Ok so got up way too early to catch our flight to Prague, for some this was unbearable, not too many words spoken all morning...well nice ones anyway.
Saw a basketball team at Charles de Gaulle, they were gigantic, one guy had the largest feet we'd ever seen must have been a size 18 to 20, and another guy had to duck to fit under the ceiling he had to be around 6 ft 10 at the absolute least. Other than that it was hard to believe we were still in Paris, kinda felt like being in an army barrack, we flew from terminal 3 which for those who have flown from there before will know it's a little primitive.
Landed in Prague after a little more fishtailing down the runway, must be how they do it here in Europe, the pilot announced very cheerfully that the temperature was a nice cool 0 degrees, yeah great! Had the pleasure of watching a sniffer dog complete his training, he did so well. (someone was having wicked flashbacks, but hid it well!!!) Found our private pickup guy, he was very talented indeed. He definitely gets first prize in boot packing, he managed to squeeze all our luggage into the boot of a sedan, still don't know how he did it. Dropped us at our door, the 3 Drums turned out to be quite a find, very cheap, awesome location and a very roomy 2 bedroom suite. Nice find indeed.
Walked around for a little while, braving the cold, and cold it was. Took us a little while to work out the currency conversion and seeing that the AUD is performing so awesomely well at the moment, was well in our favour. First stop was coffee and food, of course, second stop was a pair of leather gloves for the girls, did I happen to mention how freaking cold it was!?!
Saw the clock do it's thing, of course granny was left a little anti-climaxed, the rest of us thought it was pretty cool. Paul and Jo left the 2 girls sleeping for the afternoon and went out in search of Pilsner and food for the night. The Pilsner was great but our restaurant of choice booked out, so we booked us in for tomorrow instead. Praise the lord, they actually operate 2 identical restaurants, one smoking and one non-smoking....now why don't they do that everywhere over here??? Had to move today at lunch because we were all getting head spins from smoking a cigarette with the woman sitting next to us, was so bad, but the restaurant was unbelievably gorgeous. We are starting to get the feeling Australians are a little left of centre with their drinking habits, is the second time we have been asked if we were sure we wanted another beer (without food) Went back to get the other 2 for dinner a little bit pissy and absolutely freezing cold, another layer of clothing would be required if we were to face the weather for the evening, that brings it up to around 5 layers or around 1/2 a suitcase of clothing, no wonder we have been moving around like in slow motion, and we just thought it was granny's fault!
We landed quite an animated waitress who was quite intent on getting us drunk (obviously they don't have RSA requirements over here!) She recommend we have a Flambe drink, it's a very Czech thing to do and promised to warm us up from the inside out, we should have realised then what we were in for but no, come in spinner! She suggested we try the Becher, it's a local liqueuer made from herbs and is apparently quite cleansing....OMG. She filled up an entire wine glass full and then poured it in to a glass bigger then our heads, She warmed it up over a flame and brought it to the table flaming (hence the name flambe drink..in case you were wondering where they get the name from!) So we thought it was one to be shared between the 3 of us, but no, it was one that size each!! Was quite nice had an ambrosia flavour but was nearly impossible to drink, the fumes coming off it nearly burnt the hairs out of your nostrils and brought you to tears. There was only one way to do it, hold your breathe and shut your eyes.
We ordered dinner, 2 of us chose the Pork knuckle, one went with the fish and one went with the Pork Steak, we all had a side of potato dumplings, which was quite unnecessary once the size of our meals were revealed. I shit you not, the pork knuckles were the size of a Sunday roast, they had to be seen to be believed (kind of matched the size of the pre dinner drink!)The other 2 meals were perfect. About half way through dinner the Becher kicked in, well we couldn't stop laughing, Sharon lost all feeling in her tongue, and all our waitress could offer us was more alcohol, she said the more you drink the easier it is to finish the Pork roast!! Not likely, any more alcohol and there was no way we were walking outta there unassisted........and then Jo broke the serviette holder. Well another waitress, one we had never seen before was on us like a shot, very unimpressed, she demanded to have the broken piece of ceramic holder, and probably would have smacked Jo if she thought she could get away with it. In no time, all breakables were confiscated from our table, well we had to laugh at that........and then she gave us the bill, not so funny. The most expensive item on there was the broken serviette holder, not kidding. She must have done her training with the Swiss institute of customer service as well, because man, she was a sour dog. Jo asked if she could pay separate and told her she didn't break it on purpose, she just shrugged and charged her an extra 50 korouny, lucky the AUD is going so well!!! They shouldn't serve tourists so much alcohol on an empty stomach we say, it's lucky they have any crockery left. All in all, the food was delicious, the name of the restaurant "Staromacek" at number 4 Dlouha, in the old town of Prague. We still recommend it, but if you see a blonde haired waitress that looks like she sucks on lemons, be very careful with the crockery; and if you get asked if you want a flambe drink, sweetly suggest you'll have one to share!
See the photo's they are a little embarrassing of some, ie JO, but just too funny not to share.
