The First Day in Prague

It wasn't meant to be the usual smutty long weekend. Well, for me it wasn't. It was meant to be cultural, meaningful and romantic...

It was, on the whole. We were hindered slightly from anything else; the ‘Sex Machine Museum’ was 270 Czech Crowns (£10!) so I had to choose between Bavarian roast duckling with cabbage and dumplings later that night or watching a mannequin slapped and tickled by half a dozen dildos on the end of a rotating wheel. I think I made the right choice, especially as the alternative museum was the 'Chocolate Factory', complete with historical section, demonstration and tasting and truth be told, I'd rather embrace my inner fat kid than kindle my seventeenth century perve any day.

When we arrived in the city, after a shockingly smooth navigation from a plane to a bus to a train which made me rather proud, I was suddenly aware that we had three full days in Prague and that it isn't a very big place. I'd visited during the hazy days of last summer and was pretty sure I did everything, a bus full of Australians not included. So when we found Wenceslas Square, (which is a strip, not a square, by the way-odd, I know), I thought it was time to break Matthew's 'NO MUSEUMS!' rule straight away, and frog-marched him into the landmark 'National Museum'.

It isn't about the history of Czechoslovakia as you might think, but contains an assortment of zoological and other artefacts inside, to look at and say ‘oooh!’ then move on swiftly to the next without having to read too much information about crustaceans and rock strata. We refused to pay an extra £1 for the ‘Camera Pass’ and posed with the woolly mammoth with enough stealth of petty thievery to make even our mothers proud, co-operating like the perfect couple to ensure no flash was emitted from beneath our jackets, under no watchful eye of a hawk-like attendant with a well versed speech and walkie-talkie link to security.

We had circulated the entire city by evening. We saw the Astronomical clock, but I couldn't remember what it did or why it was special, so just pointed and Matthew nodded. After seeing all the sites we checked in to our hotel, just minutes from the strip.

“Whoohoo! Flat screen satellite TV!”

OK. Maybe we did intend to spend a bit of time in the room.

“Ah . . . the only English channels are . . . CNN and BBC WORLD NEWS.”

We certainly left Prague knowing a bit more about current affairs. Obama, if you’ve not plugged that damn hole yet! The updates were every hour and they still hadn’t stopped it by the time we left . . .

After getting familiar with our environment we went for dinner and made the stupid-in-retrospect-decision to eat in the ‘TRADITIONAL CZECH STYLE RESTAURANT’, on the main square, OUTSIDE. Somewhere in my brain, I had lodged the information crucial to any traveller – eating inside, good, eating outside BAD. Very bad. It’s usually 50% more expensive, as we were to find out on our last day . . .

My goulash tasted like heaven to begin with, then I steadily began to choke on the thick sauce and, after I had finished my £4 bottle of 50cl Italian-so-it-must-be-good water, I was confined to dabbing the sauce off and just fished out the meat. Matthew on the other hand successfully devoured his half a chicken, dumplings and potato croquettes with enough panache to make the boy dressed as a seventeenth century foot soldier smile even more manically from the doorway opposite and proceed to thrust the desert menu beneath our noses.

I’ll try not to make this blog entirely about food, but, in case I hadn’t mentioned, it is integral to my life. (Not in an, everyone eats or they die, duh Jess, kind of way but an 'mmmm! Cake!' kind of way, whenever we passed a bakery, which was quite often wandering round Prague for three days).

We ordered the best apple strudel known to man, to ‘share’ I add. Matthew took a few bites and surrendered. Now, I can’t leave food. It’s been ingrained in me from childhood that you finish your plate, especially if you’ve paid for it and if you leave any pudding you're damned to hell, so I ate it all. And paid a painful £6 for it. It was a costly meal that we definitely learned from . . .

Back at the hotel we read our books over the noise of the news at ten and attempted to cuddle over the divide in the two single beds. So we ended the day more 'pensioner's last hurrah before they die' than 'first trip away', but don't judge OK? Day 1 was 'cultural' and we had been up since four . . .

The pensioners wouldn't have gone to bed at ten either, would they?