Day 10-11: Italia Goes Down More Than a 10 Koruna Whore

For those that don't know the conversion, roughly 20-25 koruna to a USD. Yeah, I know they won, but that doesn't change the fact that they were on the ground more than a beggar searching for dropped change.

That lovely picture is courtesy of Ted and the bone church in Kutna Hora, but more on that later. First we recap day 10. We picked two walking tours out of our Lonely Planet book and ran through them. The first one we walked by a bunch of churches and over the Charles Bridge. I'd say that they were amazing, but that would be taking something away from the rest of the city. The entire freakin' place is one of the most picturesque places I have ever seen. Everywhere you look there is another cool building to take a picture of. Anyways, we eventually made it up to the castle. Prague Castle was pretty cool, but I didn't find it overwhelming. We didn't go on any of the tours through it though, that might have something to do with it. We did manage to get into the cathedral though. It was huge and dark. The Cool stained glass didn't let much light in.

After the castle we headed over to Letna Gardens. Luckily this took us through another one of the walking tours in the book and we got to see some pretty cool stuff, like a gigantic metrenome that stood where a huge statue of Stalin once was. The main reason for heading to Letna was of course the beer. We had a few a piece and also got some vegetable soup. Now we had been walking for probably 5 or six hours and must have covered hundreds of kilometers (without a proper breakfast or second breakfast), so we were pretty hungry. Let me tell you, after doing all of that in the blaring sun, a liter of beer will get you good fast. And let me tell you something else, I had never been so excited to eat vegetable soup in my life. It was sooo good, AND it was 25 koruna, the whole meal, of soup and a litre of really good beer ran us upwards of $three dollars. Really breaking the bank.

Beers:
Les
Krusovice 11° tmave
Krusovice 11°

Ted "the sissy boy" lastname
Krusovice 11° tmave
Pilsner Urquell 12°

Obviously we had not had enough beer so we headed over to the Staropramen brewery. We got some goulash and fries and a couple of beers. Ted says it is the best goulash he has had yet. If I didn't make it a point to disagree with him at every opportunity, I'd probably agree here, but only here.

Ye ole beer report
Les "master of the crystaline structure"
Staropramen Granat
Hoegaarden Weiss

Ted "Master of spelling over the shoulder"
Staropramen Cerny
Kelt

After that we were to full to do just about anything. We were lucky that they had streets that rolled downhill toward our hostel or we might have ended up in the river.

Next day has had a bit of an introduction in the first bit. We got up and caught a train to Kutna Hora 70 km southeast of Praha. We saw the bone church there. It is called so because the decorations of the church are done in human bones. Lots of them. The site was a mass burial site for an estimated 40,000 plague victims. Luckily for us all the bones were disinfected in the 1800's so we were in no danger, and besides, I already had the plague. Then the day picked up a bit and we got some excitement. We walked to the supermarket with the intention of getting some beer and snacks. Upon arrival we could hear a ruckus going on in one of the aisles. Turned out there was a fight going on. A couple of guys were wrestleing with another one. In the end the one guy, we call him the "bad guy," wound up on his back with the other guys pinning him down by his throat. It was a nice move, very effective and efficient. Cops arrived, we got our beer and weird cookies and took off. I know you are wondering, Gambrius Premium for Ted and Budweiser Budvar Svetly Leyak for me. This is not to be confused with Bud from back home. This is the original stuff from way back in the day....unfortuantely it doesn't taste a lot different from Bud in the States. Oh well. We saw some other churches and cool stuff and headed back.

We got back to the city and to celebrate the 4th we had bacon cheese burgers and a eurohotdog. We headed to the square to watch the game after food. It was a German heart breaker in the 118th minute. And then again in the 119th. What ever. After the game we hit up some absinth (sans wormwood we think, 140 proof nevertheless). Finished up stuff at the hostel with a couple of beers. Nothing new, just trying some that the other guy had. Got to bed around 1 or 2 and were up at 4:30 to catch our plane. Booyah. Fun times in Munich to be had.

Peace,
Les

PS - Ted is a sissy

Quote(s) of the day:
T: I consider beer a food.
L: Of course, it is one of the major food groups.