DAY 44
Monday JUNE 13 2005
Good Morning. Today the tour group and I went on a orientation tour of Prague. It was boring as hell. As a matter of fact I once attended a tax information class given by an IRS agent and she gave a more interesting class than this mornings tour guide. Oh well, we have the rest of the day to ourselves and I plan to utilize it till its full potential! :-)
Now the are some down sides of Prague. Every day I have been here some one has tried to scam me. Yes, folks, its that type of city. I lost 30 dollars today because when I exchanged my money I didn't count it, right then, I just shoved it in a pocket, and the teller kept about 30 dollars worth of Czech money. When she gave me the amount I looked at it and knew instinctively that it was wrong but squashed my instincts because I was in a hurry to catch up to the tour group. Only later did I realize she shorted me around 800 kcs. To give you an idea of just how much money that is, nine of us went out to lunch together and it only cost 97 American dollars. Scams, scams, scams. If you come here, be very aware of everything around you. Do not let your credit card out of your site, go with the waiter and watch him ring it up. This is very important to do! Trust me, This is not a place for the naive, but there are some nice people too! If it hadn't been for an observant waiter I would have left my day pack at a Greek restaurant.
Now just look past that and enjoy the wonderful city of Prague because there is so much on offer here it is amazing!
Why today I attended a classical concert and they played some of the greats from these composers: Vivaldi, Mozart, Bach, Pachelbel, Gounod, Schubert, Haydn, Handel. No Beatles, though. :-)
I also went to the play called "Cats". It was held in a black light theater. What drivel. I think that it is all in how it is performed and presented. As far as black light theater goes I will try another one if there is time, apparently I went to a second rate theater company to see it.
I also bought my train ticket going from the last city on our tour "Lake Bled" to Ljubljana (Slovenia). I have some time before my Amsterdam flight. Maybe I will slip into Croatia to the city of Split and Dubrovnik. I will wait and see what the connections are from Ljubljana. I found out that not one of the countries on tour uses the Euro. So it will be different currencies every time. This will make it very hard for me to track how much of my atm transfers I am using.
I also met my roommate who happens to be the assistant tour guide and we exchanged stories. Let me tell you her life is blessed, she has the brass ring of success stories.
Otherwise, it really has been a long and full day. I met lots of other people and we all exchanged scam stories, there were many people that can top my scam story easily, sadly enough.
I spent time enjoying the city streets of Prague, went to museums, had goulash, which by the way is not a pasta dish but pot roast, and in general just enjoyed myself.
This is the life, man!
The horde, otherwise known as the tour group.
These pictures do not do this justice. This was artwork on the ceiling of the concert hall of the recital.
My hotel is just down the street from this gate.
