Long Live Spain! Goodbye Prague!

Well, we all knew this day would come. The whirlwind tour of Prague has finally come to an end. Tomorrow we leave this life of failing to speak Czech and continue our sojourn in Rome, yes, THE Rome. However, as far as last days go, yes, there were tears, there was sadness, but it was by all accounts an excellent way to end.

We had a nice siesta this afternoon, after seeing the church of Saint Nicholas (which was absolutely awe-inspiring) and wandering about in "Little Quarter". After waking up, we determined that Czech food met it's reputation (it doesn't have one as far as we know) and that we were done with overpriced cafe's catering to tourists, so we went to Subway. In a strange twist of fate, this turned out to be one of the most authentic cultural experiences we have had. The guy who made our sandwiches, Patrick, was very friendly and we started talking. He and his friend, Milos (that s should have a v above it, but I still haven't figured out these Czech keyboards) gave us a few suggestions on places to go. It's always best to have a local connection so we went off to the main square, and followed his direction for a measly few blocks when we were in what appeared to be a deserted alley, complete with graffiti and broken signs. All the doors were closed and we didn't see any signs, but we kept walking, finally found a door at the end of the alley that would open, and stepped into a huge, 3 story pool/billiards/ping pong/bowling/foosball hall. It was clean, nice, cheap ($5 got us an hour of pool on the nice tables and a Fanta) and we didn't hear a word of english from anyone in there. It was great.

After we'd had our fun and returned to the hostel, Andy and I decided to take one more trip into the city. Initially disappointed because the place we wanted to check out was out of business and the trams were too hard to use (some ticket system, we couldn't find a ticket) we found ourselves on the Charles bridge once again. We were walking next to some Spaniards in musician garb and instruments, and thought they might be the same ones we saw at that bar the other night. I asked them if they were (I forget the vosotros tense, so they responded in English) and they said "no, but we know them! They are our friends!" It seems that everyone from Spain was their friends, if there's one thing we learned about a foreign culture, it was that the Spanish are friendly and awesome. They were some sort of traveling musical fraternity and one of them, Alamo, chatted with us for a while about Spanish films, American films with Spanish actors, American films regardless of Spanish connections, and the resemblance of his name to the place in Texas. As we talked, we were walking, and somehow we ended up in old town square when 5 Spanish girls came running up and demanded that they play something. Alamo apologized and asked permission to play, which we readily gave! They started a series of Spanish songs (including "Guantanamera", my favorite) and attracted a huge crowd. Several tourists started dancing in the front and the whole group joined in on the chorus (including Andy, he got "Guajira Guantanamera" down pat!). And there was much rejoicing. It was the greatest impromptu late night concert ever! If there's a way, I'll try to post a video online.

In respect to Alamo, who asked why we did not bond with other Americans as he did with his fellow Spanish, we met some girls from UCSD who were very nice, including Molly the future large-animal vet. After the concert Alamo invited us to go to a bar with the group, but we declined in order to get our 8 hours of sleep before Rome.

The others are sleeping, but I will toil on to bring the latest stories to you loyal readers. Prague was excellent, and it was just our "practice city". We are extremely excited about the remainder of this trip. Dobre den to all of you (It means good day in Czech)!