The European Extravaganza!

Day Trippin'

Today was a departure from our normal travel style, as we were quite spontaneous. We actually did a large excursion that was not accounted for on our calender (the holy grail of this adventure). A girl here at the hostel had asked us if we wanted to accompany her to Kutna Hora, famous for its "Bone Church". We had been looking for something to do on our last day here in the Czech Republic, and a Bone Church sounded cool/creepy enough. This morning Mae (the girl) told us that she didn't think she could come with us after all because she had met some guys last night, and in a drunken stupor, agreed to change hostels... We weren't that concerned, because we didn't know how much time we would want to spend at the Bone Church and didn't want to be accountable to another person (who is clearly insane, even if she seems nice enough).

At breakfast, we watched music videos (they love Jamiroquai here), but we also attempted not to laugh outright at this German guy sitting at the table next to us. He had the worst hair ever. It was long like Tarzan but featured Joan of Arc bangs. If you're a guy and have long hair, you must part it in the middle and not have bangs. It will still look dumb, but not quite as dumb as this dude.

One nice thing about Mae dropping out is that we were able to take the train to Kutna Hora instead of taking a bus. Not only did this mean shorter travel time (only about 65 minutes on the train compared to a 100 minute bus ride + a 40 minute walk from the bus station), but it also meant we got to use the leftover day on our Czech Rail Pass, so we didn't have to pay for transportation (or at least, we had already paid for it). When we got to Hlavni Nadrazi (the central station), we had to go to the three different counters before we found someone who could -- or at least was willing to -- help us. He told us it was cool for us to just hop on the train, we didn't have to pay any extra, and we also didn't have to make a reservation (or pay a supplement) for our train to Vienna tomorrow. With all the logistics out of the way, we now had to find the platform. Apparently no one working at the rail station knows where trains will appear until 20 minutes before their scheduled arrival. We wandered around trying to find a platform with a train departing at 10:15. We found one, but it didn't have Kutna Hora listed as a destination... so we went back to information, but this time stumbled upon one that claimed to only give out info in Czech. We just wrote 10:15 on the card we were carrying around with a picture of the church and the city name and shoved it into the window. The woman told us to go to platform 2, which was where we had originally been. We then hopped on the train, which actually had compartments like in Harry Potter (!), and fell asleep as we tend to do when we're on trains. We shared our compartment with an English couple, although it took both of us about 3 minutes to realize they were speaking English... maybe our belief that the UK leg of our trip will be easier communication-wise was not correct.

When we reached Kutna Hora, we were happy to see that the Bone Church was only a 13 minute walk from the station. Take that, bus rides! The church itself was really creepy, but also impressive. It's actually kind of amazing what you can do with human bones. It seems like some guy decided to decorate with them after the plague, making a huge chandalier, a coat of arms, and numerous pyramid-like structures. We later remarked that this was a "Hildi Church" (Hildi being the designer from Trading Spaces who is infamous for sticking hay onto walls).

We decided that we didn't really want to see anything else in Kutna Hora, so we headed back to the train station. On our way, we were attracted to a store with this huge Orion mural in the window. Orion is this brand of chocolate that they sell here, and each type of chocolate has a different person on it. I bought a dark chocolate bar and it featured, what we though was a little school boy (as he had a slate under his arm). We now think that he might be a slave to the Orion chocolate factory, as he was depicted in the mural as cowering (or maybe questioning) a man who was poised at a chocolate making machine (although from afar, it looked like he was brandishing a whip!). Steph bought a hazelnut bar with a little boy in a sailor costume on it, who looks like he is either about to pick his nose or ponder something deep and meaningful. He was being escorted to the chocolate factory by his grandmother on the mural, and she also appeared to be preventing him from pondering/picking. We decided to enter the store to see if we could get the whole collection of Orion characters, and lo and behold, we had entered another grocery store! Realizing we had about 700 Kc each, we decided to be frivolous and buy whatever captured our fancy. Banana-filled chocolate? We bought it. Chocolate covered marzipan? Bought that too! Fruity Lentilky (Lentilky is the name for Smarties over here)? Turns out these are Skittles mixed with Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans... we giggled for 2 hours at the train station waiting for the train back to Prague while braving these little treats. There are several different colours, but no colour has the same taste twice. Without the aid of the legend to tell us what the possible taste options were, Steph said she tasted: puffy sticker, caramel, soap, and squash (note: they were only supposed to taste like fruits). I bought these candies that had fruits making faces on the bag, that ended up tasting like perfume, tree, and roses. Now we know why the fruits were making those faces! We also bought 2 other bags of chips, one that was "Garlic", and one that is best described as "Summer Barbecue". Awesome.

On the train back to Prague, we ended up riding with a bunch of school children. It so happens that we ended up riding with the Czech version of Harry Potter: Terry Totter (From the ripped/downloaded version of the movie that I own). He wore his plaid overshirt like a toga-cape, and all he was missing was a scar and round glasses. We're telling you, Prague really is Harry Potter land!

We finally bought stamps for the cards we bought in Berlin, so those will be heading your way soon. As we exited the post office, what should start playing? "Back for Good" by Take That. Clearly they played that specifically for us.

We should mention that the metro stations here have really long, really fast escalators. Like theme-park fast and long! We are not buckled in, but we can't understand how/why people here run down them. Who needs to go faster than the speed of light?

Our hostel has a Suggestion Book in the lobby. Last night while waiting for the internet, we flipped through it to see what other guests had said. After a few pages, Steph, disgusted by the American's grammar, began correcting it. Enjoyable.

So, with approximately 500 Kc apiece to spend, we're off to find the laundromat. This is a dangerous amount of money, since we could pretty much buy the entire city if we wanted to. Tomorrow it's off to Vienna, where the value of the euro and the high prices will quickly make us long for Prague. We better eat now, while we have the chance and the funds.

P.S. Sorry if anything in this entry offends you, Fil!

posted by Laura @ 4:40 pm