Day 19, 20, & 21 - Prague

Our beloved Praha!  This city is awesome.  We knew we were in a place filled with multiple histories, when we discovered that even the new parts of this city are hundreds of years old.   Exploring has been fun in this city and the people we have met along this way even more fun.  It started off with some rain and Ines a bit under the weather (she swears she picked up a transmittable virus on a bus ride to Prague).

We ventured out to a famous Czech restaurant for breakfast/lunch, complete with old world wood fixtures, beer mug chandeliers, and a partially toothless man playing old Czech songs on a beautifully ornate yellow accordion.  Half the restaurant's patrons were singing each song with him, moving huge glass mugs joyfully over their heads, sloshing beer here and there.  This is about the point Ines deemed the place not safe to eat, and proceeded not to touch her lunch of ham and cabbage, while Korey the invincible then decided to prove her wrong by eating everything served, and of course he proved to be right.  When Ines felt even more under the weather the next day, she decided it was karma for not eating her Czech food the day before, and has since eaten everything she orders.

One happy encounter during this lunch was a group of Czech men in the corner table opposite us, who while consuming their beer-only lunch,  observed Ines not eating hers, and one of them took it upon himself to come over and talk at us in Czech for about 5 minutes (him speaking no English, us speaking no Czech-lots of hand gestures were obviously involved), gesturing to eat the food and rubbing his belly with a satisfied smile on his face.  Ines then shared Korey's beef goulash dish.  After giving up on communicating with us, he returned to his table only to come back to us as we were preparing to leave, to plant a big kiss on Ines' cheek (she swears he was aiming for her mouth) and the entire table of Czech men then waved us goodbye!

In a successful attempt to watch MSU play Maryland, we ran into a bar owner from Iowa who spends half of his time in Prague running his bar and the other half traveling the world.  He walked us through Prague's love of small business and mom and pop proprietorship, and the four years he has spent within his home-base of Prague.  We shared Jameson shots and beers and had a great time.  Then Ines really got sick and spent a day in bed as Korey wandered the great city of Prague (Ines swears it was the food that made her worse, Korey disagrees).

Ines spent the day recovering and by nighttime was hungry and stir crazy, so we ventured out to find some Mexican food (Ines swears refried beans calm her stomach- total oxymoron and must be ingrained in her upbringing) and found a bar/restaurant near our hotel that specialized in Mexican/American food and was playing the Lions-Packers football game!  Win-Win (and win!  How did they beat the Packers?)!  We also met the owner, who turned out to be from Chicago, who then introduced us to some newlyweds traveling the world that happened to be from Maine!  Our travel doppelgangers.  Small world and what fun.

Ines ate her refried beans for dinner and to Korey's surprise, they worked.  We were up and out early the next day, traversing the entire city on foot.  Our wanderings included the gorgeous Charles Bridge, plenty of side alleys throughout Old Town Prague, and 20 flights of stairs up a tiny winding staircase to the top of the St. Vitus Cathedral that overlooks the entire city.  What a wonderful view!

We also had the very great pleasure of attending a midday concert classic at Lobkowicz Palace (a part of the Prague Castle) and listened to a concert full of Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Beethoven, played artfully to perfection by a flautist, violinist, and pianist.  It was incredible!  Our admission to the concert included admission to the museum itself, which is the Lobkowicz family's private collection of art and collectibles.  It turns out that this family's ancestor was a benefactor to art in his time and provided an annual salary to both Mozart and Beethoven to create some of their most notable musical symphonies, which were dedicated to their benefactor, as were the original handwritten musical scores with notes!  It was incredible to see Beethoven's 5th Symphony, in his own writing, complete with ink smudges and self-corrections!

Things we learned. 1)  Ines swears Korey's stomach is invincible, and is betting on Asia disrupting his theory, 2)  Who knew refried beans can calm a stomach?  Do not try this at home unless you are from New Mexico, and 3) Ines' Kilimanjaro training continues, this time with a daunting stair climb.

We're thinking of booking him for the wedding!

Ines feeling better, roaming around in Wenceslas Square

Great view of Prague Castle and Lobkowicz Palace

Ines' panorama skills on display from Charles Bridge

It was sunny!  Haven't seen a ton of that in recent weeks, Ines wasn't complaining

The ending of the concert, closed with a little Bach

Beethoven's 5th Symphony!    (fellow music nerds will recognize the intro...)

Twilight Praha in all it's splendor

View from the top of St. Vitus Cathedral, surprised there isn't Ines' drops of sweat on the lens!

Old Town Square at dusk

 The Prague Astronomical clock

What a great day!