First night in Prague

Once we landed, the border guard looked at our passports, stamped them and we were off. Easier to get into Czech than Germany. In Frankfurt, we were interrogated, where are we staying, showing the map, how long etc.

We were totally quick getting our luggage. We went in search of our driver. No where to be found, we waited for a little while before he showed up with a sign with Lew's name on it. He was cubby, mustached and very European. He grabbed my luggage (big one) and off he went to his car. At first he wasnt very talkity but I once I told him that I speak Russian, thats when it all started coming out.

Getting to pour apt was not bad by taxi - took about 20 min. The lasy who met us seemed nice and the place was exactly what it looked like on the web. It was clean and the bathroom was almost brand new. We unpacked quickly as sweat dripped down our faces. By the time we finished unpacking, we were cooled off. Showered and changed, we headed out to check the neighbourhood. At this time it was already 9pm and were starving.

There were lots of pubs and small stores but were closed already so we kep walking. We came across this Chinese take-out place, with menus that are pictured and numbered, so that your eyes can communicate to your brain and your stomach whether what you were looking at was appealing or not. We ended up ordering rice dishes - Szechuan beef for M and duck for myself. Add a 0.5 L of beer can with it, we were happy. Not bad for 200 Kcz (which was really $12).

Somewhere between me trying to speak to the lady in Mandarin, askimg her whether we are allowed to take the beer on the street and where good places to eat for breakfast are, she gave us a small discount and charged us 8 Kcz less. We're happy.

That dinner did not feel heavy at all. In fact, as we continued walking, we said to each other how the food we ate a few minutes ago does not even feel like it's there. That's Chinese food for you - easily digestible, and Michael hoped there was MSG in it.

We walked as far as our tired feet could take us, staking out some places we would check out the next day. Saw a couple of nicer hotels (one charged 2200 KZc for 3 nights, ours was 24000Kcz for 27 days) and grabbed some local maps and brochures. We also saw lots of sports stores, pub and bars are crawling everywhere.

On the way home, we decided to sip another can of beer to cool us off as we walked back.