prague | a very uninformative travel guide

Usually, I love putting together little guides to the places I have been, just for future reference and in case anybody ever asks for recommendations.  I will take copious and largely illegible notes whilst travelling, full of abbreviations that make perfect sense at the time but which I cannot for the life of me decipher upon my return home.  I write about what I did on any given day, where I ate, whether it was good or bad, and anything else of note that might have occurred.  It's my thing.

So I flew to Prague armed with a most beautiful, fabric-covered O-Check notebook, just waiting to be filled.  I thought - at this point, I am fairly certain that I have found my Happily Ever After, and I am going to write everything down so that someday, the Texan and I can tell our children the story of How We Met for the Very First Time in Prague and they can read their mother's scrawly notes from however many years ago.  I had all good intentions.

Would you like to know how much I recorded during our week in Prague?

Precisely 2.5 pages' worth.  Two entries, both written at Heathrow - one at the start of the trip before I met the Texan and the other (which took the form of a letter to him), at the end, whilst I was sobbing my heart out in the departure lounge over having just said goodbye.

My first entry reads as follows:

03.04.11
Oh, FINALLY I have made it to the Northern Hemisphere.  Good grief.  After a 90 minute delay out of Sydney because the emergency strip lighting in the brand spanking new, spiffy A380 wasn't working, then a further delay out of Singapore for reasons I cannot recall, hayfever and an unfortunate incident involving my first ever use of an air sickness bag, I am now sitting in the T5 departure hall at Heathrow.  I had to laugh when I sank down into my seat and realised that I was right in front of a giant [insert name of the Texan's employer] sign.  Hopefully it is also a figurative sign of something good ...

I don't think that it has really quite hit me yet that I will be meeting [the Texan] within a matter of hours.  I thought that I would be a nervous wreck the whole flight but truth be told, I barely thought about it - I was mostly sleeping.  But now that I am sitting here waiting for my flight to Prague ... it's creeping up slowly.  I had been hoping to have a shower and freshen up in between flights but the cumulative delays killed any chance of that.  So I am feeling kinda pissed and ratty about looking like shit* for our first ever meeting but frankly there is nothing I can do :(  I got changed and fixed my makeup - no powerpoint for the GHD! - and that's it.  Hopefully he won't take one look at me and flee.  That would be bad.

* then I would have to caution our children against using profane language.  Setting a bad example, and they haven't even been conceived yet!

And the letter ... well, it's super sad and mushy and dated 10.04.11.  The seven days in between?  Nowhere to be found, save for the recesses of our respective memories (and, I guess, the thousands of photographs that we took between us).  It was just that once I got there, the last thing I wanted to do was spend time writing furiously in my journal when that time could have been spent with the Texan, and yesterday we were laughing about how we each had a tendency to follow the other around in our apartment.  For example, the Texan might have been ironing a shirt whilst I was in another room, and I would think "I wonder what he's up to?", find him and then hang out, leaning against the door jamb, all "hey."  Really the only safe place for either of us was the bathroom, haha.  But, I digress.  My point is, we were basically inseparable, and I chose that over record-keeping.

So.  If anybody was to ever ask me for recommendations about Prague, all I would be able to do is rack my brain and come up with the following:

VISIT IN APRIL
First and foremost!  All the flowers were in bloom, it was beautiful.  If you missed it, I have posted photos here and here.  And here are two more, just to liven up this post a little:

EAT
We didn't eat a lot of Czech cuisine, the Texan and I.  What we did eat was a hell of a lot of Happy Cow cheese (it remains a running joke between us) and a traditional Czech pastry variously called trdlo or trdelnik (as well as other assorted pastries in between).  I think I have mentioned the pastries previously ;)  I really loved the pastries.  Mm, pastries ... oh, right ... where was I?  PASTRIES!

There were also two (Italian!) restaurants that we visited during our stay that are worth noting:

Kogo - Havelska, 499/27, Praha 1

Pasta Fresca - Celetna 11, 110 00 Praha 1

The other places at which we ate dinner aren't worth mentioning; certainly not the one in which I found some kind of slug/worm in my salad, although it does make for a funny memory so it wasn't a total loss.  I just remember peering at what looked like some kind of herb and then realising with alarm that it was moving.  It was a little off-putting.  And there were a couple of nights where we simply did not get our act together enough to actually eat.  I remember on our very first night, we got all dressed up, then wandered the streets of the residential neighbourhood in which we were staying, unable to find a place to have dinner.  In the end, two overdressed people from opposite sides of the planet wound up in a tiny, dingy-looking supermarket buying assorted groceries including, but not limited to, the aforementioned Happy Cow cheese (this is where it started).

Incidentally, I cannot tell you how cool it was to be able to do something normal like have a meal with the Texan after months of Skype calls.  I distinctly recall sitting across from him at the table the first time we went out for dinner and thinking: wow, we are really here, on kind of a quasi-date, and he looks so ridiculously cute and handsome.  I am on a quasi-date in Prague with the ridiculously cute and handsome Texan *swoon*  Awesome.

SEE
The Texan and I didn't make a whole lot of plans whilst we were in Prague.  Rather, we would just get up in the morning and do whatever we felt like on the day.  In retrospect, we probably missed a few sights but I much preferred simply walking around with him all day, holding hands and taking photos.  Prague is really a beautiful city that lends itself to simply wandering around on foot.  The architecture is stunning, the river is beautiful ... it's a lovely place to explore at random (just wear flats, because those cobblestone streets would, I imagine, not mix well with heels).

That being said, though, Petrin Hill was especially lovely in the Springtime ...

as was the area around Prazsky Hrad (Prague Castle).  The building that dominates the skyline is St. Vitus Cathedral - its stained glass windows are really stunning.

{the Texan and I found a little bench here on our second day

and spent ages just sitting and talking - it was kinda perfect :)}

And that's basically it from me!  Oh except this - now that it has hit May, I can officially say that I will be seeing the Texan again next month!  Yay!