La Vie Bohème

Oh, the Czech Republic.. where do I begin? Out of all the places I've been to so far on this trip, this is the first country that I seem to have a love/hate relationship with.  In some respects, the Czech country is very beautiful and intriguing, but this is the first time my frustration has reached such high limits.  Luckily my aunt was here to take over when I just wanted to give up.  To start with, nothing seems to work right (at least for me).  My debit card refuses to work in the ATMs... a call to the bank only told me that it had nothing to do with restrictions on my card.. just the Czech banking system.  My Spanish cell phone not only gets no signal, but also won't find a network to roam with, reducing its function to mere alarm clock.We also had difficulties with the room keys (more to follow), although that was more amusing than anything, but the single most frustrating thing here is the language barrier.
     I wrote a lot about language issues the last time, but before I never had any problems getting my point across, even if it meant waving my arms around like a fool to show what I meant.  And before, everyone seemed at least slightly willing to help me figure out whatever I needed.  Not in the Czech Republic.  I've had people yell at me, look at me and walk away, a bus driver shrug his shoulders at me and then drive off, and a train ticket seller basically refuse to sell me a ticket because I pronounced the name of the city wrong.   Writing the name down didn't do much to appease her.  Now, I've heard about the French being rude to people who don't speak French, but my short time in Paris a few years ago was met with no difficulty whatsoever.  Nothing like this at all.  I understand when people get frustrated when there is a language barrier.  I get frustrated too... but acting like I shouldn't even be in your country until I learn Czech is very off-putting to a tourist.  I understand too, that you don't speak English (even if I'm secretly praying you do), but with a little patience we can both get through our short interaction.  Sorry that Czech wasn't the first foreign language I studied, but I would still like to be able to travel without feeling ashamed to be here.
    That aside, I still had a great week wandering through Bohemia with my aunt.  We met up on Friday in Prague and stayed in a little hotel inside the old town.  Prague might just be my favorite city that I've visited so far, except for there are SO many tourists  The main square was PACKED full of people, almost to the point of irritation, because you can barely move down the street.  If it was that crowded in February, I can only imagine how horrid it must get in summer.  Ignoring the mass amounts of people though, downtown Prague has that feeling that you imagine when you think vaguely of "Europe."  Cobblestone streets, old buildings and churches on every corner, guards in antique uniforms patrolling around the castle gates.... It's got a nice vibe to it.

Prague main square

   So we spent two days roaming around Prague and went to an awesome black light theatre show- think ballet/Cirque de Soleil little skits all done under a black light.  It's hard to explain, but it was very fun to watch.  The next day we took a day trip to a town called Kutna Hora, home of the famous bone church.  Apparently, after the Black Death swept through Europe, they started to run out of places to bury the bodies, so they built a chapel in the middle of the cemetery to start stacking the bones, and someone decided to get a little creative.  They said the bones of over 40,000 people are in the church.  Creepy... but really cool.

   

  After Prague, the next stop was Cesky Krumlov, a little town in the southwest, close to the Austrian border. Just as we were about to miss the bus, we realized we had no cash, the ticket counter wouldn't let us pay with a credit card, and my debit card refused to work in the ATM.  Great. So after a painfully expensive cash advance on my credit card, we finally made it on board.  The Czech countryside makes me laugh a little bit... trees, snow, cornfields, and the occasional tractor.  It's like I never left Indiana!  After settling down in Cesky Krumlov and exploring the area and the castle on top of the hill, it was nap time.  Maybe a bad choice... my aunt and I had been planning on a romantic Valentine's dinner together :P, but when we tried to leave for dinner around 8:30, we found ourselves locked in...  The reception closed at 6 pm, we were the only guests in the entire hotel (at least I think..), and our key wouldn't open the front door.  Determined not to starve to death on Valentine's Day, I went and opened every single door without a room number in the entire hotel trying to find another exit.  No luck.  So I tried to jump out the kitchen window to try the door from the other side.  I got halfway out the window, looked down, and saw that below was a staircase to a cellar, making the drop about 2 stories.  I decided I didn't really want to break my leg in the Czech Republic, so I climbed back inside, and after another ten minutes or so of wrestling with the front door, we got it open!  Of course, when we got to the main square, everything was closed.  One of the disadvantages of traveling Europe in the off-season, but with luck we found an underground cave restaurant and had Valentine's hamburgers. Yum! :)
   The next day was a quick trip to Ceske Budejovice (chess-key bood-yo-veet-suh... I think...) to visit the REAL Budweiser brewery.  This is the Budweiser that has been caught in a legal storm for decades with our American Budweiser for the brand name rights.  (P.S. The Czech version is much better)  In our rush to make it to the tour on time, we accidentally took the tram in the wrong direction... We missed the tour.  Luckily, they still let us do our own tour later with a German couple who had undergone the same misfortune.  Then some yummy goulash and dumplings and the obligatory beer to wash it down.

The auntie and I :)

  To end our Czech excursion, we went to Plana to visit a beer spa! Warning: don't ever go to Plana unless you have some kind of ride arranged.  The train dropped us off in Plana, and we intended on taking a city bus to the village of Chodova Plana, just a few kilometers up the road, where the hotel was.  Not a large distance, but a little too far to walk in the snow with luggage.  Well, there were no city buses.  Then we tried a pay phone to call a taxi, but there were no taxis....  So we waited about an hour for a four minute train ride up the road, and it dropped us off literally in the middle of a cornfield, with a highway in front of us.  So we started walking... mud and snow and suitcases down the side of the highway.  It's funny now.. it wasn't so funny at the time :)  After a mile or two, we finally arrived at the hotel!  Then the next morning, we proceeded to soak ourselves in a bathtub full of beer (apparently it's very good for your health), and then have an awesome and very cheap massage.  Both of these involved two buxom Czech women ordering me to undress and me standing there naked trying not to laugh at the sheer awkwardness of it all.  After Plana, it was back to Prague for a night and a farewell to my aunt :(  Unlike me, she has real life responsibilities she has to get back to. :P Now I leave for a weekend in Munich, and then to Austria!! Cheers!