Wow!
You don't know what you're going to see in the bathrooms in the mornings...especially in a mixed 16 bed dorm!
To-day it was the cleaner girl. She is an amazing employee...
She was with this hostel company last time I was over here and she runs rings around any worker I've seen anywhere!
She anticipates and just does stuff that needs doing without making a song and dance about it...it just gets done!
Hence we now have a new light bulb in our loo!
Then, this afternoon I went to the Music and Musical Clock museum finally...It was open without other shows on, preventing me from getting where I needed to go.
You don't know what you're going to see in the bathrooms in the mornings...especially in a mixed 16 bed dorm!
To-day it was the cleaner girl. She is an amazing employee...
She was with this hostel company last time I was over here and she runs rings around any worker I've seen anywhere!
She anticipates and just does stuff that needs doing without making a song and dance about it...it just gets done!
Hence we now have a new light bulb in our loo!
Then, this afternoon I went to the Music and Musical Clock museum finally...It was open without other shows on, preventing me from getting where I needed to go.
Tania, our energetic do it all lady, fixing the loo light. She not only changed the bulb, but also cleaned the whole light fitting...Best employee award for her!
Went to see the museum where the Automatons were supposed to be...but the camera police were everywhere! I had to sneak the descriptive ones really quickly before I went to the entry doors, then they spotted me with their hawk like eyes and stayed fixed on me the full hour I was there! You can see one in black, up there on the first floor eying me off!
I'd never heard the word 'Automatons" until I listened to the words of Love Never Dies, the Coney Island Waltz and it's mentioned in there. A bit of research then introduced me to a world of wonderment enjoyed by those in centuries past...
As luck would have it, there happened to be a display here in Prague, in a Museum I walk past daily. It was 120cz ($6.00) to go in and it was really a Museum of Musical Instruments from days gone by.
It even had a Forte-piano played by Mozart when he came to Prague and a bunch of original scores and huge pianos/violas/flutes/harps etc.
Now I stood my ground and right at the end went back and took this shot of the Automatons I came and paid $6.00 to see...and then I bolted!
As I was buying my ticket I mentioned to the lady...who only spoke Czech, I had come here to see the Automatons and she had no idea what I was saying...then a young guy appeared out of nowhere(as they always do) and explained to me that Automatons are robots from days gone by...and that a Czech called Robot (or something like that)was the first person to make one...
These two here, plus another one I couldn't get the picture of, are fantastic.
They have little clockwork spring mechanisms in their torso and have from 3,000 to 7,000 moving parts.
These two are a 3 yr old child writer and 3 yr old child sketcher and are just under 3 feet high.
The writer moves his body, his face and eyes and moves his his pen and dips it in the inkwell, shakes excess ink off and writes, his eyes following his writing and the writing is legible.
The other one draws and looks up etc etc and his sketch is a real one too.
The third one that I could not photograph was a girl at the piano...Awesome, she played, tapped her foot and so on.
The whole display of those really big and old music type boxes and pianolas was amazing to see and hear.
The attendants pop special coins in them and they play beautiful music for the museum paying customers...like me.
You could easily imagine Coney Island set amongst all these instruments from days gone by...ALW had his guys do the research well indeed.
These two here, plus another one I couldn't get the picture of, are fantastic.
They have little clockwork spring mechanisms in their torso and have from 3,000 to 7,000 moving parts.
These two are a 3 yr old child writer and 3 yr old child sketcher and are just under 3 feet high.
The writer moves his body, his face and eyes and moves his his pen and dips it in the inkwell, shakes excess ink off and writes, his eyes following his writing and the writing is legible.
The other one draws and looks up etc etc and his sketch is a real one too.
The third one that I could not photograph was a girl at the piano...Awesome, she played, tapped her foot and so on.
The whole display of those really big and old music type boxes and pianolas was amazing to see and hear.
The attendants pop special coins in them and they play beautiful music for the museum paying customers...like me.
You could easily imagine Coney Island set amongst all these instruments from days gone by...ALW had his guys do the research well indeed.
Then I saw this and thought I was in Coney Island with the Bathing Beauties on The Beach and all! This was a poster on the outside and the camera police winced even when I took this!
Then after achieving that goal, I realized I had not had lunch...3pm...so I went past a little cafe and decided to have some apple strudel (38 cz each) as the pastry was really thin on these...so I ordered 2 strudels...and a "hot grog" as I had no idea what it was. I see it everywhere but never asked about it, as I thought it was just slang for "Booze"...but it isn't. It is a traditional drink...called Grog!
It was hot water with some rum in it and a lemon quarter...so I had another one and another strudel slice (3rd one). They weren't that filling really, as having hardly any pastry, they were mainly just apple.
Then I was still hungry...so ordered a soup on special...38cz...Goulash Soup...not too bad either, lots of mince and potatoes, was steamy hot and that one did the trick...
Then I went for a nice stroll to the Bridge, as it was still snowing... and left my initial scrawled in the snow...to say I Love Praha...
Then I headed off home and found a shop I've never noticed before...passing it every day; dohhh...but not normally eating pastry or breads, I hadn't noticed it before. I saw they had this whole strudel for 34 cz...for the whole thing! Not just a slice like I'd just paid 38cz for and I'd thought that 38cz a slice was fair!
Coming to the end of my list of things to do here in Prague for this trip...
Will leave the river cruise until the summer months and then all I have to do is have a Pork knuckle for dinner tomorrow night and then climb the mountain/hill behind us here to view the city on Wednesday...if it stops snowing and clears up a bit to see anything, that is!
Weather...Minus 6C and snowing steadily all day, but it's not cold...no wind makes such a difference.
Dorm buddies...The Aussie guy and Pommie girl are still here...still sick with that wog...2 new Canadian girls came, 2 new French girls, one girl from USA, teaching in Turkey and another girl from somewhere...she has slept all day, so no one has seen her yet! They all come in from lunch time to midnight.
It's about 7.30pm as I write this on Monday.
Spend to-day...120cz on the Museum, 250cz on my "strudel and grog" splurge, 11cz for some fruit, plus 350cz for 2 loads of washing yesterday and the day before(all my jeans, jumpers and blacks) 500cz on 3 nights accom here for the next 3 nights.=1231cz = Just on $61.50 for all of that.
Will be going out with Petr for dinner tomorrow night and that should use up the rest of my Czech money, as I go back to Euros from Thursday in Vienna.
Have booked 7 nights at the Hutteldorf in Vienna again...it's $13 with breakfast and free wifi.
It's almost double the price here, but I like it. No drunks etc, they have a great Spar supermarket down the road...and it is Vienna!
I know how to get there in the dark, so I don't feel like trying a new hostel just now. Their breakfast is good...awesome yoghurt, and boiled eggs, so I'm happy...plus they supply fresh apples all day.
Gotta drag myself this next step, reluctantly away from Prague...
All done now...'nite
xxxx
Will leave the river cruise until the summer months and then all I have to do is have a Pork knuckle for dinner tomorrow night and then climb the mountain/hill behind us here to view the city on Wednesday...if it stops snowing and clears up a bit to see anything, that is!
Weather...Minus 6C and snowing steadily all day, but it's not cold...no wind makes such a difference.
Dorm buddies...The Aussie guy and Pommie girl are still here...still sick with that wog...2 new Canadian girls came, 2 new French girls, one girl from USA, teaching in Turkey and another girl from somewhere...she has slept all day, so no one has seen her yet! They all come in from lunch time to midnight.
It's about 7.30pm as I write this on Monday.
Spend to-day...120cz on the Museum, 250cz on my "strudel and grog" splurge, 11cz for some fruit, plus 350cz for 2 loads of washing yesterday and the day before(all my jeans, jumpers and blacks) 500cz on 3 nights accom here for the next 3 nights.=1231cz = Just on $61.50 for all of that.
Will be going out with Petr for dinner tomorrow night and that should use up the rest of my Czech money, as I go back to Euros from Thursday in Vienna.
Have booked 7 nights at the Hutteldorf in Vienna again...it's $13 with breakfast and free wifi.
It's almost double the price here, but I like it. No drunks etc, they have a great Spar supermarket down the road...and it is Vienna!
I know how to get there in the dark, so I don't feel like trying a new hostel just now. Their breakfast is good...awesome yoghurt, and boiled eggs, so I'm happy...plus they supply fresh apples all day.
Gotta drag myself this next step, reluctantly away from Prague...
All done now...'nite
xxxx
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