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Picture No.6: Tourist pose
number 24674, Picture No.7: Drowned rat...
er, I mean, Rookie.
The grounds are full of fountains in all kinds of materials, and they're the
perfect tourist picture spot. Around the time that we took this one, we decided
that outside really was too wet, so we went to buy a ticket to see some of the
indoor attractions. Just a note: Rookie could not get over the pinkness of the
building in the background.
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Inside Saint George's Basilica (see earlier picture), we saw a sign: Do not take
pictures. The ceiling was cool though, and Irid seemed to take the sign as a
challenge rather than a deterrant. This resulted in sneaky picture number one
being taken. In Irid's words: “I'm proud!” Rookie is very impressed by the
quality of these and thinks Irid may have missed her calling as a journalist.
Irid is pretty sure that she didn't, though. -
Picture No.8: Most successful sneaky picture EVAR!
There was also a stone standing in the middle of the Basilica, but seeing as it
didn't say who it was for or why it was standing there, we didn't take a picture
of it. We did see a picture of the skull of the first Czech saint however,
princess Ludmila (who is a woman! Take that!), which was pretty cool. She had
her tomb in there.
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Next on the program of the small tour (which is
really a lot more affordable than the big tour, logically) was the Golden Lane,
where the gold smiths used to live. The houses were built in the 16th century.
Also a fun fact: Franz Kafka used to live there. Below is a picture of this
Golden Lane, together with a lot of umbrellas. Just in case you hadn't noticed
yet that it was raining.
Picture No.9: So in one of these houses Kafka lived. Not sure which one
though...
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The good thing about the
rain: this is about the most deserted view of the Golden Lane that you can get.
Do not try this in the summer. The shops were quite small for the amount of
people trying to squeeze into them, which was about five at once. Or two with
umbrellas. Seeing how the shops were filled to the brim with tourists like that,
I do not want to know what it's like when the weather is actually good.
The shops were pretty nice though, and not at all as expensive as one would
expect in a street called the Golden Lane, located in THE most touristy place in
Prague you can think of. Irid actually bought a new book for just 100 crowns,
which is about 4 euros. My apologies to the Americans amongst us but I have no
idea what that is in dollars. Try filling in 'converter dollar euro' in Google.
Below picture is the shop where this fairytale book was sold.
Picture No.10: Rookie really wanted a picture of Irid in front of the blue house
(which we found out today, Sunday, is really the house Kafka lived in). The book
came from here.
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Picture No.12: The mole mug!
- In one of the small shops
Rookie found a mug with a mole on it (and a frog in it). This mole is a pretty
well known character from a children's show. As it happens, Rook's mum is
obsessed with moles for some obscure reason. Therefore our favourite Brownie
could not resist buying this mug as a Christmas present. Irid wanted to take a
sneaky picture of Rookie standing in line to pay, but unfortunately was noticed,
so here's the posed picture. The sneaky one was too blurred.
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Next stop was the Old Royal
Palace. In there you could take pictures... if you had bought the licence. Which
is really only 50 crowns, but we didn't. And yes, we did take pictures, see
above. The stove was nice and warm, which was good because by this time we were
pretty much freezing. Not that we like to moan, but...
So this room was pretty good to warm up in. Irid wanted a picture of the stove,
so she looked around to see if there was a guard around. She didn't see one, so
she took out the camera and took the picture quickly. Then she turned around and
saw that there actually *was* one standing about two peds away (Yeah, while
writing this we discussed whether to use metres or feet... We decided to
compromise).
Picture No.13: Sneaky picture number two...
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This was the hall where they used to have
tournaments. It's very big, and it has a pretty ceiling. Here there were, in
fact, convenient tourists close by. Or rather, we were the convenient tourists
for two people, so when we took their picture, we immediately asked if they
could take ours, before they ran away.
Picture No.14: Would you LOOK at that ceiling! It is a very cool ceiling! The
guide book says so!
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There was this nice little spot with a view,
where people were taking pictures. Again Rookie thought, what they can do, I can
do better... And did! Well, we don't actually know this, but neither do you! So
there! - Okay, moving on now...
Picture No.15: Misty Prague. Pretty cool picture, isn't it?
After our adventures in the Prague Castle, we decided to go out of the centre a
while and warm up in a nice little coffeeshop. Irid took a large hot chocolate,
Rookie a large coffee. Now, when we say large... we mean LARGE. This was no
longer a cup of coffee (or hot chocolate for that matter, they were the same
size), it was a bucket. We think there was more than half a litre in there.
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Rookie had coffee jitters for about an hour
afterwards. They were so bad that she couldn't get her ticket into the machine
to validate it, cause she was shaking so much. (Heehee...) On the upside though,
we were warmed up head to toe! Picture No.16: In the coffeeshop.
That evening we bought something easy to cook and logically cooked it. Luckily
we also ate it. The plan was to then go out to this little folk festival, but
when we got off at the right metro station, we didn't really want to wander
around there in the dark, looking for it. Or rather, we REALLY didn't want to do
that. It was a bit (or very) dodgy-looking, and there weren't enough people
around. So instead we decided to put plan C into action... C for cocktails! At
least we could feel like we did our best to find this festival, so we could go
to the centre with an easy conscience.
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Picture No.17: Oooh... Artistic! (Irid's
comment: Look! They're little angels!)
Trust me, the other pictures we took here were just as crappy and mellow! So
don't worry, you're not missing anything. Unless you *really* want to see that
clock ;-)
The next morning we didn't bother to get up at an 'early' hour, and then we both
had to take a shower to wash the smell of smoke from our hair. The Czech
Republic is that much of a backward country that they haven't even heard of a
smoking ban yet...
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After that we sat down and wrote the first part
of our exciting adventures. If you didn't realise it, this is already the second
part. Then we headed out to the other must-see attraction. Charles Bridge! We
were luckier than yesterday, the sun was shining.
Picture No.18: I can flyyyyyy...
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On the way to the bridge, we got sidetracked cause we saw a sign pointing to an
antiques market. Before we actually reached the antiques market, we got
sidetracked (again) by some sculptures. And guess what? We took pictures!
Picture No.19: Willow lady! (Who apparently got
turned into a tree by... her lover...) Picture taken for Noxie especially.
Afbeelding 20: “The three-headed dog”. Who actually just has three eyes, and one
head, but that's probably just me.
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When we got back from the market, I suddenly saw this human form sitting on a
ledge way above our heads, which kind of distracted me for a minute from the
chattering. It turned out to be yet another sculpture...
Picture No.21: Great view up here!
That was the end of our little detour. We then actually got to the bridge. -
Picture No.22: See? Sun!
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Picture No.23: View of the Moldau. Or as the
Czechs have it, Vltava. No, don't try to pronounce that...
About halfway across the bridge this little jazzy band was playing, originally
called... The Bridge Band! They were really old, but really cool! This one guy
was playing a washboard with thimbles on his fingers. I'd add the video that I
took but I don't actually have a clue how to do that. You'll have to satisfy
yourself with the picture.
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Picture No.24: I hope I'm this cool when I'm
old. (You can decide for yourself if that's Irid saying this, or Rookie.)
There was also this other guy with a guitar-playing puppet. Ok, so there was
actually a little cd-player from which sounded the music, but meh. Still funny
to see (though it would, in fact, have been more impressive if the puppet really
was playing the guitar!)
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Picture No.25: Awwwww... Can I keep him?
Just after the Bridge, there was a cool lamppost, which you're only going to see
about half of in the following picture. You would not believe the discussion
we've just had concerning the spelling of lamppost. I, Irid, say it's with two
p's, Rookie claims that it's with one. Sadly for her, my keyboard is really
strange (because it's Belgian) so she can't actually type on it. So it's written
here with two. My apologies to anyone I might have offended. Including Rookie.
(Who is actually giggling too much to be offended).
Yeah... Moving on again to the actual picture.
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Picture No.26: Irid's really practicing those
tourist poses!
We then wandered around the old centre for a bit, taking pictures a bit randomly
here and there but mostly just chatting. Here are some of the pictures we took.
Picture No.27: And here we've got another random house (well, restaurant
actually).
Picture No.28: Apart from the bins, this is actually a pretty good photo...
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Picture No.29: We reckon some Santharian houses should be painted like this one.
Anyone up for it?
During the wandering, we stumbled across the Chocolate Museum. We wouldn't be us
if we hadn't gone in. Not too many pictures taken in this one, just one that
Irid thought was kinda cool. If you look closely, you can see her reflection
looming in the glass. At this place we had a Belgian waffle which was only just
ok but with Belgian chocolate poured over, so that made it great.
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Picture No.30: It's meant to keep your pot of
hot chocolate, well, hot.
When we got out of the museum with out waffles in hand, it had turned dark out
and we decided to go get something more substantial to eat. On our way to the
metro, we spotted an Art Deco building that we couldn't resist photographing.
Picture No.31: Ignore the two people in the front. Just look at the pretty
building!
And so, on our last night together in Prague, we found ourselves seated in a
prehistorically themed restaurant in some basement, which is really nicer than
it sounds. The food was good. But lots. (Rookie: I'm still full. This said after
about two hours...) But good!
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Sorry, but you don't actually get to see the prehistoric decorations in the one
good picture we have from this place. You'll get over it. To cheer you up,
though, the picture does show the two of us together again.
Ok, so this is our anniversary special. The next Irookie moot is planned for
February in Leeds. We're not guaranteeing another photo report for that one
though. Sorry! You'll probably see the photos on their own. I hope you enjoyed
reading this as much as we did writing it. - Lots of love from rainy... ehm
sunny... errr... Prague! Na shledanou!
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