Czech Please!

Prague is ridiculously beautiful. It feels like what you would get if you asked the Disney imagineers to wet dream the quintessential European city into existence, with its ornate, candied architecture--

 its pristine cobbled streets, open squares and sunlit terraces--

its myriad of majestic (pee-obsessed) statues--

"Drink my pee lion!"

not to mention a lot of hot babes--

Though I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Czech style of driving:

Upon arriving in Prague, Jordan's navigational skills first reared their ugly head.  After walking for about half an hour, we asked a policeman where our hostel was.  Jordan showed him our map.

"No," he said.  "That's in Prague 1.  You're in Prague 3."

Wait whaaaaa...?

How many Pragues are there?  Did we even get off in the right Czech Republic?  Is this the pre- or post-crisis DC universe?

Turns out, Prague is confusingly divided into no less than 10-18 districts (depending, of course, on which of the two divisional systems you're using).  Thankfully, our hostel was located in the middle of Old Town, which looks like this:

...while the Prague we had been lost in looked more like this:

"Eastern Europe!"

Jordan quite philosophically observed, "If beer is the water in Germany, in Prague, it's the air."  Indeed, beer was cheaper than water, and you could usually get a half liter for around 1.25 € (the entire town seems to be sponsored by Pilsner Urquell).  We're still not sure if you can actually order a glass of regular water in Prague...

Jordan's serial killer photo face

We'll also remember Prague for the 6am wakeup calls consisting of street arguments, loud 2004-era techno music pumping from the street vendors, and this guy:

The first medical emergency of the trip came when I lightly pricked my foot on a piece of broken glass, so now I probably have hepatitis.  I am trying to face death bravely, friends.

#2 in the Patriot Series

I've realized that ever since arriving in Europe, I have found myself strangely self-conscious about how locals perceive me. Every time I speak, I realize they probably assume I'm an American, and I feel as if I can detect a slight disdainful twinge in their courtesies.

In order to compensate, I grin like an idiot, and try to be comically over-polite-- basically everything short of flat out saying, "Actually, I'm from Canada. PLEASE LIKE ME."

I know this is just me being neurotic- the locals probably hate tourists of all nationalities equally.

Jirasek Park

However, despite my supposed Canadianness, I out-Americaned Jordan at the Prague train station when, with a dearth of options, I caved and got Burger King for breakfast. So now in addition to definitely having Hepatitis, I'm also a simply destitute human being.

Regardless of minor capitulations, however, I'm still making an effort to try new things--

Jordan just read this post and said "There seems to be a bit of a theme here, and I'm not sure I like it," referring to the profusion of pee and penile pictures in this entry and the last one.  I'm not really sure why this is getting so scatological...

Now it's off to Munich, the big fat sausage capital of the world!