The Wild East
"The
man at the counter is extremely unhelpful, and gets annoyed at us"
Wed 16 August
9.30 we get up. Han's wife has come to spy on us as usual, standing in the
doorway. Me and Taylor attempt to get breakfast, which is suprisingly
difficult.
There are few eating places around, and everywhere is either
shut, or tell us we're not wanted. After an hour we give up and go to the
centre. We get some sandwiches. Mark goes for a boring English- style, I go
for a Czech one- but its extremely chewy. I'm surprised I've still got my
teeth left!
We walk round parts of the city we haven't seen. There's a
computer shop selling the latest 286s-probably junk from the west. It's even
hotter than yesterday- 33C, although I'm not complaining. In the afternoon
we get an english/Italian - speaking guide, and we go around Prague and to
the castle by coach. He warns us of thieves, but I don't see any. You can
spot the 'classic' American tourists a mile off -their huge size, the
cameras/camcorders hung round necks, and in loud American accents " Gee,
honey, everything is so beautiful!" so maybe they are an easier target.
At 5 we go back to the flat. Mark goes to a Cybercafe. I look for my radio.
I can't find it.
We pick a random station on the metro to have dinner.
Invalidovna does not
look promising- broken beer bottles everywhere, and 3 aggressive looking
guys sitting on a wrecked table drinking beer. We move on to Palmovka, and
find a pizza restaurant. Mark can't finish his, and I struggle to finish
mine, our stomachs have shrunk so much. The waitresses are friendly,
although this is not a tourist place either. We go back to central Prague.
We manage to work the phones in one of the Underpasses, and call Chris, and
Matt, and attempt to call Ollie and Pete. We have 2 beers in different bars
(the barmaids here are, of course, really beautiful).The beer was something
Czech, although it wasn't Budweiser. We stroll round for a few more hours.
Going back to the metro station, MT stops to grope a gorgeous blonde (he
walks into her chest, and bounces off- literally). She is very unimpressed,
and glares at him for the next 10 seconds. Taylor insists he's blame-free.
While we are waiting for the
train, 2 policemen stand next to us. I am a little concerned that MT will
get hauled away on some 'inciting perversion/causing a public scandal...'
charge.
Nothing happens. Incidentally I think Eastern European police are
very good- they sometimes look fearsome with their long-handled batons, and
guns- but they'd be no crime in UK if we had them over here.
Thurs 17 August
I check through all my stuff with a toothpick, my radio doesn't turn up-
it's obviously been stolen. I don't want to cause any unpleasantness by
asking for it back- they'd deny it, and it's only worth £7 anyway.
We leave for the station, and attempt to get on a train to Poland, but the
man at the counter is extremely unhelpful, and gets annoyed at us.
The next train to Poland seems to be in about 6 hours, so we get on the
train towards Kosice, Slovakia....
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