Prague Final Blah

That was the last major activity we did in Prague, but I just wanna close with a couple small things. The first is the subway ticket, on which Ed noticed an aphorism:

It seems kind of funny and obvious, but when you think about it, I guess they sort of need to put that on there. Because public transportation tickets are based on time, not distance, you have to stick the ticket into a little validation machine when you start your journey, and from that, anyone checking your ticket will know if you're still within the time allotted. No one ever czeched our tickets, though, and there were no ticket-taking machines at the subways exits, either, so I imagine it's pretty easy to get a free ride.

Anyway, second thing is this really unexpected amazing food experience we had. The last night we were there, it was late at night, and we were wandering around trying to find a late night snack that wasn't deep fried or salty or whatever. We managed to find a little bar-fe that was just about to close, but they had some sort of cheesecake or something that I could eat. The others just got a drink, but since they had already turned off the coffee machines, Dana and Ed just got hot chocolate. They were assuming it was hot cocoa, but actually it turned out to be more literal than that. It was a mug of what seemed very close to being molten chocolate, but with the creamy texture of (American!!!) pudding. This is something that I have dreamed about all my life. I really should have gotten my own mug right when I tried Ed's, but I think we were trying to not inconvenience the workers too much, since by then they'd be closing in like 15 minutes. So I just drank most of Ed's mug o' chocolate. It was awesome.

Prague Part 3: Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral, etc.

Well, it's hard to beat a freaking bone chapel, but what can you do?

On our second and last full day in Prague, we went to a little clusterfuck of buildings, which was Prague Castle, the St. Vitus Cathedral, and related structures. Here are some shots of pretty Prague on the walk over there.

This is kind of a dumb one, because you can't see, but that little figure on the corner of the building is the Black Madonna.

Statues with propeller beanies. Yeah.

Something very suspect going on in that little cave. Dog knows.

Gold is all the rage in Prague. Every statue who's any statue has some.

These are like totally toy soldier glory hole parking meters, except I'm not sure they're parking meters... maybe just statues.

Nice door. Lots of those.

Hat heads.

Right, we made it to the castle. Here's the entrance.

This is a closeup of furry-tentacle-penis loincloth on the statues at the main gate.

 This band was rocking out outside the gates.

We were "LUCKY" enough to have arrived shortly before the daily noontime change of the guard. A crowd gathered, as with the astronomical clock. Turn your sound down wicked low before you watch the next video.

HA. Why that was necessary, I don't know. Anyway, here's a better one.

 There was a lot more ceremony once they were in there, complete with jazz hands and a round of square dancing, but I don't have any videos of that. SORRY.

Before we went in there, we walked around a sec and saw this building with a really cool wall design.

Here's the whole front of the castle from a bit further off. you can see the Gothic cathedral in there, man.

Before we went in, it was really time for lunch or something, so we waltzed into the castle cafe. Funny thing. Dana ordered a plate of bread and cheese and was sharing with us. There was this one slice of cheese she didn't care for. She was like, it doesn't taste like anything. But I think I was really hungry, so after I finished my food, I went for that and the last of the bread. I took a bite of the tasteless cheese, and was like, yeah, that really does have no taste. It almost tastes more like butter than cheese. WAIT A SECOND. You fucking idiot, IT IS BUTTER. They slyly disguised a pat of butter as a slice of cheese. Maybe it's cultural. We also had a problem at a bar ordering a basket of "garlic bread." It came to us as toast with whole roasted garlic cloves, instead of like ground garlic on toast. Strange.

Anyway, we finally went through the gates and into the compound, where St. Vitus Cathedral was towering Gothominously.

This guy. I had a joke about who this guy resembled at the time, but I've since forgotten.

Update: looking at this guy again, he reminds me of the graveyard old mustachioed dude from Adventure Time, so maybe that was my joke.

Side of cathedral:

Inside cathedral:

I think there was more to see if you wanted to shell out some cash, but it seemed like the most interesting parts of the cathedral were right there in the entrance.

Other side of cathedral:

Ed managed to cup some bull balls across the courtyard.

I was not so lucky.

Back of cathedral. This sucker is big.

Then we left the castle. We didn't go inside any other buildings. I was kind of confused as to the whole "castle" thing. The centerpiece of the complex was clearly the cathedral, so I think the actual castle part comprised the perimeter and outlying buildings. It wasn't like other castles I've seen, so much.

When we left, we came across this anatomically correct statue, whose penis had been touched so many times it gleamed all shiny bronze. I read on the internets that it's considered good luck to touch this poor boy's penis. HA.

This advanced posing technique is called belming. Ed took great care in England to teach me how to belm, and I've been trying to make certain he regrets it.

Ed felt that his part in the belming was not fairly represented, so here's one of him fucking up the photo instead of me.

And here's another nice looking building overlooking a nice looking park.

Right, so we went to a museum after. It was crazy. It was crazy. This is what happened. First we purchased our tickets at the front desk, then our tickets were torn at a perforation by a ticket taker who stood by the elevators. There were some exhibits on the first floor, so we looked at them first. Here's a picture of a little toilet. Ed took this picture because I think the toilet was called the Britannia???? Or something. It doesn't matter.

Here is a working model of a pneumatic post system that was going on in Prague until very recently, for a long time. Mike had known about it before and was excited to see it, then Ed got really obsessed with it. You put a ping pong ball on a little transporter pad, then held down a button, which activated the air pump that sent the ball through the tubs and to the other station. Then you could send it back the other way. I think he did it like a hundred times.

Okay, so we finished with the downstairs exhibits, including some old timey "sexy" photos showing like, SOME LEG and stuff, hidden behind peepholes, with this sign on the wall:

By this time we were hungry again, and wanted to get a little snackie. There was a cafe between the ticket desk and the elevators, so we went over there for a sec, but then decided against getting anything. So we were going to go upstairs via the elevator to see more stuff, but we had to pass the ticket taker again. Now, we didn't expect her to remember us (it's Europe, so it's not like being white in Japan or something), but when we showed her our already torn tickets, we didn't expect her to get really confused about lack of tear-offy part and stubbornly tear off another non-perforated piece. But that's what happened. Okay, whatever. At this point we don't realize she doesn't get what has happened. So when she points us off past the elevators, we assume she's sending us, for some reason, to another set of elevators. But we czech the floor plan nearby, and there are none. So we go back push the elevator button, and she indicates (clearly she doesn't speak English) that we HAVE TO go see the exhibits on the first floor first. We tried a number of times to tell her (not speaking Czech as we did--Mike forgot most of his Czech), that we already saw those exhibits. But it wasn't getting through. It's getting a little frustrating at this point, but luckily the elevator opens and she's busy taking someone else's ticket, so we're able to get in without any trouble. When we go up to the next floor, we look around a bit, and Dana notices that there's a chick following us sort of, and it seems a little creepy, like they've realized we're foreigners and don't trust us, but we just kind of ignore her. But then later someone realizes that it was the stubborn elevator lady who was following us, and when we go back down finally, someone else is taking tickets. That lady crazy. She thought we were up to no good, even though it would have been our right anyway to skip the first floor exhibits, if in fact that had been the situation. Jeez, man.

On the subway back to the hotel, we got to ride on one of the largest escalators in the world. It was so long that Ed was able to make a little video where he annoys me, and on and on the escalator went.

Prague Part 2: Bone Ossuary and Wandering Around

Our first trip was outside Prague, to a famous bone chapel called the Sedlec Ossuary--it was a Roman Catholic chapel made of like eight million bones. Or actually, it's the skeletons of something like 40,000 people, so it's more like 8.5 million. HA. YOU THOUGHT I WAS EXAGGERATING. I got you good.

Here's a sign:

.

Here's another sign. It gives information about ticket combos for the ossuary and some other attractions nearby. Numbers 2-4 have words in their boxes on the bottom, that maybe describe the attraction type, like church, cemetery, whatever. Number 1? Skull.

Here are some shots of the inside of the ground floor.

There were several just piles o' bones.

Bonedelier:

This is back outside again, on the nice sidewalk of death.

Then we realized there was the actual not-bone chapel up some outside stairs. It had some oddly suggestive paintings.

Then we left and took a walk to find this dumpling place for lunch. Here is a column-tower thingy that I forgot the name of.

Here's a local map built into the sidewalk. That's totally suite.

Then we found this big cylinder with a door with a little window. But there wasn't really anything inside.

Prague is a city that has a lot of architecture and statues going on. Like everything you see is some sort of intricate carving of either art or design, or both mebbe.

Later, it became night. We took some photos of pretty night things.

 This sculpture series is a monument to the victims of communism. As you go up the steps, the figure is less and less fully human, until it's like like a foot or something at the top.

Well, that was kind of a drag to end on. Suckers.

By the way, beer is wicked cheap in Prague, but I hate beer, so I mostly had expensive gin and tonics.