Nobody Cares What I Did in Prague. But It Amused Me, At Least

I’ve always wanted to see Prague, not least because my favourite book is set there. I had two very conflicting images of the place: the first was that it has a load of grim, black little streets, with Jewish gem-cutters and Golems everywhere. The other is that it’s a handsome European capital, unsurpassed in beauty and atmosphere. I found it to be the second of these options, which, in a way, makes me slightly sad. I guess I’ll have to look harder next time. 

Not a mud-monster in sight

To start with, myself and a couple of mates elected not to be driven by an acquaintance of ours, but to go on the coach, because we’re nice like that. All three of us were somewhat hungover, so it was something of a struggle to get to the bus station on time. We needn’t have bothered. The bus turned up 20 minutes late. 20 minutes, in which I, because I booked the tickets, furiously double-checked the date, time and location. It got to the point that we were considering just getting on one to Krakow for a lost weekend, and making up an excuse later.

The bus eventually turned up, and we got on, to find that there were plenty of empty seats and rows. That didn’t stop a goofy-looking devil from looking at my friend, and saying “I think that is my seat”. I would dearly like to know how he came to that conclusion, because none of the seats had numbers, and they were all basically empty anyway. I hate people like that, that try and claim your seat when they have essentially a whole coach/train to choose from. I’m the other extreme: when I have a reserved seat, I deliberately try and sit somewhere else, to fight the power. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by the views out of the windows. I thought that Polish countryside, judging from what I’d seen en route to Dresden, was grim and grey. Not so. It could be because spring is on its way, or that it’s nowhere near Germany, but the fields actually looked great. Lovely landscape, nice little towns and villages, well maintained trees by the roadside, I was pleasantly surprised. We also went through a sort of hilly part, which looked a little bit like the Rocky Mountains whenever they feature in a bad cowboy film on TV. Rolling hills, covered with pine trees, between little valleys and pastures. We particularly noticed this when we stopped at a service station, which I presume have given PolskiBus a commission for all the custom they bring. We got off, desperate for a smoke, and saw the scenery foregrounded by what appeared to be some serious earth-moving and a nasty-looking hotel. This service station also had a policy in which you have to pay 1zl to use the toilets. You gave your money to an angry looking woman, and she’d shoo you away. I wouldn't even like to say for certain that she worked for the service station. If not,s he was onto a nice little earner. It says a lot that I’d rather actually pay for something than use a free coach toilet, after the fiasco when I last travelled with National Express. The horror still hasn’t left me. Jeff the Dutch did add that “they have some nerve, charging you to have a slash when there are all these trees everywhere”, at which point I heavily re-evaluated my life, and decided that the disgust of my fellow travellers was not equivalent to any amount of money, and that I would make a different choice next time. 

Lovely river, with a dead swan. That is the castle/cathedral in the distance

Anyway, we arrived at Prague bus station. The first thing we did was spark up a cigarette, because it had been three hours since our last smoke, and I was starting to be reclaim my sense of smell, which isn’t what you need on a PolskiBus.  No sooner had we taken the first drag down when there came a voice over the tannoy, in rapid Czech, which we ignored, then in English. “We would like to remind passengers that smoking is forbidden within this bus station. Thank you for your time.” We put them out, cursing in at least three different European languages, whilst and old woman, a propos of nothing turned round and laughed at us. I’m sorry that we didn’t know that they watch us like hawks, lady!

Then, we had to get the local currency. They’re not in the Euro-Zone, the Czech – they use the Korona, or Crown. That much we knew. The exchange rate with other currencies we did not. We put our cards into the machine, and the lowest possible quantity we could get out was 500 of the things. “What?! That’s a big number! Do we need that? What does it work out as?” we asked one another, none of us able to reply. We cracked, and decided to get a 500 out each, learning it was worth about £16, or €19. We worked out the real-world value of it by utilising the “Toxin Test”, as we christened it: how much a pack of cigarettes cost (70Kr), or how much a pint cost (50, in the centre). How did we work this out? We had to get on the underground, for which we decided we needed change, so had to break our notes in a bar. We found a “sports bar”, which appeared to be a bar with a small casino attached. We also think it was a front for the mob, judging by the guys on the next table. They were also showing the craziest game show I’d ever seen. It was filmed in a taxi, with various couples getting in the back, being driven around a city, answering questions, then getting out, having been given money. I for one would struggle with driving without presenting a game show at the same time, and questioned the validity of the premise. Jeff the Dutch, again, told me that “well, if you’re going to rent a space for a period of time, a taxi’s probably the most economical way”, a fact that I couldn’t refute. Either way, we needed change because we had to get on the tube to meet our friends who’d gone by car. I hate undergrounds. Scary, inhumane things. We didn’t understand how to get tickets, to start with, so a man who spoke absolutely no English helped us (Yeah, that’s right. Charlie Chaplain isn’t dead, no way.) Then we went down the escalators. I have never seen anything like them. Huge, so steep that people appeared to be leaning backwards, and fast as well. Terrifying. The tube was actually okay, comparatively. Fairly spacious, fairly brief and tolerably cheap. Problem is, when we got to the correct station, we had to play what essentially amounted to a game of hide-and-seek with our mates, who had driven down earlier that day. The wretched station had about 17 different exits. “Meet us outside” they said. We went outside, they were nowhere to be found.
“Where are you? We’re by a big park?”
“We’re by a big statue. There’s a river.” We went to the other side, and they, because apparently they can’t follow simple orders, also went, which meant that we had to go back and forth, from one side to the other, several times. This lasted for about 20 minutes. I won’t play the blame-game, but it wasn’t our fault. 

Famous clock. Well worth a look, whatever time it tells

Magically, no thanks to several of the group, we made it to our hostel. The “Lion Hostel”, which for me conjures images of bravery and majesty. It was a place to sleep, if I’m being nice. On the bright side, it had Wi-Fi. On the less-bright side, it had cupboards full of decaying crockery. See, we’ve just had our entire kitchen go rotten, even down to the cutlery and the contents of the fridge – but when we wash up, things are clean. Not so, in the “Lion Hostel”. Things were seemingly put back into the cupboards filthy, with stains, stickiness and odd films on everything. Utterly revolting, but the beds were better than back home. Bunk beds, with dodgy ladders, but somehow still better than the nonsense that administration call a “bed”. I didn’t get any sort of carpet burns from the mattress, that’s all I’m saying. Either way: tolerable hostel, intolerable hunger. We wanted Czech food, curse you! We got fish and chips. Yep, that’s right, quasi-authentic fish and chips. To my eternal shame, I didn’t bother learning the vaguest bit of Czech before I went, so I ordered in English. It felt a touch like home, until I realised that I could afford it. Quite how fish and chips became a treat, I’ll never know. What would cost a pant-wettingly large quantity of money in its native country came to exactly £4.79 (according to Google), inclusive of some kind of soft drink/beer. I was so happy that I essentially inhaled it. I know I’m meant to be abroad, and trying other cultures’ food, but all the eating-houses were full, and I miss my national food. Yeah, Britain has national food, believe it or not. I was so happy to be eating fish and chips that I even ate the hideously processed mushy peas that went with it. Who am I kidding, they were free, of course I ate them.

Then we went to the pub. Czech beer is great, it beats the hell out of any German beer. Also great, for some at least, is the Czech law regarding cannabis. Now, I haven’t smoked it since I was about 17, but in the Czech Republic, it’s decriminalised. Legal to possess, legal to smoke, but entirely illegal to sell. This explains why the barmaid was smoking a huge reefer, and got confused when we ordered. “One dark beer, and one pale beer, please”. She tried to charge me for two bottles of water, then essentially slammed the beers in front of me, snatched the money I offered her, then threw the change in my face. Hey, smoking that stuff makes you crazy. Besides, it’s not my fault she couldn’t follow simple directions. 

Regardless, we were up at a reasonable hour the next day. I had a pact, with a very good friend of mine, that we wouldn’t get messed-up drunk, because we actually wanted to see the city. It was worth it. The first thing we saw was Charles Bridge. I believe that is the English term, because it was noisy in the bar whilst we were describing it, and it could well have been “Carlos Bridge”, “Camel Bridge” or “Chattanooga Bridge”. It was utterly beautiful, but packed. Aside from people selling tasteless, arty nonsense, and other tourists, there were plenty of beggars. Now, the beggars in Prague have some kind of style. I know, “beggars with style = hipsters”, but this was quite impressive. They lay basically flat, faces towards the floor, with their hands held out, like hermits or something. Makes a change from people asking you for a pound for a cup of tea, then eyeballing you as you leave. A quirk about Charles Bridge is that it’s famous as a place to propose to your significant other. I did that, with a friend, to a different friend. No names named, because it may come back to bite us on the bum when we’re running countries. I got up, from one knee, to find a bunch of people looking at us like we’d spontaneously combusted. Either way, it was stellar, largely because he accepted us both. 

We are not tourists. Love you all <3

Also stellar was the castle. I believe it’s the largest castle in the world, by terms of area. It’s up on a hill, surrounded by the “Garden of Paradise”. I believe my time in the Gardens was the last time I was genuinely at peace with the world since I successfully played the solo from “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. Utterly beautiful, with views of the city, and various embassies. The British one was my favourite, because the garden was basically the same as the one I planned when I fantasised about winning the lottery. Equally as impressive were the uniforms that the palace guard wore whilst walking around. All I’m saying is “like a late Michael Jackson costume”. We asked one if he minded if we took his picture. He did, so one of us took a snap of his back. However, aside from the classic tourist photos we took with a (different) guard, the highlight of that was the sentient lawnmower. Yeah. It looked like a Breville sandwich toaster, but seemed to be possessed with a demon. It basically bumbled across a square of grass, more or less randomly, but when it found a wall, it would make a couple of attempts at turning, then bumble off in a different direction. For some reason, I found it brutally funny, and watched it for a good long time. Je ne regrette rien. 

Best thing I've seen for a good many years

Then we decided to visit the Jewish quarter. That was a big goal of mine, having read The Golem (Meyrink, 1918), and had big expectations. Someone, I forget who, decided it was about three underground stops away. It wasn’t. It was next door to where we were when we looked at the map. We found this out later. We eventually got to this distant, suburban station, and had to find a place to eat. The first café was staffed by a man who was rude and unfriendly, but the establishment was fairly typical. Why typical? I believe the Czech Republic is a little like enhanced Poland. You can smoke everywhere. In Poland, you can smoke only where they don’t serve food, or if there’s a separate room. There are such qualms about that in Prague. You can blow smoke in anyone’s face. Eventually, due to one of us trying his hardest to pull a girl, we found a place that served food. I had chilli sausages with chilli sauce. Pretty standard, I must say.

Eventually, went back to the main square, to finally see the Jewish quarter. We ran into some Hispanic girls, one Spanish, one Argentinian. We were never fated to be together – the Argentinian put a stop to that. Partly because the Falkland Islands shall remain British unto infinity, but largely because one of our party thought that, as an Argentinian, she spoke Portuguese. Magically, with them, we found the Old New Synagogue. Yep. That name is right. I believe it burnt down, so they replaced it in a half-arsed way. Either way, it was great. Sadly, the Jewish cemetery was shut, which was a real shame, because I wanted to pay my respects to Rabbi Low, the alleged creator of the original Golem, as well as try and listen in to a meeting of the Illuminati, who Wikipedia assures me regularly meets there. Next time, gentlemen, I shall have my say on the fiscal policy of the West, I promise you.  

Now, I’m half Scottish. I’m very proud of my meanness, my drunkenness, and my propensity for wearing eccentric clothing. I also love bagpipe music. See, I listen to it a lot, when by myself, but I never expected to hear it in a Continental capital. Believe it or not, I did. Whilst on our way to the astronomical clock that evening, I saw a bagpiper, in complete Scots regalia, playing stuff like “Scotland the Brave” and a very misplaced “Auld Lang’s Syne”. I have never felt more proud to be vaguely Scottish. I wanted to stay and listen, but I was distracted by signs for the “Instruments of Torture Museum”. They seemingly have a museum for everything, including sex. I wanted to go, but I would hate myself so bitterly that I couldn’t justify it. To be fair, though, I was taken in by the display, which involved a tiny Ferris wheel, with feathers attached. Yeah, it’s on my Amazon wishlist, if anyone gives a damn. 

To cut an exceedingly lengthy story short, we left the next day, with deep regret. It was just myself and Jeff the Dutch who got the coach. Magically, we managed to be both early and late. We turned up to the bus station early, so hit the pub. It was terrifying. It was situated in the backstreets of the city, staffed by a barmaid whose sheer disinterest made me fall a little in love (she didn’t say a word to us). She, however, was tempered with the loud, and terrifying, gypsy/Armenian types in the corner. Anyway, we were a touch waylaid, which meant that we got to the bus with two minutes to spare. Obviously there weren’t any seats. The driver of the coach looked slightly apprehensive, then made us sit on the bottom deck. I drew the long/short straw, and got to sit next to him. It was kinda great. I felt like Chewbacca – I was that sleep-deprived that I could have agreed that a Parsec was a unit of time, plus I was sat next to the driver whilst making weird noises. Less great was what I understood from his conversation with his official co-pilot. The price of fish, clothing and poor driving was the best I got from their conversation. The worst? When they were laughing at the weight limit of a bridge. I got to see things from a completely different view. The highlight was the boy, cycling on the wrong side of the road, with a look of determination, spitting on average every 1.5 seconds. It was brilliant. 

Dislike it. I dare you.

Now, Prague is in no way perfect. There are just a few problems. One is the huge quantity of dreadful English people, another is the huge quantities of Americans being boorish, neither of which I go mad for. Also, there was an eerie lack of cash machines. Now, I live in a piddly little village, in which basically everyone is a great musician, because there’s nothing at all to do when your mates aren’t around. Even that has a cash-point. Not so Prague. It was a little bit creepy, if I’m honest.  A city that loves tourism, but can’t let you get money out to throw it away on hookers/beer/instruments of torture souvenirs. My last point is that we saw a modern-day Nazgûl. He was like an absence of light, but on a Segway. In case you didn’t know, a Segway is a kind of twisted bicycle, that fat Americans and general tossers use to get around when they're too lazy to use their legs. This guy was on one. Terrifying. We didn’t see him until it was nearly too late. A 21^st Century Golem, maybe? Hopefully. 

In conclusion, visit Prague. Don’t hope for a cashpoint, don’t take pictures of guards that can say “no” and don’t expect to not see idiots from your own country. But for my money, it’s the best European capital I’ve ever visited, with great beer, people that (without fail) speak your language, whatever it may be, and great books which happen to be set there. Plus a bagpiper and a sentient lawnmower. I mean, come on, what more do you need?! To be honest, not Mozart. He was from Salzburg, Austria, yet Prague try to claim him. I’ll move there when I’m a rock star, to balance it out, I think.

A Mostly Landlocked Country with Better Fish Than an Island. Yeah, That's Right.

First thing that I should say about Polish food is that I really like it. It’s warming, hearty and just what you need to line your stomach for a night on the beer and to keep the cold out. Does exactly what it needs to, in short. However, I have a couple of issues with it. Either way, we out a lot, because our flat is always disgusting, there's never any clean crockery, the fridge is too small for leftovers, and we can afford it, so I can't complain too bitterly about anything, really. Still, I'll try, for comic effect.

The first issue is that I’m now officially sick of pickled cucumber. See, I thought that was impossible. I have the kind of palate (that of a heavy smoker, that didn’t have much of a sense of smell or taste before he started) that requires big, strong, powerful flavours. Otherwise, it’s like eating a big plate of cardboard. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle, because that means that I have chilli sauce on absolutely everything, including cheese on toast and sausages. That, of course, doesn’t help the fact that I can’t taste anything. Polish cuisine isn’t exactly bursting with flavour, I’m afraid, which means that a load of gherkins with it is kinda necessary to make it more palatable. It’s good without, don’t get me wrong, but not particularly exciting. Before I came here, I was excited at the prospect of being able to eat gherkins with basically everything, because they’re one of my favourite things in the world. However, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. I didn’t realise that you could do that with pickles. In my first year, I used to be quite fond of sitting down and eating half a jar of the things, if I was controlling myself, like a pregnant woman. Not so, now. This, in a way, makes me sad. 

The Polish are absolutely crazy about soup. I can see why, actually. I’m not the world’s biggest soup eater (drinker?), but their soup is great. There’s zurek, which is fantastic, along with various beetroot based soups, and so on. They generally have it as a starter to their main course, and it’s great. Zurek in particular, because that can be eaten as a main course by itself. The café across the road used to serve it in a big, fancily-shaped, hollowed out loaf of bread, which was generally too much for me to finish. My favourite Polish dish, on the other hand, is pierogi. These are like filled dumplings, which you can have boiled or fried. Filled with what? Anything, as far as I can tell. I like the cheese-based ones best, but there are also meat, cabbage and mushroom and basically whatever you want, even sweet stuff. I found this out at a big old self-service buffet place. I loaded my plate with them, to find that they were filled with some kind of sweet cheese. They worked quite well, but not alongside whatever other savoury stuff I’d piled on. I have heard rumours of fruit-filled pierogi, but I’m not sure if I believe them. 

One day I'll see this somewhere and greet it like a long-lost friend

On the other hand, they do love their salad. Their go-to salad is a mix of white cabbage, carrot and some other stuff, lightly pickled, which is rather moreish. It works absolutely brilliantly with the traditional food, but less well with everything else. Doesn’t stop them from trying though. One thing is definitely does not work with is Chinese food. But still, whenever we go to the Chinese place, without fail, we get

a little pile of the stuff, sprinkled with sesame seeds. It’s the same basically everywhere. I think that a meal without it, to the Polish, is like an English family Christmas without some kind of deep misery – just unthinkable.

There isn’t much by the way of spicy food here, which is something of a sadness in my life. As someone from a former colonial country, we can’t help but to have food from the places we conquered. In short, I’m absolutely mad for curry. For my money, there’s nothing that can beat it. The Polish don’t have much of a tradition of that kind of stuff here. There is a curry place in the main square, but that involves paying English prices, which I refuse to do on principle. This means that we have to make it ourselves. I’m actually quite happy with the recipe that I’ve developed. Tomatoey, spicy, satisfying, and about as authentic as deep-fried pizza. Speaking of which, the eating places near to my accommodation are a bit of a mixed bag. There is an excellent pizza place across the road, which comfortably makes my all-time top-ten eating places. It looks wonderfully swanky, with tablecloths, linen napkins, the whole thing – but we can afford it. The food’s excellent, but I’m slightly put off by the decoration. Plates affixed to the walls (!), along with photographs of people that I think I should recognise, and surreal stuff, like family photos, where the father has a big fork instead of a head. That’s great, but we don’t always fancy pizza. The café, where we spent basically all of our first three weeks has been closed for renovations since December, which is highly annoying to say the least. The Chinese place is great. Poorly translated menus, Asian chefs, disinterested waitresses and ‘authentic’ decorations – the food’s great, unnecessary salads aside. However, there is a peculiar side effect to it. I think they cook it with Rohypnol. I’m being serious, whenever we eat there, we have to fight falling asleep for the rest of the evening. I don’t know how they do it, I really don’t. There’s also a traditional Polish place called Jedzonko, a word which I’m reliably informed is close to the Dutch for “your joint”. The food is traditional, and rather excellent, in the heavy way that it is. Free salad and soup when you order, which is always nice. The only problem is the decoration. They like to decorate the place with apples, and decorative gourds, which I suppose is different, and quaint, if that’s the way you think. Unfortunately, they don’t factor in that SUCH THINGS ROT. I kid you not, it’s a restaurant, decorated with decaying food. 

Artist's impression of one of the men decorating the Greek place.
Imam-looking guy not included. He scared me last night, he'll
scare me now.

Equally bizarre is the Greek place down the road. I had a craving for moussaka, so I dragged my flatmate along with me. Last time I was there, they didn’t have any moussaka. This time they didn’t have any beer. They also decorate the walls with late-middle-aged Greek-looking men (one with inexplicable parrot). That part makes sense. However, the picture of the sink, the Imam and the chef looking like he wants to eat my soul do not. My moussaka was something akin to cottage pie, with tomato soup. Most bizarre, but actually okay, despite the whole cardamom pods added liberally throughout. What was less good was the man breaking into helpless floods of tears about halfway through our meal. We don’t have a clue what was going on there, but it didn’t aid digestion. They also had a huge display of jars of black olives, and salt. 500g tubes of Greek salt. I find myself wondering: wasn't there anything better, or more stereotypically Greek that they could have chosen than salt?

Something else that I have noticed is that, in a more expensive restaurant, you have to order the main part of your dish and the side orders separately. So, if you want a pork chop, and order a pork chop, you’ll get a pork chop. Nothing else, just a pork chop. We found that out early on in our time here, where Marek and I, between us, had a wonderfully balanced, tasty meal. However, he had the meat part, and I had a kind of vegetable platter, both of us looking enviously at one another’s dinners. That said, I do go mad for the fish here. Poland is basically landlocked, with a few towns way up in the North, on the Baltic Sea. The fish here, on the other hand, is rather good, if you go to a restaurant - unlike England: an island, where fresh fish is a treat. 

Unrelated picture of pierogi

Poland is a beer/vodka country. However, it is closer to South-Eastern Europe than we are, which means that you can get some rather excellent wines. In England, you can generally get French, Spanish and Italian wines, then the new world varieties. I have to bust a gut every time I want to get hold of some retsina. Restsina is of course a Greek wine, with a rather admirable idea behind it. They take a bad, undrinkable wine, then add pine resin, which makes it bad and undrinkable in a completely different way. I go absolutely mad for it, in the summer. Plus it gets you wonderfully blitzed. But here, we can get Bulgarian and Moldovan wines as well. The Moldovan wines are some of my favourites, both red and white. Cheap as anything, of course. They seem to prefer their sweet wines here, which I absolutely do not. The flavoured vodkas are good as well. The lemon is my favourite. Intensely lemony, sour, warming – it’s great. I drink it during fire alarms. The cherry stuff is good as well, when chilled right down. They also do some kind of buffalo grass vodka, which smells of summer, and tastes slightly like vanilla. It’s easy drinking, which is always dangerous. 

As a parting comment on Polish eating and drinking, I will say this: their cakes look excellent. I’ve never had one, because I’m worried that I’ll get a taste for them, and finish the year looking even more like John Prescott than I do now.