Post #14: A tourist break...

Yesterday morning (Saturday) at about 9:30a, we arrived in Praha (a.k.a. Prague). Unable to check into our apartment until 14:00, we put our luggage in a locker and began to explore, after grabbing coffee of course. Overnight trains have a way of making one really crave coffee the next morning...

We discovered that are new dwelling was about 1.9k from the train station, and similarly, from Wenceslas Square. Wenceslas Square is a pretty big deal in Nova Mesto or New Town Prague; it is historically the site of many protests and resistances, for example communism in the 80's. In present day, the natives will gather there to protest. However, it is also a square that the people of Prague gather in for fun and enjoyment. We'll come back to that...

Side note, during our intermission exploration we experienced the feared riders of Moped Week 2012 in Prague. No, I am not kidding. Imagine Daytona Bike Week. Now... take away everything intimidating... There you have Prague Moped Week.

Finally, we were able to check into our apartment,  complete with 2 bathrooms, breakfast every morning, and one free dinner at the restaurant next store (thank you Living Social coupon).  We decide that we are tired of being tourists because it is slightly exhausting, and that we need to be locals for a night. So, we do the only logical thing for a local on a Saturday night... we have a date.

We get dressed up a bit, and take advantage of our free dinner, like  true locals right? Eating out with a coupon. We have delicious dinner, and even get vanilla ice cream for dessert. Then we head down to the square on a mission- find a movie theater. It's a date: dinner and a movie.

We are successful! However, our film of choice ( Dark Shadows) is not playing until 21:10 and it is 19:00. We decide to stroll to find a street cafe on the Square to sit at for a few hours and people watch.
Recall I informed that the Square is also used for enjoyment and ,more often I might add? It was our little surprise from above that the free entertainment in the Square during our date night was the Cesky Narodni Symfonicky Orchestr (no, I did not forget the "a") presenting a compliation of pieces entitled Hollywood Night. The orchestra opened with the 20th Century Fox theme, and including music from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Rocky, The Pink Panther, Indiana Jones, and more... Needless to say that our 2 hours flew by, and we enjoyed competing to see who could guess the movie soundtrack first. Afterwards, we enjoyed Dark Shadows, IN ENGLISH. (We have resolved that we liked the film; however, it was not one to own and one viewing was probably sufficient.) Then we enjoyed the walk back to our apartment...

All in all, it was the perfect night in Prague. We needed to feel, well... at home again seems to be a fitting g description. We have been city hopping, site seeing, and feeling like a visitor for close to 2 weeks now. It was nice to do something familiar, something normal. Our spirits were renewed, and we faced the city we a fresh tourist game face- eagar to learn, prepared to soak in the city, and picture-taking ready.