Kristian and Frances

Time to update this most uninspired (lately) of travel blogs. A couple of things to catch up and maybe get back into the swing of updating. I miss a blog format that results in comments and responses, this format is, as I suspected, most unrewarding. Poo to travellerspoint for no anonymous comments. Srsly.

1. Spent the evening before last watching Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and which made me homesick with missing the comfortable contradictions of home. In the morning we had decided to splash out and go shopping for inspiring clothing, since I made the mistake of only really bringing my most practical and neutral clothing, and without colourful clothing I wilt and my self esteem suffers, so boo to that. Still, there are slim pickings in Prague for a girl of my nonstandard clothing size. But we found a couple of things.

2. Random things are always happening. We went out one day last week to discover that sculptures had been mantled all over our nearby square, Namesti Republiky, overnight. Including a pig on a diving board (which incidentally got stolen/damaged a couple of days later, but has now returned to his post). Last weekend we went to the United Islands of Prague Music Festival, which was also much fun, with different stages on different islands to walk between and discover, and we saw a bunch of random euro-bands.

3. Dismayed to hear on English-language Al Jazeera the results of the policy of new paternalism the Australian government has recently adopted to deal with problems in some Aboriginal communities. Reports find that poverty and unemployment are the root causes of the problem, so John Howard will ban alcohol and pornography rather than addressing these, taking away dignity and self-determination rather than restoring it... However a quick scan of SMH.com.au yields zero info. What's going on, homesters?

4. On Friday (tomorrow) we take a bus to Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad spa resort) to do the KV International Film Festival for 9 days. I am very very excited about this.

5. There have been storms every few days, with all the attendant spectacular clouds. The other day we went down to the river to watch the storm come in, and all the people with dachschunds and kids on bikes go by. The storm rolled over, but forty minutes later another one came, and we ran home in drenching rain. Perfect.

6. Have discovered the best place for a) Indian food and b) Vegetarian food is the Hare Krishna Govindas just around the corner. It is wonderful. A couple of times here I have actually ordered meat meals in order to avoid feeling like I have consumed instant heart attack. A couple of times I have walked home from my lunch of fried dumplings and four kinds of cheese with the most alarming chest pains. Goulash and cabbage seems positively refreshing after that. I still love you, Czech food, but oh I often think I will be glad to return to a land of light meals, especially on the hotter days.

7. Culture shock has been pretty negligible, actually. But occasionally things will happen that make us remember what a strange place we are actually in. One weekday morning we were sitting at home minding our business when there was a loudspeaker announcement saying that the Town of Prague was checking the city alarm system and an alarm would sound at noon. On hot days a truck rolls around the streets spraying cold water on all the passers by. One evening I was sitting in the little park by the church and someone's pet rabbit appeared under my seat, twitching its little nose at me. It ran around the park for an hour or so while I wrote in my notebook, and then its owners chased it around and cornered it and put it back in its basket and off it went home. I can't think of anything else right now but it's little odd things like that. Cars not stopping at pedestrian crossings unless you play chicken with them.

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The above is the old town part of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Dubrovnik is probably my equal first favourite place that we've visited, along with Cordoba and/or Granada.

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The wonderful roof tiling that adorns every building within, and around, the old town of Dubrovnik. Dubrovnik is a good case-in-point of Europe as a hole. A beautiful commericial old town, surrounded by a ring of similarly nice things, surrounded by a growing sprawl of bland suburbs and apartment blocks. With Dubrovnik though you need never see these!

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The view over the old town from the seaside city walls. You can see the walls that surround the old town.

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The place where we swam in the sea! This is a small island a few hundred metres off Dubrovnik, the water is wonderfully clear, like in Western Australia. There are no beaches as such, just rocks that you have to wade in from, which is quite frightening, especially if you're like us and didn't bring your wading shoes!

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The coast of Croatia, heading north from Dubrovnik towards the island of Hvar. The entire coast is breathtakingly beautiful.

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More coast! A little island with a little lighthouse.

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The small town of Hvar. You can see the entire town in half a day, but you inevitably want to stay for a week or two. This is the view from the fortress which sits atop the hill.

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A typical street in Hvar. You can see the fortress in the background. While cars don't drive on these streets, the occasional scooter will attempt to run you down.

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View of Croatian forests and such from our train! The forests of Croatia are so beautiful that I might be tempted to say they are more beautiful than the forests of California!

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Zagreb railway station. Zagreb is the capital of Croatia. We saw about 4 city blocks of it.

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And a bit more of Zagreb. It has trams.

Well, we've been in Prague for two weeks now, and are settling in nicely. My Mum went home on Tuesday of the first week, we saw her off at the tram stop near our apartment at 4am. She flew to Paris for another day before flying home. She was emailing my other address (the one I haven't checked since leaving home) so I had no idea if she made it home safely, and it seemed like every time I called she was out for one reason or another.

Our apartment is in a lovely part of the New Town, pretty close to the Jewish Quarter, and with a mediaeval church just across the road. It's a beautiful church with a little courtyard with lots of benches for old ladies to sit on with their lapdogs.

I feel as though I am making no progress with the language, in spite of my attempts to speak Czech each day. It is hard to learn a language when the signs and menus are pretty much all in English as well as Czech. But we are becoming more and more familiar with the streets, and explore a new area every few days. We are still walking a lot.

The second week we did less than the first week, because K is sick. Mind you he's been sick on and off (mostly on) for most of the time we've been in Europe, but he is more sick now, and I am nagging him to see a doctor probably more than a good girlfriend should.

I did spend a day (on the 5th of June) walking around the perimeter of Hradcany (the castle area) looking for anything approximating a protest about George Bush's visit on the way to the G8 summit to persuade the Czech Republic to let him build a radar tracking station for his current pet anti-missile system. No such luck. I think I walked for three hours and then to Wenceslas Square and all I found were soldiers/police with guns and muzzled dogs, journalists carrying audio-visual equipment to and from vans and confused Japanese tourists who seemed to be the only people who didn't realise the castle was blocked off that day. I was very disappointed and am not sure a) why Australians have such an exaggerated reputation for political apathy and b) why Czechs have such an exaggerated reputation for political engagement (or did have). But perhaps I am mistaken there. I thought I saw a group of anarchists with molotov cocktails at one point but they were just some drunken lads taking bottles of beer up to the castle parks.

And yesterday (after trying to find a doctor for K) we went to the Prague Biennale in a leafy and pretty area called Karlin and beforehand drank wine in the park, so we looked at the art while slightly tipsy and dehydrated. It was an extremely hot day, probably not by Sydney standards but we are surprised at how exactly like Sydney summers the Prague summer has been so far, with the cycles of humidly hot days and electric storms with rain. We had an ambitious plan to climb Petrin Hill before drinking our wine but our cheese was melting so we just picked some random park.

Speaking of random parks we went up to the famous Letna Park the other day. Instructive lesson for heads of state and town planners: if you're going to install symbolic monuments make sure they don't have moving parts as it might backfire on you. Last time I in Prague there was a working metronome above the city, symbolising the patience and hope for the future of the Czech people (or so I was told). Anyway it hasn't moved at all since we got here and as far as I know it hasn't moved for several years. I guess it just broke down. But Letna was a lively place with beautiful views.

I really like it here. It is the only city we visited on our travels that I could imagine staying for a really long time (and that most definitely includes Paris), because there's always stuff going on and a hundred billion cafes and pubs with food to try, and it remains very affordable as long as you avoid the tourist traps. Sometimes you get surprised by what you get. Once I ordered something called a "Magic Garden" and got steamed broccoli and carrots under a layer of garlic cream and cheese. It was delicious, but the kind of meal you make at home when really incredibly depressed and hide from your family members, not something you'd expect to get at a restaurant. Another time I misguidedly ordered a "Sweet Omelette" and basically got an omelette with raspberry jam inside and wet tinned fruit on top. A lot of these things are a consequence of ordering from the "meatless dishes" section of the menu, which seems to be random side dishes and may include deserts. Hm.

A lot of other nice things have happened. We've seen another Czech movie (I Served the King Of England) and met our awesome new friend Vicky, who is a Chicago girl living here and teaching English and has a wonderfully dry sense of humour and was kind enough to take us around the city and show us a lot of great things, including the restaurant/cafe that gave me "The Magic Garden" and an art shop where I bought an aquarell sketchpad for my aquarell pencils.

If anyone would like to send us letters or lavish gifts our address is:

#10, Petrska 9
Nove Mesto, Praha 1
Czech Republic

Until the 15th of August or so.

Til next time,
Frances.

What greeted us in Prague... it's taking time to settle into the life of a man o' pleasures and time...