Welcome to the second last blog we will be posting...feels crazy but its true, only another two days or so until were back kicking it on the west coast. I think Kalia's mostly stoked because it means the patchy hair on my chin, I like to call a beard, will finally be leaving.
Well prague and Amsterdam...lets get started.
As we heard on the train from a local, and later found out to be true for ourselves, prague is a postcard city. The city of a thousand steeples as its called is just that. Hundreds of years of architecture poking it's head out above the skyline trying to prove that its still got claim over the city. Prague for myself was one of increasing respect. We came there, hearing from literally everyone that prague was the most beautiful city in Europe. The whole situation reminded me of a movie we watched on this trip, Despicable Me. Basically everyone that I had talked to, or every review I read online raved about it, saying it was amazing, the funniest movie ever. After watching it though I remember thinking, it was good... but not amazing. But after a few days, and a few thousand times of kalia doing some of the quotes such as, "is this an annoying sound" and proceeding to flick her mouth, or "ITS SO FUZZY!" I remember chuckling to myself and thinking I had been wrong. And so the same went for this city, it continued to grow on us even long after we'd left.
We were only in Prague for a couple days, which was fine cause the city isn't actually that large. We got through the main sights fairly quick, checking out the astronomical clock, the cathedral, and st. Charles bridge all within the first day. Every hour on the hour the astronomical clock does a show, described by a website as depicting love, betrayal, greed and death... all too music I might add. So sure enough I dragged kalia over there and waited a very cold ten minutes for the bell to strike and the performance to begin, expecting some sort of mini czech version of Romeo and juliet... Only when the clock struck seven a lone trumpeter (trumpeteer? Trumpetie?) started blaring a few notes while four puppets came out on a wheel one after another and then went back in, all in about ten seconds. To say it was not what i expected would be a little bit of an understatement.
The clock was already more than impressive though, as it lays out the time, the days and months, and many other trippy things I couldn't understand, so it was all good.
Other than the sights, we did a lot of wandering around the cobblestone streets, or going out for coffee in the town square. This kind of routine made its way into Amsterdam as well, which was our next stop on the list. Amsterdam, like Prague, was a very quiet little city that was more about getting lost in it's winding streets than rushing around to any tourist attractions.
The first day to kalias delight we found ourselves an amazing antique market housing thousands of pieces of jewelry, furniture and a number of other things. While she spent a good hour or so in there, I wandered around discovering amsterdams unique independent clothing shops where sweaters cost a couple hundred dollars. That's always the problem. No matter where you are, the stuff you can afford is always crap, while the stuff you like is always way too much.
Come back NOMIS!!
Aside from this though, Amsterdam is also home to the most H&M's we have witnessed in a city. Make your guesses....three you're thinking? Possibly four? Couldn't be more than five??? Down a total of two roads there were...count them....nine H&M's!!! Not bad for a city that was close to the smallest we had been in the whole trip. Needless to say some window shopping was definitely done.
The next day we checked out the van gogh museum. Don't know what more to say than there was a lot of van gogh paintings. Along with monet, manet and george seurat. Pretty awesome.
Everything was within walking distance so we made our way down to the city center from there, walking over canals and watching endless bikers weave their way through the city, (making Vancouvers attempt at being green look fairly pathetic in the process). Although im not sure if it was in an actual attempt of being green or the mere fact that this city is so mellowed out that they just don't care if they get somewhere in a hurry. I'm guessing you already know why this city is mellowed out, but if you don't it's the same reason why every time we would go to burger king there would be endless lines of youth salivating at the pictures of burgers. Even though Amsterdam didn't have tons of tourist attractions, everything it lacked in giant colosseums or ancient parthenons it gained back with its charm and character, making it a city that I'm glad we made the time to see.
And on to London!
g&k
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