De-clawed, last day in the Golden City

Trip Start Apr 12, 2006
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Czech Republic  , Bohemia,
Thursday, June 29, 2006

Okay, it had been eight extremely lethargic, awesome, wonderful days slothing around the amazing city of Prague, and today would be my last chance to take in everything the gorgeour place had to offer. I checked out of Miss Sophies after beginning to feel like a long term resident of the joint, and moseyed on down to the Tesco for another pov breakfast. The bums mingled around amongst the well dressed and affluent, and i watched the contrasts keenly as i slurped down a Yoplait without a spoon. The other day i walked along one of the bridges over the Vltava river and spotted a pretty cool looking hostel in an old heritage building perched right in the guts of one of the Prague islands. I immediately investigated accomodation for a nights sleep tonight, my one last experience of Prague in the nighttime.

Well, the day was fairly uneventful in terms of activity and 'doin stuff', i pretty much just pottered about in my usual nonchalant way that i've come accustomed to in Prague. It was actually going to be a little bit sad to be leaving the place. I also decided well and truly what my next move is going to be for the journey. I woke up the other day and felt the solid urge to cart my kiester over to the Emerald Isle, to frolic about the greens hills of Ireland and wield my sax on the streets of Dublin and Cork. What a fine idea, i thought. The guiness was calling, my friends, calling loudly, and it was an invitation that put all other options to shame. Leprechauns, Pots o' gold, didly dit Potaytas and all that. Ireland here i come. Croatia would have been nice, but potentially a bit too familiar, and Amsterdam just woiuld have been downright destructive.
This was exciting stuff. A bold new, direction, so random and unplanned, and intuitively, something was stressing that i'd need to pick up my sax from London before i went. So it was done. Booked a ticket to London from Linz in Austria for the 5th July, and all was set in place.

Checked in to the 'Travellers Hostel' on the middle island on the Vltava river, a substantially nicer looking place from the exterior, though not totally without charm. Basically, this was the uber opposite of the lavish, clean Miss Sophies, and i was now in a dorm room with thirty other beds (the smaller dorm i might add), and a Spanish bloke on the bunk below me who wielded feet that smelled like wet dog. But i kinda enjoyed the 'bootcamp' interior, i'm pretty sure the place was some kind of old gymnasium or function hall or something back in its day. There were lines of creaky old metallic school lockers where you stored your stuff, each of which had a photocopied cartoon portrait of some goofy bastard that looked like a dead ringer for the love child of John Howard and Peter Reith. I took a photo of the phenomenon. You decide.

Anyway, had a brief nap at boot camp, claimed a beer i'd left up at Miss Sophies and said my farewells to Chris the preacher, then met a decent chap from Cairns by the name of Jake. Walked around town looking for some tucker with him, everything appeared to be shut, but we soldiered on anyway, settling for the dodgiest fried shite from a lard merchant in Wenceslas Square amongst the bevy of red light hookers.
Walked on in the Prague rain to check out a band called the 'Real McKenzies', but arrived just as they'd finished. Walked home with some dudes from Poland, talked to them about Poland and such, got drenched big time, and wound up back at boot camp some time later. It was a nice end chapter to the Prague experience.
Tomorrow, i head south the the amazing confined of Cesky krumlov.
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