t accept Euros, had to change the cur­rency into Kro­nos. I got to my hos­tel — Czech Inn, per­haps the best look­ing hos­tel I’ve ever been. I got into my room, the only other room­mate at that time was a girl from Brazil. “Do you want to go club­bing, ” she asked. I remem­ber watch­ing the movie, Hos­tel, where 3 amer­i­can back­pack­ers check into a east­ern euro­pean hos­tel, get “invited” by ultra hot look­ing chicks to a night­club and soon, they see their body parts being cut by a butcher, who prefers human flesh to ani­mals. I looked at my watch, it said “10:55pm,” the hos­tel looked pretty and she was from Brazil. “Are you com­ing?” she asked again.

Before I real­ized, we were out in search of that club that one of her friends rec­om­mended. “Are you sure, there is a club by that name?” I asked look­ing at the nar­row and dark alleys. “It sure is some­where here,” she said. I had no gun or knife and I had no God with me either. My momma used to tell me, “You should pray to God, he’ll help you when you fear.” We couldn’t find the club, but we found a few bars where we spent some­time. I felt lighter after hav­ing the local beer, Pil­sner; beer in Prague: 1.65$.

Oct 2: I woke up, counted my fin­gers, my arms and legs. It was all in shape. Thank God, this is not Hos­tel — part III. We decided to travel together. We took the bus on Route# 22 which goes all across the major views in the city, all the way to Prague Cas­tle, our first des­ti­na­tion. It’s the best exam­ple of Gothic archi­tec­ture, make sure you have atleast 4 – 5 hrs allo­cated. We checked out the lobkowicz-palace, one of the finest art-history muse­ums in Prague. Beethoven’s orig­i­nal sym­phony no 5 notes is pre­served here. After sev­eral hrs tour­ing around the cas­tle and muse­ums, we walked down the bridge, over­look­ing breath­tak­ing views of the city from the hill. then came across — Rudolfinum, home of the leg­endary Czech Phi­lar­monic Orches­tra. I couldn’t tell you how happy I was, like a lit­tle boy, when we got tick­ets for Fri­day night show. It was a live per­for­mance show (Bach). We walked on the Charles Bridge, watch­ing sun­set drop and hun­dreds of tourists tak­ing roman­tic pic­tures. Tiny roads hug­ging the archi­tec­tural won­der, it was almost as if every build­ing had “fine art” writ­ten on it. The most beau­ti­ful city, I’ve ever seen, in terms of archi­tec­tural splendor.The night ended with a an Ital­ian opera/puppet show. It was ok, I think I slept for ten minutes.

Came to the hos­tel at 10pm, I browsed for a while before I crashed.

Oct 3: Got up in the morn­ing, our first des­ti­na­tion was to cover the many sites of Josefov, the Jew­ish quar­ter of Prague which has such rich his­tory. 6 syn­a­gogues and muse­ums, it was a time well worth spent, a must visit in Prague. After spend­ing sev­eral hours, we headed to the his­toric square called, “Old Town Square.” The eter­nally com­i­cal “Astro­nom­i­cal Clock” had hun­dreds of spec­ta­tors. After a late lunch around town, we for­got where we walked, but we did walk a *lot.* Prague is quite a small city. Late evening, all roads led to Rudolfinum — live, Czech Phil­har­monic Orches­tra. We looked at every­one — the ladies in ele­gant dresses, the men in suits and blaz­ers. I looked at mysel — a Torn Jeans and sweat shirt with a cam­era back­pack. I looked at my new friend from Brazil, she was no excep­tion. The two hour show was mag­nif­i­cent. We walked back to the hos­tel, walk­ing again through the Old Town Square for a quick din­ner. This time around, it looked even more beau­ti­ful, with the lights on.

Oct 4: We decided to go sep­a­rate tracks, I booked for a day trip (which would start at noon) to rural Prague, Kutna Hora (Unesco site). Mean­while, I used my feet to the best. First, it was the shop­ping dis­trict, then to the “Pow­der Tower,” from the top of which I got some breath­tak­ing views. By noon, I boarded the minibus, we were out of Prague in 30 min­utes. With a multi-lingual guide and eight Russ­ian tourists, my patience was being tested. Were they loud? We came to a lit­tle town, itself looked dead, being a Sun­day. When I asked the guide, he said, “Peo­ple enjoy time with fam­i­lies dur­ing week­ends, not out­side.” One of the churches I saw was some­thing extra­or­di­nar­ily unique — An ossuary in Kutna Hora, a church made of 4500 bones and skulls. Next stop was Mint Palace & Museum, where they made coins out of bronze until 18^th cen­tury. Nice. The last stop was a bronze church or some­thing like that, I still don’t remem­ber the name. But it was one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing Gothic archi­tec­tures I’ve ever seen. Spent two hours inside the church, they played organ music, sup­posed to be one of the best com­po­si­tions in the world. The sound was per­fect, I looked around for speak­ers, couldn’t find any. I looked close in the pillars — “Bose.”

I still had a night to spend; with­out fur­ther wait, I booked a ticket at the National The­ater of Opera/Ballet. It was Romeo-Juliet. Yawn. But I liked the women, and the ambi­ence. Did I say, I czech women are cute?

Hit­ting the sack, for the last in Prague/Czech. Defin­tely one of the best places I’ve seen. Off to Oktoberfest!

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