kate and tara's excellent adventure, part 3 (extended edition)

well, tara is out on a 'ghost tour,' seeing all the spooky sites of prague, so I have an hour with which to update the blog.
I believe that I left off with lots of wandering in budapest, though I don't think that I mentioned all the places that we went to that ended up being closed. the history museum was closed for some private function, though we didn't know that and we just kind of loittered in the lobby wondering why there were so many people who were dressed up. we gave up on that and went next door to the national gallery, which was open, but something in three of the five halls were closed for restoration purposes. but, it was free, so we went in and explored the two halls that we could get into, and saw a lot of classical sculptures and medieval religious paintings. I love the medieval period and all, but they weren't exactly known for their artistic abilities (outside of ireland, that is :) ). after that....I really don't remember. we ended up back at the hostel that evening, with every intention of going to bed early so that we could wake up early the next morning and get down to the train station. unfortunately, the room we were in was right next to the kitchen, the only real meeting place, and if the door was as thick as cardboard, I would be surprised. I try not to be anti-social (well, most of the time I do), but I had been avoiding the kitchen all evening because there was this really obnoxious canadian girl, who even though I hadn't spoken with her directly, just by listening to the conversations she was having with others, I disliked her. anyone who uses 'the simpsons' and 'postmodernism' in the same sentence is bound to be a snot. the comments got better as she talked about michael moore, american culture, and all other kinds of pretentious crap. she was talking about things like she wanted to sound educated and worldly, but she's taking a year off from college and travelling are europe on daddy's (canadian) dollar, working on her writing. I avoided talking to her, since I obviously felt that we wouldn't hit it off, but tara went in and was trying to talk to her about michael moore and whatnot, but apparently an american's opinion on questions of american culture were not welcome. as if that wasn't bad enough (and trust me, it was), she had a rather piercing voice that had none of the charming canadian accent. verdict: floundering, spoiled, would-be-intellectual. I'm done being catty now.
we got up the next morning and headed to the main train station, where we found out that the next train was going to leave until just before noon. thus began our day of waiting, getting on trains, waiting, getting on trains, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I think we actually left on time (which is always exciting), and then we had about four hours on the train through hugary, into the slovak republic, out of the slovak republic, into the czech repulic, finally stopping at breclav, which is just over the czech-slovak border. we were there for an hour, during which time we changed money (into czech crowns) and checked the internet. then onto another train, which got us to prague around 9.30. we then had our first experience in getting ripped off by taxis (it seems like it's mandatory for everyone who travels abroad), but we got to the hostel we were looking for safe and sound (incidentally, two nights at the hostel cost the seme as our taxi ride). then we wandered around the city, as is our custom, and consulted the 'let's go - eastern europe' book, which tara has dubbed 'our bible', to figure out what to do on saturday.
saturday was great; we went to prague castle, which is an accomplishment in and of itself, given the number of stairs and steep incline that must be traversed to come to the summit. once you get up there, you know that you better spend your time well, because you're sure as hell not going to make it up that hill again. we walked around the towers and churches and went down gold street. gold street earned its name because it was formerly the home of the town's alchemists. it was also for a time home to franz kafka (number 22). there was an excellent display of medieval armor and weapons, and unfortunately we arrived during lunch time, otherwise we could have fired cross bows for 50 crowns (about 2 euros) for 5 shots. alas and alack. we descended the hill and began to fight our way over charles' bridge, which even though it's not more than 150 yards had taken us 30 minutes to cross on the way over. did I mention that prague has been busy this weekend? the bridge is lined with statues (and venders and hawkers of various sorts), and one spot is marked by a cross with five stars. this is the site from which st. jan nepomunk was thrown into the river (he had apparently already had his tongue cut out, the silver replacement is now on display in his church). supposedly if you put your fingers on all of the stars and make a wish, it's guaranteed to come through. I think some people must have been confused because there was a statue about 20 yards away which had a long line of people waiting to rub what looked like a broze cast of a dog..... oh, before we left for the bridge we stopped for a visit at the museum of medieval torture instruments. lots of exciting things, from the good old fashioned rack to witches chairs (looks like an electric chair, but with nails instead of electricity), pikes (oh vlad tepes, aka the impaler, aka count dracula...), and other, more imaginative contraptions. those kids had too much spare time on their hands.
today we were going to go to terezin, which is the site of a former nazi concentration camp. (we really are a rather morbid pair, tara and I.) but we had bus troubles, so it didn't happen. instead we went to the museum of communism, which was far more uplifting, no doubt. it was serious, yet self-effacing at the same time. it could have taken itself too seriously, but they did a nice job with it.
now, I must go hunt down tara, make sure the headless horseman doesn't get to her.
tentative schedule: one more day in prague, than an overnight train trip to zurich. we decided that travelling was taking too much time, so we cut out vienna. oh well.