Day 61 - It's Full Of Decorations

Despite the twin snorers in my room, I had a very restful night's sleep. They were very amusing, actually. One has a raspy snore that pitch bends up every breath. The other has a low rumble that changes pitch rather like a fog horn. Listening to them go in and out of sync was strangely relaxing. I've spent most of the day today in a relaxed state of wandering. You can't go wrong in Prague. Old school architecture is everywhere. At first it's overwhelming. Then it's kind of dull as the variations in it seem to be relatively minor. Why spend all this time on ornamentation just to make every building vaguely resemble every other building? There are still a lot of unique buildings though, and I've got plenty of pictures to prove it.

I let the interesting buildings guide me for most of the morning. Eventually I came across the Charles Bridge, an old bridge with a bunch of old statues on it. It's sort of like the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, except it has no shops. I waited for the sun to show up again so I could take a picture. It's been pretty cloudy, which makes for nice backdrops but lousy lighting. So I waited, knoshing on some pastry I bought at the market the night before. Mmmm. Hazelnut pastry. While I was waiting, a group was trying to get someone to take their picture. I obliged and after an awkward exchange of camera and pastry I took a picture and was thanked. "Spaceba." I guess the cold war is long over, but I still thought that was a cool experience.

After the light finally showed up, I took a picture of the bridge and a cool building next to it and some cool buildings across the river. They have a lot of cool buildings here, in case that isn't becoming clear yet. I wandered down the river. There's a huge green hill with an Eiffel Tower type structure across the river. I wandered across the river. I kept getting distracted by cool buildings and staying near to the river. At one point I just wandered into a park and started napping on the bench. The weather here is fantastic. The sun will come out and get you toasty, then a little wind and cloud will come along to cool you down. Marvelous. I eventually found a hill, but not the one I had been looking for. I had nothing to do but climb it, so I did. The view wasn't that great, but the trees and weather left me well past caring.

It was about this time that the hazelnut pastry started to wear off, so I decided to head to the little shopping cart icon on my map. Oh my god. It's full of stores. I wandered into a three level mall, where I am now typing this on a much nicer computer than the hostel's for a lot less money. Everyone else is playing Counterstrike. :P

I also took this internet opportunity to check out the Duran Duran situation. It looks like there are still seats available, so I've taken down the ticket center location on my map. Time to rock out, 80s style! :D