Once again this morning, my lovely "alarm clock" came in to open the curtains. This time I was prepared and didn't believe her when she told me it was already 11. She wasn't far off, but waking up an hour earlier is still a step in the right direction. :)
Like yesterday, Anya had woken up earlier in order to explore the streets around us. She told us of her new find: a three story mall under the street where our farmers market was! After all three of us were ready and had fully packed, we stepped into the warm (scratch that...VERY warm) streets of Prague and headed to our new favorite spot: the farmers market. Settling into our short-lived routine, we stopped at a grocery store (Lidl) to pick up yogurt, then walked to the outdoor market for a pastry and iced coffee.
Our apartment in Prague:
I thought these were fun grocery carts in the store:
Having explored much of the city already, we only had a couple of items left on our to do list. The first for the morning...rather afternoon...was to visit the Museum of Communism. Prague has been heavily influenced by communism, both before WWII and afterward. Only after the Soviets left in the early 90's did they gain their independence. Having taken the WWII tour yesterday was extremely helpful in giving us connections and some background to much of the information we read. Knowing the least about this subject, I found the museum particularly informative. (Growing up, I don't recall learning much history past WWII. However, traveling has allowed me to bridge the gap here and there.)
The sign above her reads "Do Not Enter." :)
This reminded me of you, Stephen (Tesla):
Propaganda
Our next item on our agenda was to pick up a small painting at Old Town Square (I accidentally called it Time Square once, so now we call it Old Time Square). I'd had my eye on one and finally decided it was something I wanted to buy.
As we walked out of the shop, it happened to be 3:58...two minutes until the "clock show," so we decided to watch it one last time. It is actually more interesting to see how many people gather each hour to watch such a simple (yet significant, I suppose) show. :)
We just love the square, so we stayed a little longer to take pictures and watch more guys on segways with water guns. We even became victims a couple of times (the water actually felt good in the heat).
This waiter was spraying people who were walking by :)
Old Times Square (aka. Old Town Square)
For lunch/dinner, we knew we wanted Döner and had made note of a couple of shops in the morning. We thought we knew where they were, but ended up making a big circle before realizing we were a little turned around. We have managed to walk in a circle each day in Prague, so it was only fitting that we did so today as well.
We found a Turkish shop with a friendly worker and enjoyed our Döners there. Our flight to London would depart at 8:15pm, so we began our journey. First, we collected our bags from our apartment, filled up our water bottles, checked in online, etc... On our way to the station, we passed through our farmers market for one last iced coffee (it's really that good!). Then we walked about 10 minutes to the train station that had a bus stop for the Airport Express. In a moment of genius, Anya had earlier that day suggested visiting the train station to figure out where our stop was. As a result, we walked directly there and easily caught the bus.
The airport is fairly small and wasn't busy in the slightest, so we pretty much walked straight through each checkpoint. We were even a bit early (yes, you read that correctly) and had to wait until they posted our gate number before going through security.
The two hour flight "flew by" quickly (ha. ha.) and we landed safely in London.
There was a slight problem at customs when they detained Whitney for a little while. She had lived here on a student visa which expired recently, so they were suspicious as to why she was back so soon. But after a little while, and also realizing that the customs lady had switched Anya and Whitney's passports, she was free to go!
We headed to the Underground (or the Tube as it is sometimes called) and I filled up my Oyster card that I had somehow found at home and brought with me from my last trip to London four years ago! And it still works! All three of us jumped onto the Picadilly Line until Hammersmith. This was Whitney's stop, but something was wrong with our train, so they made everyone get off the train too. Another train that would take Anya and I to our next stop arrived at the same time as our train did, so we quickly said goodbye to Whitney and jumped in. When we arrived at our stop, we exited and started looking for Joe (Anya's brother) who was supposed to meet us there. We walked around but didn't see him. We waited a little but still didn't see him. I looked at the map and we were extremely close to our lodging, so we just decided to walk over and find Joe afterward. The exact moment we started walking, it also started to rain...and thunder and lightning! The rain wasn't heavy, so it didn't bother us on our short walk.
At our lodging, we were met by a security guard (it is normally a school dorm during the year I think) who had us sign in and gave us our keys. But he was not the normal security guard, so he didn't know where our rooms might be. We thought we could find them on our own, so we thanked him and left for the elevator. We went up and finally found what looked like our rooms. But after trying the keys, neither of our doors opened! When checking in, I had looked to see which room Joe was in, so we walked to the door and knocked quietly. After a few seconds, we heard a distant jingle of keys along with a door closing (from what sounded like the other side of the door...odd). So thinking that we had just knocked on some random's door, we took off back down the corridor to the elevator. At the reception desk, a lady was now sitting at her desk, so we asked if she could show us to our rooms. She kindly obliged and took us up to the same floor (although in a different elevator) and into the same area of doors!! But this time she showed us that we had interpreted the numbers on the keys wrong, and the doors that we thought were bedrooms, were actually flats (another hallway with doors)! She led us straight to the door that we had knocked on (thinking it was Joe's) and helped us find our individual rooms. We knocked on Joe's room, but with no answer and decided that the keys we had heard a few minutes before were probably Joe!! Anya also noticed that he hadn't received the email she had tried sending from the airport telling him that we were on our way (which was why he hadn't been at the station). We rushed down the stairs, because he had probably left to see if we were at the station yet. While walking down the street, lo and behold, there was Joe!!! We were glad to see him and after collaborating stories, we figured out that it HAD been Joe on the other side of the door, and we had just passed each other (he took stairs, we took the elevator)!! We had a good laugh, caught up a bit, then headed to bed. Even though it's still warm (although not as hot as Prague), we were welcomed tonight with a fun lightning and thunder show!
We loved and will miss Prague, but it is certainly good to be in London. :)
Today's stats:
16,758 steps, 7.21 miles, 14 floors (Anya gets to add extra steps because she didn't take the walking escalator :) ).
Inside jokes:
The second powder gate
Hot mama...I look like a hot mom?
Times Square
We tried to move out of the way on the street, and scattered all around so we were more in the way.
"You can come any day!" Yesterday!
We are Impressive
Great jumping pics as usual! Great apartment in Prague...
ReplyDelete