Castles and Craziness!!!

We made it onto the continent proper! And started the day off with a wonderful castle tour. I've decided that I'm going to build myself a castle in Boulder next year. If any of you see any big rocks, save them for me.

Andy and Tina probably told you all about that (they took long enough in that internet cafe to transcribe the entire tourbook) but since the tourist traps have closed, we were forced to diversify. Andy's friend Erin suggested climbing a tower on the Charles bridge, WOW! I hope to upload some pictures soon but, in your mind's eye, imagine an ornate bridge leading off to a grassy hill and a tower with a gothic cathedral rising above the outer walls, at sunset, complete with reflections on the river. We spent a while just enjoying the scenery and then hopped down to try and catch a classical music concert. We found out that the concerts are cheesy, relatively expensive, and short, so we passed and decided to walk along the river instead. On our way to the hostel, we were sidetracked by a bug-infested island with an amazing playground. There was a cool little spinny chair that, between Andy's mastery of conservation of angular momentum and Tina's high pitched screams, was incredibly entertaining. The toys meant for 4-year-olds distracted us so long that we realized it was already 10:00 when we had finished, clearly time to hit the bars.

Andy wanted to go to a restaurant/bar that his friend Tom told him about. For those of you that know me, I was initially somewhat reluctant to go to a bar, however, once we got there, the wall said that the bar was established in 1499, and then, after we walked in, we found there was loud drunken singing from a sideroom. Tina, as brave/courageous/clueless as ever, ignored the "Reserve" sign on the door and walked in, and was immediately greeted with a roaring cheer. After telling them she was from California, and getting another even louder cheer, Andy and I exchanged looks, and rushed in to join. I was sold.

Apparently in the Czech Republic, it is considered improper for a customer to spend more than 2.7 seconds without a beer in front of him/her, so we were immediately supplied with a pure black foamy concoction, that, despite my dislike of beer, was actually pretty good. Even Tina managed to eventually get hers down within an hour or so. Having tolerable beer was not the highlight, however. The adjacent table had 4 crazy brazilians who were working with two musicians to keep the room singing. The entire room clapped sang along with "Oh When the Saints..." and various Spanish songs (my personal favorite was "de colores", Papa, you should have been there). Even the elderly couple in the corner was enjoying the show (more than the kids it seemed) and the lady even got up to dance. The kids across from us were clapping along while Andy and I were trying to find a song that the spaniards next to us would also know. Eventually all we could get was "Hakuna Matata", although those were the only two words we shared (the spanish version was fun too though). After getting pulled into a few pictures was some other fancily dressed spanish speaking types, we finally got out (at 11:00) me having my first (and possibly only) good bar experience. The key is minimal alcohol and lots of singing foreigners. Thank you Tom for the wonderful suggestion! I will try to post a video as soon as I can.

Everyone here is fun, friendly, and speaking crazy languages all over the place. After we got back, I decided to head back to find an internet cafe when I ran into 11 mexicans looking for a discotec I remembered passing earlier in the day. I took them to where I could give them directions and in travel learned that there was free internet at this club they were going to. I cheered, tagged along, and, having 5 or 6 scantily clad mexican women with me, made friends with the doorman who let me sneak into the internet cafe section without paying the cover. Also, the discotec is not just a loud, obnoxious dance floor with poor lighting and no chance to talk, it was FIVE FLOORS of the previously-mentioned benefits. I hope I don't get dragged to floors 2-6 of this building. In summary: it has been an exciting and fun first day, full of cultural, historical, and any other types of experiences one would want from a european tour. If the remaining 20 days are like this one though, I am going to be exhausted by the end of it. Ethan out!