Praha – The Grand Finale

I got back to Maida Vale around 9pm on Friday and Marissa and I had to leave for Gatwick at 8:30am on Saturday morning. We had no problem getting to Praha. We found the hostel just fine. However, when we checked in, we were told there was no space for two people in a 5-bed room [that I booked two months in advance]. We could either split up into two separate 5-bed rooms or go together into a 32-bed room. We didn’t want to be split up so we chose the world’s largest dorm room. It was quite the sight. I didn’t have a chance to snap a photo, but it was just beds – beds EVERYWHERE… in my raccoon wounds… two bathrooms, lockers, and a door that never really closed or locked. The men's bathroom had group showers, which kinda creeped me out and kinda made Marissa laugh. The women's had private showers. Marissa and I were just stunned. We might be slightly… high maintenance travelers.

We reluctantly got settled and then went to dinner at a pizza restaurant across the street. Our hostel had an excellent location. It was outside the city centre – about a 20-minute walk – and therefore, everything around us was cheap! I had a 12” pizza for 100 crowns AND a pint of beer for 25 crowns. That converts to about $8.17 CAD. Yah, I think I love this town.

We hit up the hostel’s basement bar for ‘Happy Hour’. I asked the bartender what the drink specials were [since it was happy hour]. He told me there weren’t any. Weird. However, he said that you could buy two pints and get one free – and this offer was valid any time the bar was open. Weird. But I wasn’t going to complain. That meant that you could get THREE pints of beer for $3.66 CAD. Sold. Yah, I love this town. So we sat and chatted a bit and some people at the next table asked if we wanted to play cards – Presidents + Assholes. We agreed – took me back to the days around the lunch table at JP2. We met David, Sarah and Alex from Minnesota. I asked if they were from Mount Rose [a la Drop Dead Gorgeous]. They were not. But I was impressed they got the slightly obscure reference. They also said that the city is actually called Rose Mount and the movie fictionalized it a bit. I was slightly disappointed. After a few hands, a few pints, and a photoshoot in the men's toilet of our 32-person dorm room, the five of us set out to explore the nightlife.


We set out to a local bar that I had read about online. It was nearby, and supposedly friendly, Anglophone and a good source for information on the party scene. We got some info, met a couple creepers (including this one dude who scratched his ass for about 45 minutes) and then we left for another bar.

On the street, we met two young Czechs, Jacob and his friend [name unknown]. They were going to the same bar we were looking for but Jacob was being a Maria about helping us find it. He also accused me of thinking that I was better than him because I was a Canadian in Praha. It was pretty messed up. We had a heated discussion on the street about how it’s not about superiority, but about new and different experiences. He saw ‘different’ as a negative thing, like I was a Westerner looking to judge everything around me. He was kind of an idiot. But he did eventually lead us to the club. The club was ok. We mostly stayed near the bar and chatted.



Marissa and I got a late start the next day but we wandered around the city for hours.

More men climbing buildings - remember Manchester?

We finally made it to the city centre. I was a little nervous because Steve1 told me all these horrible things about Praha – it was dirty, dangerous, I’d get robbed by gypsies, etc. I’m not sure what happened to him when he visited, but this was not the case. You have to be smart about things, but I never felt threatened while I was there. We saw all the sights – Charles Bridge, Praha Castle, Gothic Cathedral and the high street.







These statues were peeing. Their pelvises rotated as they relieved themselves. It was... funny?

But the most interesting attraction was the Torture Museum. On three floors, it features narratives, illustrations and reconstructions pertaining to torture techniques in Europe during the 16th and 17th Centuries. It was GRUESOME. Those Europeans meant business. By the time I got to the third floor, I actually felt sick to my stomach. Naturally, we went to dinner after. We went to an upper scale restaurant in the centre. I got a traditional Czech meal – beef goulash with bread dumplings and a pint of beer. It cost less than $20. Delicious.


Metro art. It's pretty.

After dinner, we had to get back to the hostel to change rooms. We got in a 6-bed room [still not what I reserved] with four unfriendly German girls. At least these room was called 'Nice View'. It was beside the room called 'Best View'. We asked the girls in that room if their view was REALLY better than ours. They said yes... after all, their view was angled slightly toward the left.

'Nice View'.

Marissa takes a break in the room.

Then we went to ‘Happy Hour’ and to meet David, Sarah and Alex for more cards, pints and to formulate a game plan for the grand finale – last night in Praha!

Because I didn't want to be the only one with a 'traveller'...

We started in the Old Town Square to catch the Eurocup football match. There were huge project screens set up all around the square, hundreds of people and most importantly – cheap beer sold at a kiosk. We only caught the last 10 minutes of the game, but it worked out well because the crowd dispersed immediately after and we had the beer stand all to ourselves.

Look how happy we were about that!

The public toilet situation was problematic. They all seem to close at 9pm. So we picked a bar at random just to use the facilities. Then I talked David and Alex into joining me for an obligatory shot of absinthe. The bartender asked if we’d done it before and we confidently told him, ‘Of course’. He gave us the shots, sugar, a spoon and matches. We had no idea what to do.

So we learned that you put the sugar in the spoon, submerge it in the absinthe for a second, light the sugar in the spoon, let the flame burn out, dump, stir and shoot. Then the bartender told us if we were going to throw up, we had to do it outside. I laughed. He was serious. Nice guy.

Next, we set out to find a club called ‘Roxy’ that some girls at the hostel were talking about. We found it. It was closed. As if clubs in Praha close just because it’s Sunday! As we stood outside, pondering our next move, two Czech girls approached us – Anita and Bara – accompanied by a man. We chatted a bit and they discreetly told us [by the power of mobile phones] that the man with them was a creeper and wouldn’t leave them alone. So we just walked with them a bit and the man kind of fell back. He even told Alex ‘You and your party must leave now.’ Creeper.

Anita joins in.

Back to the beer stand!



Alex and I share a deep moment.

We had no real game plan, but we needed to find a toilet again. I knew of one nearby – beneath the Torture Museum – but it turned out to be closed as well. Right next door, there was a man trying to coax people into a club [also below the Torture Museum]. It was 80 crowns entry [$5 CAD] and included a free drink. At that point, we would have paid 1000 crowns!

The club was awesome. It wasn’t terrible busy but the music was awesome. It was all upbeat and housey. We walked into Rhianna’s ‘Please Don’t Stop The Music’ – how appropriate. The walls were all brick that continued into the arched ceiling. There was a stage for dancing, where Marissa and I spent most of the night.


After we got the boot [because the club closed, not because Ronnie was there], we went to the Charles Bridge. It’s MUCH nicer at 3am without all the annoying tourists – just the 7 of us. Anita showed us where to touch the bridge and make a wish. We all did.


Alex gets a little adventurous... we told him if he fell in, he was on his own. :)
After the obligatory street food, we said goodbye to Anita and Bara and walked back to the hostel in the daylight [how unwholesome]. At least we had a wicked night.



On our last day in Praha, I set my mobile alarm for 10am so we’d have one hour to get ready before the 11am checkout time. Marissa and I wanted to shower but our new room was in a suite of rooms with 1 shower for an estimated 14 people. Needless to say, it was very busy. Suddenly, I realised my mobile was still on London time, ie: it was actually 11:20am and we were late checking out. Oops. So we quickly packed up and ran downstairs. They didn’t seem to care.

We had breakfast with David, Sarah and Alex, but we were all pretty wrecked from the night before. They were preparing for a 22-hour train ride to Nice. Crazy. We exchanged contact info and said goodbye. For the whole day, we experienced on and off monsoons. We went to a local park, had lunch on a McDonald’s terrasse, shopped and checked out Frank Gehry’s building – meant to resemble two people dancing.


Around 6pm, we went back to the hostel to pick up our bags and left – exhausted. I left for Toronto the next afternoon. I was sad to leave so many great people, but happy to return to some sort of structure, routine, and so on [assuming Judy didn’t fire me, as predicted by Chris]. I need a holiday from my holiday. Asia in `09 Chris?

We Komen Aan In Bruges

Six am came quickly on Thursday as I didn’t get back to Maida Vale until half 12 the night before and Marissa and I had our usual daily de-briefing until 1. Damn you and your ice cream, Nik. Getting on the tube at 6:30am, I thought I was beating rush hour. I missed the bulk of it, but there were already plenty of people wearing suits and going to work. Sick.

The Eurostar is quite nice. The staff are exceptionally nice [even though I couldn’t take my tall, skinny latte through security – don’t they know it’s a treat since I have to walk 30 minutes, uphill both ways, barefoot to get one in St. Kitts?] The trains are nice. The ride was enjoyable and fast – 400km from London to Bruxelles in under 2 hours. They travel at about 300 km/h for most of the trip, but not in tunnels for safety reasons. The train goes through tunnels below most of London and then through a tunnel below the English Channel. It’s slightly unnerving to know there’s a huge body of water above you for 20 minutes.

I arrived in Bruxelles and transferred onto a domestic train to get to Bruges. I wandered down narrow, cobble stone streets to find the hostel. It was pretty nice. I had my own room! After I checked in, took a quick nap and bought a jacket at Zara because I was cold, I set out to explore the city. I went to the main square and to the Church of the Holy Blood where you can see Michelangelo’s Virgin and Child, [one of?] his only pieces to leave Italy.



I went on a tour of their brewery and tried their 500 year old recipe. The coolest part was the wall of beer cans where visitors send cans from their respective countries. Canada was already represented.


Cholo.

Maria.


BEER!

I ate a delicious Belgian waffle and wandered through the city as the sun slowly set. It was much nicer at dusk [10:30pm] as the sun was ALMOST set and the tourists were home in bed. I like to think of myself as a traveler, not a tourist.





The next morning, I climbed the 366 steps up the Belfry tower in the main square. It was quite the puppy surprise when the massive bells rang at 2pm, 3 feet away from my head.



I went to the museum of Flemish art and saw 'The Last Judgement' by Hieronymus Bosch. It's a really creepy triptych showing the end of the world. In Hell, you see body parts, a lot of nudity, a man being eaten by a giant rabbit, a man trapped in harp strings, a man straddling a knife. It's SO bizarre. Heaven is equally as strange. I ended my stay in Bruges by the canal and windmills with a little picnic.


Biking is so big in Bruges. There were paths everywhere and all ages of people riding. There was also a massive bike parking lot at the train station for hundreds [thousands?] of bikes. It was amazing. Why can’t Canada get it right? Keep rising, oil prices.

Bruges is just one of those ridiculously beautiful cities where everywhere you look, there’s a photo opportunity.

Ten Things I Hate About London

People keep asking if I’d ever live in London again. I don’t know that I would. It would take a pretty sweet offer and a flat within walking distance to work. It’s awesome in so many ways but there are a few things I’m not fond of:

1. Isolation – People avoid live interaction at all costs. They text message instead of talk on the phone. All mobiles are hooked up to facebook. Half the time, people don’t get your messages. On the tube, it’s eyes down in your daily Metro newspaper. You can be surrounded by people and totally alone.

2. The tube – 45 degrees in the summer with no air con. ‘Nuff said.

3. Oxford Street – I live the shopping but crowds and slow walkers make me homicidal.

4. Geographical Inconvenience – when you live, work and play miles apart, you spend your life indoors and underground and you remain pasty white

5. Private Public Space – Almost all parks are fenced in and close at dusk.

6. Keep Moving – there are so few places to sit down. Tired? Too bad. You can’t sit here.

7. Fees – Council Tax, tv and radio licences. What’s up with that?

8. Celebrity Worship – The Brits LOVE their celebs. All papers have pages of celebrity gossip. When I was out one night, apparently I saw a Big Brother contestant and a tv presenter. Bored now. Everyone knows who’s dating who, wearing what, and who got wasted and passed out at a club at 11pm. Oh Lily Allen, you’re not smiling now, are you?

9. Urine Stench – It actually hasn’t been so bad since I’m staying in a nice hood.

10. Terrorism - Every day on my way to work on the tube, I would read my Metro paper. Every day, there would be an article about a foiled terrorist plot against Londoners. A common method was using bombs to rip holes in the tube line beneath the Thames River so the line filled up with water. It's not like my fears were unfounded. 7/7 was tragic and horrifying.

But it’s a love/hate relationship. On a positive note, I LOVE how fashionable everyone is here. My style slips when the weather gets too hot… but not the Brits’! I love the accessibility to international travel. I love sipping wine in a park. I love most of the accents. Hot. I love that museums are free. I love that feeling of excitement when you meet up with good friends in Soho on a Friday or Saturday night.

Good times.

Love is a Label That Never Goes Out of Style

Wednesday was my last full day in London. I got a late start to the day following my Tuesday afternoon lounging in Regent’s Park in the 23 degree heat and evening of Tiramisu martinis – from a recipe from a single bartender at Freedom in Soho, that he only serves to regulars. Yah, I got connections. I’m big in Europe.



I was with my friend Ozzy who claims that his friend who’s a merchandiser for Topman said it’s coming to Canada. I told him not to f*** with my emotions. So we shall see.

Anyway, on Wednesday afternoon, I met up with Steven at Oxford Circus. We weren’t sure what to do. I asked if he wanted to see my Manchester pics and he asked ‘Are they all of buildings?’ Yes they are, you jerk.  I successfully talked him into going to see the Sex and the City movie [hence the title of this entry]. It’s been out for 2 weeks and I think I was the last person in the world to see it. It was fantastic – funny, depressing, but with a happy ending and a couple of surprises. Afterward, Steve and I had separate commitments so we said goodbye for another year and a half.

I got on the tube and headed to Bounds Green to see Nik. I did a double take when I saw the world's funniest PSA:


Nik lives in a newer 7-year-old townhouse. There 3 floors with a kitchen, reception room and 4 bedrooms. The townhouses had a fairly small footprint, were only about 12’ wide and had long, narrow rear yards that backed onto the rear yard of adjacent townhouses.

I took a photo of the rear yards because they looked so interesting and compact. Nik laughed and asked if it was a ‘planning photo’. Naturally. Then I told him about the accessible parking in Derby. I commented on how warm the reception room was on a cold night. It seems that’s because of the building materials. His parents recently built an addition on their house and the building code dictates walls be made of two rows of cinderblocks with insulation between and then a row of bricks on the exterior. The result is a wall that’s nearly 2 feet thick made of a material that slowly absorbs the heat of the day and then slowly releases it at night [into the dwelling]. I asked if houses were built with wood frames and he looked at me like was mad. After a gossip sesh, song sharing and ice cream, Nik showed me this awesome website – asos.com. It stands for As Seen On Screen. It’s a British site that rips off celebrities’ outfits and sells them at affordable prices. It has a Topman style about it AND they ship to Canada! Why didn’t I know about this?

I said goodbye to Nik for another year and a half. He’s promised to come visit [if I’m ever living in Toronto again] as I explained to him that flights are a mere 325 quid in the off-season]. Toronto’s nicer in the AUTUMN anyway.

Euston Station, the Train Journeyed North…

On Saturday afternoon, I took the Virgin Train from Euston to Manchester. The Virgin Trains are quite nice. They are large, plush seats, headphone jacks and it wasn’t at all busy. However, due to infamous ‘planned engineering works’ [a term I have learned to dread as it complicates your journey], there are no direct trains from London to Manchester on Saturdays until December, 2008. Instead, I took the train to Northampton. It terminated there and coaches were there waiting to shuttle passengers to Birmingham International Airport. When I arrived there, I hopped on a second Virgin Train to Manchester. The whole trip took about 4.5 hours as opposed to 3 hours under normal circumstances.

I arrived in Manchester shortly before seven. Richard was waiting for me on the platform. It was pretty surreal to see him again. He and my [Torontonian] friend Josef both helped me get my 35 kilos of luggage to the airport when I moved back to Canada in ’06.

We set out to find our hostel ‘The Hilton Chambers’. I like to call it ‘The Hilton’. After walking the wrong direction for 10 minutes, we found it. Did I mention I’m a city planner? But like most European cities, there’s little logic to the streets. It’s tough, ok? It was the most stunning hostel I’ve ever stayed it. It was all clean and refurbished. We had a twin room with an ensuite – no bunk bed! The room and loo were both quite spacious. We dropped off our bags and went for dinner in Chinatown. Though, it wasn’t cheap like Toronto’s Chinatown.


Dec room.


Nice view?

After dinner, Richard’s friend Dave came over to our room to predrink. Dave lives in Manchester so he’s familiar with the city. Around half eleven, we set out for Canal Street. Canal Street is a narrow pedestrian street with a row of shops, bars and clubs on one side, and a canal on the other. We started at two different bars, then off to a club called ‘Essential’.


Dave, Richard + I.


Out on Canal Street.


From the roof of 'Spirit'.

At the club, the cover was 10 quid [$20]!!! Anyone who parties with me knows that I don’t like to pay cover for clubs. Naturally, I tried to talk my way out of it. I told the girl I was visiting from Canada and asked if she’d ever been. She told me all about her trip to Mont Tremblant. I went on and on about how beautiful it is [even though I’ve never been]. Then she told me the cover was still 10 quid.

The club was pretty crazy. It was on two floors with hard house music, lots of pretty people, performances on stage AND in cages. It was a good time.


A caged 8-foot tall drag queen.

It was pretty bright outside when we left the club at 4am.


Blue men climbing the wall? Sure, why not?


Richard chills on a statue.

The next morning was a little rough since we had to be out of the hostel at 11am. After a breakfast [lunch?] of proper British jacket potatoes, we went shopping. We went to the Arndale. It’s a large indoor shopping centre in the city centre. However, the stores on the perimetre of the complex also had a very prominent street presence. So it was like a mall with store fronts on all four adjacent pedestrian streets.

Hello planning Heaven. So even though the complex was large, the scale felt smaller from the street. It’s like shopping on my beloved Bloor Street… WITHOUT the cars. I finally found a pair of jeans and a waistcoat… from Topman of course. The centre was badly damaged in the 1996 Manchester City Centre bombing by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and needed extensive redevelopment work. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing the southern half of the centre was repaired and refurbished. The result was the world’s largest ‘Next’ store on four floors.

Richard and I met up with Dave for dinner on Canal Street. We got a window seat overlooking the Canal.

The street was different during the day. It was equally as lively but all the restaurants appropriate street space as patios. But since it was sunny and 23 degrees [I’m told this is very rare for Manchester], it was PACKED and we had to sit indoors. After I finished my proper British bangers and mash, Richard and I got a train to Derby.


The trip was about 2 hours. We had to transfer, we ran into an acquaintance of his on the Stoke-on-Trent platform. Needless to say, we were quite knackered when we got back to his flat so we just passed out straight away. He generously gave up his room for me so I had my own room!

On Monday morning, I got a better look at my new environment. Richard lives alone in a very old 2-bedroom terrace house – the quintessential British dwelling type.

It was almost entirely refurbished so it was quite nice. It was only about 12’ wide and maybe 50’ deep [on the ground floor]. There was a 0’ front yard setback and a small ‘garden’ in the rear. You immediately enter into the reception room and then step down into the kitchen. Then you step down again into the laundry / bathroom area [added on much later]. Up a narrow, steep, L-shaped staircase is a 3’x 3’ landing with a bedroom on either side. The sinks, bathtub and eaves trough all outlet to the same exterior drain. I noticed that as the tub drained, I could hear water pouring outside – I was very confused. There was a small shed for the water heater tacked onto the back. There was no shower.

We set out to explore Derby a bit. There wasn’t a whole lot to see. We went to a new shopping complex that put the city on the map. But I didn’t buy anything this time. It was also fairly large, with all the regular high street shops and surrounded by pedestrian streets. I bought a lifetime supply of Toni + Guy heat serum [not available in Canada].
We also went to the grocery store and this is what the parking lot looked like:


The accessible parking row was perpendicular to the store and stretched all the way to the back of the lot [where I took the photo]. I couldn’t believe it. Richard wasn’t phased by it. Imagine a grandmother trying to head into the store from the last space with her walker?