Hallå! Just arrived in the land of reindeer, vikings, and ice bathing! Althoug I haven't seen much of Stockholm Sweeden yet, I'm excited to explore more tomorrow. First impressions? Between the freezing (its actually 1 degree celcius!) walk from the bus station to the hostel we passed a multitude of restaurants and bars, all of them surprisingly classy and sheek. They are all super stylish with lights on the floor and nouveau art decor or minimialist design decorating the interior. We even stopped in a Radisson hotel to ask for direnctions, and the entire floor was lit up, rose shaped chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and purposeless (albeit cool looking) wavy panels emitted music (stylish speakers) and it was a Radisson!? More than all the fanciness, the best part was when right before our hostel we passed a cute little park, and I almost asked why they filled the park with white sand...it didn't take too long for me to figure out that it wasn't sand but snow! (no duh since it is freezing temp). Right now I'm just happy to be warm and in my hostel and tomorrow I'll worry about seeing more of what Stockholm really has to offer.
As far as Prague, the last two days there were phenomenal. The food continued to be the stuff that's good for a weekend: delicious but a little heavy to live off of. Today though I went to a Czech cafeteria where there was no english inside and i sorta just pointed at what I wanted. Luckily I got a two bowls of delicious soup(lentil soup and meat stew: čočkovka and Borscht) with bread (and it was only4Euro!) apparently the REAL czech food is cheap. We also got "real" Czech food the day before at outdoor vendors, and it was soo greasy! It was delicious but hard to eat too much of it. I just got the Bramborak (a deepfried potato thing with garlic, cheese and ketchup) but I tried the potatoe pancake and the intense Czech sausages (Klobasy). At the cubist cafe (Cafe Grand Orient) I tried a "traditional little czech cake" which was, as far as I could tell, a halved glazed doughnut with custard in the middle--not sure where the cake went! But last night was pretty awesome, since the restaurant we went to had beer on the tap AT our table! so when Casey and I wanted more we just filled up; pretty awesome! That's one thing Czechs really love: cheap beer, and lots of it. One thing the czechs are not good at is coffee! Alyssa and I agreed: save the euro for Italy where the coffee is twice the strength for half the price!
Obviously food takes up a lot of my touristic energy, but Prague is just such a gorgeous city, it really is enough to just walk around. Although the beauty of the city itself didn't keep me out of the Mucha museum (a czech art nouveau guy who did posters like toulouse lautrec's chat noir) and checking out the old old Jewish cemetery and synagoge. The cemetery was crazy, one of the oldest of its kind in europe, and built up on the same plot of land for many many years, its got way too many tombstones and all of them are tilted at odd angles. It would be really creepy in the snow or fog, luckily it was sunny.
Speaking of weather, we definitely got full experience: Snow when we arrived, Sun the second day, Clouds and rain the third day, and WIND right as we were leaving. Schizophrenic weather is just accepted in Europe as it is in most of the US, its hard to get used to after the perpetual sun of socal and the temperate weather of the bay area. Luckily it was sunny the day we did an epic walk up to Petrin tower. Its literally a mini eiffle tower that sits on a hill so Prague can boast that their Petrin tower is as tall as the eiffle tower--sorry prague, its sitting on a f-ing hill!! when your "tower" is 90% hill and 10% tower and the eiffle tower is 100% tower its a little dumb to draw comparisons! oh well, they should be proud of the view it offers though; the top is so high up that you could see all of prague and I swear you could sense the curve of the horizon.
Oh! and upon Ingrid's advice, I tried Beckerovka, the afterdinner drink, and I really liked it! I know I had tried it before, but I had forgoted the burning, flavorful, medly of flavors that were involved. Alyssa even foun a beckerovka truffle! pretty cool. Although Im still eating chocolate, I'm holding out a little bit until Brussels where all hell will break loose: Belgium, the home of Leonidas, godiva, and so many independent chocolatiers...cannot wait!
for now, off to bed... goodnight! and take care
or as the swedes say,
God natt!
Ha det så bra
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