Prague – Afterparty & wake-up sport

Instead of going to a pub we decided to get something to drink in a supermarket and stay at home. So we had a little sit-in in our room.

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After the group picture was taken one of the wooden pieces of the bed base broke. But our engineering team took control of this problem. After several unsuccessful and hurting attempts the wooden piece finally broke into two parts.

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The SpecOps team smuggled the evidence out of the building.

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Jo and Max tried to get a nap, during this time Marcus and I entertained ourselves (and obviously them too because nobody slept that night). Max bell rang at 2:45, Jo’s at 2:50 and mine at 2:55 so they finally gave up the sleeping plans. 😀

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We decided to do some morning sports to get fit for the journey back home. This was the most awesome baseball game which Prague has ever seen!

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The shirt is not quite right. I do remember and I loved it! Thanks to our Czech friends to delight us with this amazing weekend. We got a valuable insight of the city, ate some ALOT lovely food and had one hell of a night-out on friday. And that all for the price of one evening at Morfar’s.

We had been what was UP Prague. 😀

Prague – The city tour and goodbye dinner

Saturday 9am. The right time for the curious tourist to get up and down to the Old Town Square. The reason for this insane action was simple: The “Sandeman’s New Prague Free Walking Tour”. Long name to write but very entertaining.

Our guide was Collin from Scotland who lived in Prague since more than ten years. Considering the Neweurope tours I already attended in (Edinburgh, Berlin), the expectations where very high. After 3 and a half hours of interesting historic facts, funny stories, some legends and a lot of jokes the tour came to an end. And I wasn’t disappointed. The tour was amazing the tour guide a lucky pull.

Every time it’s awesome who history suddenly comes alive when the right person is telling it in a attention retaining way. Just to make you even more curious some short quotes from the tour:

  • As the Germans invaded in WWII the Czech just took off every sign with city/village names or the direction to Prague. So the Germans have been very lost and didn’t found the capital city in weeks. So if they asked a Czech “Where are we?” they just answered “In Dubček”.
  • In a local revolution they threw a few guys through a window which was located of an upper floor. They also brought some piles which they posed in front of the building. The people fell down and have been impaled. That was the invention of the Czech Kebab. 😉
  • Nazi soldiers should throw down a sculpture from the Rudolfinum (Gallery and opera) and didn’t know who the person actually looked. So the decided to throw down the one with the biggest nose. Apparently it was not only the wrong one, but also Hitlers favorite.

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After the tour ended we went over the river and explored this side of the town. After finding Jo’s bar (which has definitely no last call) we went to the German embassy to go crazy and the Playground right beside it.

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On our way back to the accommodation we passed by the John Lennon memorial and the small bridge with locks on the fence. The memorial is really great. Just graffitis and comments from fans and the words “All You Need Is Love” right in the middle.

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The story about the locks is a quite sweet one. If you in love with somebody you just write your names on it and lock it to the fence.

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Before we went to dinner we visited the Paladium. This is a huge shopping Mall right in the middle of the city. We arrived around 6:3opm at the restaurant and enjoyed our time there till 8:30pm.

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What happened back in the accommodation and the journey back will be told in the next part. 😀

Prague – The welcome

Tomáš welcomed us at the airport and took us to the right bus. After almost one hour we arrived at our accommodation. Jo, Max, Thomas, Susanna and me shared one flat with a two bed and a three bed room.

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We took a short “power nap” and headed afterwards to the city centre. Enjoying the possibility of drinking in public again.

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We left the metro at the National Mueum and started to walk to the Old Town Square. There’s a lot to see just between this two points and so the journey took a while. Just to pick one example: The memorial for Jan Palach. This student set himself on fire to protest against the socialistic regime and died a few days later in unimaginable pain.

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The next few pictures are actually from the Old Town Square with the famous astrological clock which was build in the 14th century. On every full hour there is some kind of a little “play” in which every of the twelve apostel shows something at the windows located above the clock.

The clock itself is an engineering masterpiece and was way ahead the time when it was build. The clock shows not only the time but also the position of the moon and the sun or which time of the season it is.

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After we crossed the famous Charles Bridge twice we headed for our accommodation again to get ourself fresh for dinner and the planned night out.

For dinner we went to a nice Czech restaurant which was like a brewery. After our meal we rushed to the astrological clock to take part in the Barcrawl. It was an amazing night.

Prague – The journey

We took the train, which was departing Halmstad at 10pm, to Malmö. Shortly after we arrived we found ourselves in a nice irish pub called “Paddy’s”. A few beers, or a bottle of wine, later we had to leave because the pub closed.

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One of the Barkeeper told us about another pub where we could stay until 3am. So we packed our stuff and ended up in some kind of rock party. The music was good and the bar okay but the best thing  was to be inside.

After the this pub was closed we took some kind of “early” breakfast at McDonald. When everybody ended his meal, we left for the taxi area to get to the airport. Shortly before we arrived the “official taxi’s” some strange guys wanted to convince us to get into their cars.

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We arrived at Malmö airport around 20 past 4am and started the “waiting game” then. After more than one hour of laying on the floor one of the security guys told us that this is not allowed in Sweden.

Off to Prague…

Tonight we’re leaving Halmstad for a short trip to Prague.
Our first stop will be Malmö where we have to wait until 5 in the morning.

We’ll be, hopefully, back on Sunday with a lot of pictures and stories to tell. 😀