Nicole and I had other plans, though, since I'd ended up breaking a few more things than just my handbag. A pair of my pants had torn, which was ok because they were really old, so it was bound to happen. Nicole and I had deliberately brought along old clothes with the intention of throwing them away if need be.
My shoes had also broken, unfortunately, which was a bit of a worry because they're the only flat and waterproof shoes that I have with me. I wanted to head to the enormous supermarket to see if I could buy some super glue to fix it up, at least for the remainder of the trip.
As we arrived at the Tesco, I saw something pretty unbelievable. They have a self check out section where you can go scan your own groceries and pay for them by credit card without standing in the queue for a teller. Can you imagine ever implementing something like that in South Africa? You would need a pretty honest population to pull that off.
It is so hard to find anything in a store where there is no English or any language that makes some kind of sense. What's worse is that very few people there speak any English. I managed to find something that looked like super glue but didn't want to buy it unless I was sure.
We found a guy who spoke "a little" English. So I showed him my broken shoe and explained that I was trying to fix it. He laughed and explained the "glue" I had was really anti-freeze. He took me to where the super glue was and gave me the correct stuff, along with cute directions on how to use it, even blowing to indicate that I had to wait for it to dry. "Very strong," he promised, making a fist.
Because I didn't want to keep wearing my broken shoe until it was irreparable, I decided to buy myself a new pair of boots for the meantime, especially since the glue needed to dry overnight, and I needed flat shoes for our New Years pub crawl. There was a matching bag, too, that I couldn't resist, so basically that tube of superglue (plus extras) set me back quite a bit.
I put the new shoes on immediately before even leaving the shopping mall and heading back to the hotel, where Jen was getting ready to take the Metro into town. We went with her so that we could figure the Czech Metro system out, since we intended to take it back after New Years. Turns out it is as simple to use as every other Metro, even though we didn't understand the language.
The Christmas market was noticeably less busy that morning compared to the previous evening. We navigated it easily and were able to buy some small souvenirs for friends and postcards. Again, we noticed that things actually weren't cheaper in Prague after all. While the most expensive postcard I'd bought had been in Austria, the postcards in Italy were cheaper than those in Prague.
We caught up with the rest of our group and headed off to the Vltava River for our lunchtime cruise. It's the first boat we've been on since Venice, and it was nice and stable compared to the tiny gondolas that we'd been in before. We were each given two tokens as we boarded, which was actually for drinks, but reminded me of the toll that is placed on the eyes of the dead to pay the ferryman.
The first hour of the cruise was when we got to enjoy a yummy buffet lunch with traditional Czech delicacies, such as goulash. They have their own version of dumplings, which look a lot like pap but taste like bread. They also had these delicious little potato cakes that are cooked to be so brown that they look like pieces of meat.
Their Christmas delicacy is apparently carp that they catch in the river, then take home and keep it in the bathtub for two days to clean it out. For two days, then, no one gets to bath. Christmas lunch includes soup made from the head of the carp and they cook the rest of the fish up for the remainder of their meal. It's definitely quite different from the Christmas braai we have back home. Each to his own.
As we travelled down the "wild river," we went through the locks that had been created to tame it. Going through a lock takes 15 minutes, most of which is spent staring at the walls on either side of the boat as we sank down or were raised up to the lower and higher parts of the river.
A cute little Czech lady gave us local info as we drifted along, including the concept of "Name Days." Basically, when your baby is born and you register its name, you can choose from any names associated with the specific day of the year. In other words, if you meet someone with the same name as you, they'll have been born on the same day as you. My Name Day is apparently 10 March (if anyone would like to buy me a Name Day present) and Nicole's is 20 November.
On the way back to the hotel, we passed the Sex Machine Museum that had a collection of ancient sexual devices. We didn't check it out, but some of the Aussies that did told us about some amusing devices, such as a cord that would be attached to a son's genitals that led to his parent's bedroom and would ring a bell if he had an erection and send an electric current back. X_X
Back at the hotel at last, I spent some time uploading photos and blogs while Nicole took a nap. I also glued my shoe back together, tying a plastic bag around it to apply pressure to the area while it dried overnight. It was a very messy operation, and I got glue all over my hands and the basin. I was able to clean up pretty easily, though, which didn't give me much faith in my Czech superglue.
Finally, it was time to get ready for our night out! We'd been warned to wear flat shoes because there'd be a lot of slippery cobblestones and we would be doing a lot of walking. It was also going to be very cold, but that didn't stop us from doing what we could to look as hot as possible! Nicole, especially, looked fantastic in a dress she'd bought in Nice that had a necklace holding the top part of her dress together. Elaborate, but gorgeous.
We headed back into town via the Metro for an early dinner with the South African Trio. Nicole and I had intended on just grabbing something at the Christmas markets, which were still not as busy as they had been the day before. It'd have been the quickest and cheapest option. We had a fair deal of time to kill, though, so we joined the other girls at a restaurant that advertised free wifi (I'm such a sucker).
Unfortunately, the meal was quite expensive, so our hopes of Prague being cheaper for us due to the exchange rate were finally squashed once and for all. One main meal and one drink set us each back R300. Fortunately, it was a very good meal! Czech food has a lot of influence from its neighboring countries, such as Austria and Hungary, so the traditional food is not too unfamiliar. Nicole had more schnitzel, while I had roast pork served with sweet cabbage that was delicious!
I also tried some of the famous Czech beer, which was far more palatable than German beer, even if I wouldn't go so far as to call it good. I messaged my husband to say that Czech beer is either easier to drink or I am acquiring the taste for it, to which he replied "Czech beer isn't very strong." So that answered that question.
Back in the square, we found the rest of our group that would be doing the pub crawl with us. Clearly, we wren't the only girls that had gone all out. The others were looking pretty hot as well! We are the only ones that had brought thick coats, though, and the rest of them were freezing as we waited. The guys hadn't gone to nearly as much effort as us, mostly in hoodies and sneakers, with only one looking pretty dashing in a linen jacket. This right here is why girls are just infinitely better than boys.
The first bar we went to, with two other Contiki groups, was underneath a store, and made up what promised to be an "hour of power" where all drinks were free. Since we'd paid so much for the pub crawl, there was a lot of temptation to stand at the bar and just down our money's worth in booze. I had so much Czech crown leftover, though, that we had to spend before leaving the next day, that we could afford to pace ourselves.
I grabbed a beer again, since it was so big that I wouldn't need to fight to get back to the bar for the remainder of our hour at the club. Since I'm not a big fan of beer, it also helped me to pace myself, since I wasn't drinking more than I should due to its taste. Other drinks on offer were wine, bubbly, and cocktails, which I could easily have knocked back tons of.
The music at the bar was great to dance to, and us girls all hit the dance floor as soon as we walked in, while the guys stood on the sideline and watched. To their delight, girls started getting pretty drunk pretty fast and some even began taking their clothes off. They had lots of photos taken of themselves with topless girls.
By the time we left, quite a few girls from our group were also already hopelessly drunk and some were even struggling to stand. One needed to be taken back to the hotel because she was in such poor shape and apparently threw up all over her hotel room. And that was only after the first hour.
Outside, people had started throwing firecrackers about, making quite exploding sounds that got everyone to scream and stopped my heart once or twice. The store above the pub was very cleverly selling fireworks to the drunk people exiting the bar. Because that could not end badly. Never. Anyway, being in a former communist country with what sounded like bombs going off amongst screaming crowds of people made for a very authentic experience.
The music at the second pub was not nearly as good as the first, but I guess it didn't need to be, since everyone had already had so much to drink. I stood at the bar for ages, waiting to buy a beer so that I could make change for the Metro that we'd be taking later that night. At that club, I found out that one of the guys from the other Contiki was interested in me, which was pretty cute since it was not quite yet the time of the night where everyone had become interested in anyone.
Everyone from our Contiki was telling Nicole how beautiful she was looking, which started to make her wonder if she normally looked terrible. I had to remind her that we've spent all tour in pretty much our coats, jeans, and boots, so people weren't used to seeing her all dressed up. In South Africa, we dress up all the time. Since coming to Europe, New Years had been only the third time I'd taken my makeup bag out.
The final pub of the evening required us to squeeze down a narrow wrought iron staircase. The first thing I did was head to the bar to get beer (and more change, since I still needed 10c) before it got too crowded again and ended up being the only thing I did for an hour, as in the previous bar.
Nicole, meanwhile, had found seats for us where we could rest our feet. Some guys came to join us and chat us up. Interestingly, they were not from Australia, as almost everyone seemed to be. They were from Germany and had just come to Prague for a New Year's party. I got a kiss on the cheek from one of them when we finally left, and that was the extent of my New Years kisses from strangers.
Getting out of that bar and up the narrow spiral staircase was such a mission. It was like being on the train to the Vatican as we all squashed our way up. Outside, there were full on fireworks being shot into the sky. Some were being dangerously shot into the street and at cars. One of the Sri Lankan Aussies told me that they'd have fireworks wars in Sri Lanka where teams would shoot fireworks at each other. It seemed like something similar was taking place in Prague. Amongst all the drunk people. No worries.
In the street, I managed to finally get hold of the extra 10c I needed for the train from Jess, who we'd bumped into at the previous bar, even though she and Dave weren't doing the pub crawl. I'd actually offered to swop her my final 100 Czech Crown note for 10c, but she very generously gave me the money and let me keep the note.
The final place we squashed our way into (I can't describe to you how much Nicole was hating all the pushing through crowds, but suffice to say that she was swearing a lot more than I've ever heard from her) was a five story nightclub. Really, it's more like five separate nightclubs, with each floor playing different styles of music. While the previous bars had each given us a welcome shot as we entered, this one gave us dinky bottles of bubbly for the New Year's countdown. We opened Nicole's bottle to toast the New Year, but I put mine away in my handbag as a souvenir of the evening.
I decided to stop at the RnB floor, since it was playing the best music we'd heard since the first "power hour" bar. We found some free seats in a corner where we could quickly send our New Years wishes to family and friends, since South Africa had already had its countdown. The other South Africans wanted to hit the dance floor, but it was so crowded that we could barely move and lost each other too easily, so we all headed back to the stairwell, where girls in lingerie were making their way down from a higher floor.
We'd lost the rest of our Contiki group, but found them on a lower floor playing in a smoke screen that had a light show displayed on it. It was quite funny, some of them were trying to lick the smoke as if it was a waterfall. There, we met with Rebecca, who hadn't been at any of the previous bars and was only meeting us at the final one. She'd dyed her hair from blonde to brown during the day and was looking amazing!
Just before the countdown, our whole group headed back to the RnB floor, where we danced in the bar area since the dance floor was still so ridiculously crowded. We had our countdown there all together as a group, dishing out lots of hugs and New Year's kisses. I gave Nicole three kisses and scored one from Rebecca. There was a LOT of smooching going on at that point between our Contiki friends and with strangers, which Nicole and I opted out of, even though a guy walked up to Nicole and directly said to her, "will someone please kiss me?!"
We were too worried that we would miss the final train back to the hotel, so we tried to leave straight after the countdown. It was also raining champagne at this point, since everyone had shaken up their free bottles and were popping corks all around us. I'd promised to get the South African Trio home safely, but it was very difficult to get them to leave. Nicole was getting impatient, worrying that we were going to miss the train and have to fork out a fortune for a taxi ride home, so she said we should just leave them since we are not their mothers.
I was inclined to agree with her, but they were so drunk that I was worried they'd never get home if I left them there. I made one last attempt to drag them out and was finally successful so we got out of there as fast as we could. On the way, we bumped into Skye, one of the Aussie girls, who had also lost the rest of the group as well and decided to just come home with us.
In the extraordinarily crowded streets around the Charles Bridge, amongst the aggressive locals and their dangerously close drunken fireworks show, I had to navigate our small party using the map while Nicole shepherded our drunken companions. It was a lot more difficult than it sounds to keep our small party together and not lose anyone. I had newfound respect for Jen who had the same job every day but with ten times the amount of people!
I found the station at last, which was similarly as crowded, and we had to stand in quite a long queue to buy tickets that took forever. Once you get to the machine, you need to buy each ticket individually and wait for it to print, which is another mission in itself. Despite the long wait, though,Nicole had become less panicky about missing the train.
The platform was almost as crowded as it had been that day that we'd gone to the Vatican, and I was paranoid that we'd get separated on the train and that one of the girls might not get off at the correct stop and end up god only knows where, so I stressed as strongly as I could that everyone had to get onto the next train no matter how crowded it was, and they had to get off again as soon as the train stopped.
It's a good thing that I did because the train was very crowded and we did get separated. Luckily, the next stop was a main station where everyone (apparently not only us) intended to change trains, so our whole group got pushed out the train and onto the platform together again. Considering that some of the girls I was taking home weren't even sure how they'd got to the station, I was pretty impressed that our little group was still intact.
Nicole and I had used the big station earlier that day, so I found it fairly easy to navigate the second time around to find our next train, which included going up and down different sets of stairs. It was very confusing for everyone else, though, and they kept asking me if I was absolutely sure that I knew where I was going.
Nicole and I got them onto the next train with far less trouble since it wasn't nearly as busy as the previous one had been. We even all got to sit down together, as I kept my eye on each station. Luckily, the train ride was short, and before long, we were back at the hotel together, with the only casualty being Skye who had fallen pretty hard in the street, but was at least safely in her room as we got to ours.
Because people are allowed to smoke in clubs and bars in Prague (not an idea I'm a fan of because I was so worried that a drunk smoker would absently burn me with their cigarette), we smelled like a horrible mix of smoke and booze by the time we collapsed into bed. Still, we needed to be up in a few hours, so showering would have to wait until then!
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