Europe,  Madrid,  Prague

Sangria to Schnitzel: Transversing Europe

August 21, 2018 / 4,161 Comments

First Things First

I’m in love with Prague. 

The city and I only just recently met.  But certain places don’t require weeks or months to get to know.   Prague has an energy, an aura, a chemistry that can’t be denied.  It was exciting and new, while familiar and comfortable all at the same time.  I’m sure it has faults and imperfects that I’m ignoring or have yet to see, but I simply don’t care.

Sigh.  We will come back to this.   First thing’s first.

Before heading to Prague, I made one little stopover after leaving my parents in Portugal.  Madrid.  This was a last minute add.  When I left South America I was sad and nervous to give up my Spanish practice after making such progress.  I thought – hey I’m right next door to the country that originally brought the Spanish language, horses, and smallpox to South America.  What a good opportunity to keep working on my language skills via immersion.

Now…hate is a strong word.  So I’m not going to use it here.  So I’ll just say I have a strong distaste for Madrid. I wish I never went.

There, I said it. 

Madrid.  European Inferno.  

Don’t be mad if Madrid is your favorite place in the entire the world and you think I’m a horrible person for not seeing it.  I’m sure it has redeeming qualities.  I know it does.   It wasn’t entirely Madrid’s fault that I didn’t like the Spanish Capital.  I partly blame the weather.

It was some hot sweaty balls while I was in Spain.  Highs averaged forty degrees Celsius everyday, or between a hundred and a hundred and seven  degrees Fahrenheit.  Every. Single. Freaking. Day.  I drank countless gallons of water and went to the bathroom about three times in total during my stay.  You should never visit Madrid in the middle of summer during a heatwave.  And definitely don’t book a tiny Airbnb jail cell-sized room with no air conditioning.  NEVER AGAIN.

To add combustible explosives to the already raging fire, my Airbnb was right in the middle of Gran Via, aka tourist central.  The Gran Via is a long pedestrian promenade of high-end retail shopping, restaurants, bars, souvenir stores, and hoards of tourists.  This ‘prime’ location likely helped earn the Airbnb listing a perfect five star location rating, but, ugh, it is not my scene.

I did Madrid wrong.  I did it the way a 22 year old broke college student does Madrid who only wants to see the major sites in the city center, and be close to the bars so they can make a quick stumble home at the end of the night.  College Cassie did some of this, and enjoyed it.  But even then it wasn’t totally my scene.  At this current point in my life, it is definitely not my scene.  I was a cranky old woman all week.  Why so hot?  Why many people?  Jesus Mary Martha there are so many chain retailers here.  How many Sephoras does Madrid need?  Why are there so many people out at night being loud???  Can’t they go to sleep at a normal hour?!?.

Also, the wifi at my Airbnb hostel didn’t work the entire time I was there.  So that both sucked and put a real hamper on my touristing plans.  My vagabond life these days involves too many new locations too often.  As a result, I rarely have the mental capacity or inclination to plan more than a few days in advance unless there’s a specific activity I know I need to book early.  Also, while on this life and career break, I’m trying to focus on enjoying where I am in the moment, one place at a time.  Unfortunately for Madrid, that means I really didn’t look anything up ahead of time. 

This must be fun to read about, huh?

It Wasn’t All Sweat and Tears

Ok, so here’s what I did manage to get my lazy ass up to do. 

I did a free walking tour of the city.  You know I love those.  Plus side – I covered most of the historic district of Madrid.  Saw a lot of old buildings and intricate sculptures.  Chatted up some interesting people.  This included me gushing to a couple of Colombian girls about how much I love their country.  The tour guide was also one of the most well educated, most informative tour guides I’ve probably ever had. Negative – it was a three hour walking tour.  Outside.  In the heat.  And I forgot to eat beforehand.  I stopped listening after 90 minutes.  It turned into too much of a history lecture (information overload!).  I stopped caring about the architectural revival in the 1600’s and started mentally planning lunch.

  • Just looking at this picture makes me feel overheated

I went to the Prado Museum.  I showed just over an hour before it closed so it was free.  That wasn’t intentional.  It took me almost all day to get the motivation to go there.  But I do like a good bargain and I can’t spent more than 90 minutes in a museum without getting sleepy anyway.  So it worked out.  While there I took some pictures I wasn’t supposed to.

  • Right after I snapped this pic, I heard a security guard scold another tourist for taking photos.  Whoops! 

I saw the famous statue of a bear climbing up a tree.  And of course I walked the Gran Via and surrounding neighborhood.  Aside from the chains, Madrid does have some good thrift shops and vintage clothing stores. I’ll give it that. Also just walking down the Gran Via is its own fashion experience. The street is an outdoor runway of the latest in European fashion.

  • Remind why this is famous?

I also ate a lot of cheesed based tapas, paella, and drank a fair amount of sangria.   Anything with ice.  It could have been gutter water with ice, I didn’t care.

  • Lots of Cheese
  • Burrata
  • More Cheese
  • Paella

I tried to practice my Spanish.  The whole reason for coming to Madrid.  This was an epic fail.  Madrid has too many English speaking tourists.  I could talk to people in Spanish all day, and just about everyone replied to me in English.  It didn’t help that I’m a few weeks out of practice and generally slow speaking like most language novices.  Unlike in South America, I got a lot of condescending looks just for trying Spanish in Madrid.  Like….’awe, that’s cute that you’re trying to show that you know some Spanish.  But really, I don’t have all day, and unlike you, we’re all bilingual here.  So spit out what you want in English.  I have things to do.”

Not every place is for everyone.  I left with the feeling that Madrid is a cosmopolitan city with lots to offer.  But it just wasn’t for me.  Blame the heat.  It also maybe possible that I missed my family (my mom will be just thrilled to read this).   Not just because by leaving them I left behind a life of travel luxury and afternoon wine tastings, but also because I was back to solo traveling and didn’t have people with me to share memories and experiences.   It took me a few days to adjust.  By the time I did it was time to get back on a plane, leave Madrid and head east.

My mom’s response after hearing me complain about the Spanish heat.  Such sass

Back to the Love Story

Prague.  Let’s get back to you.

What do I love about Prague exactly.  I love walking along the Vltava river, and gazing at medieval castles and stone arched bridges across the water with other tourists.  I love the dark alleyways and streets of the old town, backlist by the yellow glow of street lamps.  I loved that the streets were always filled with people out walking, but it was not so many tourists that I ever felt overwhelmed.  It was more….reassuring.  Like I was sharing an experience with a stranger.  Also being near other people makes me feel safer, like I’m less likely to get robbed. 

  • The National Theater
  • View from the banks of the Vltava

There’s a calmness to this city.  During my visit I stayed in tourist central again – the Old City.  But Prague doesn’t have the same anxious buzz of Madrid.   It feels more peaceful.  Less rushed.  If you scan the restaurant patios lining the streets at lunch time you’ll see people sitting in front of a plate of meat and a half liter of beer.  Like they have all day to sit there.  No one is in a hurry.

Strangely, I also love the food in Prague.  This may sound crazy traveling there enroute from a culinary powerhouse like Madrid.  Believe me, I ate my share of Iberico ham and burrata cheese in Spain.  But eastern European food is so much simpler and unpretentious.  Hunk of meat. Starchy side. Everything doused in gravy. Giant beer next to your plate.

Maybe it’s my family heritage and pale person DNA coming through, but I find this food so comforting.  It’s food I never make or want at home.  I don’t have a meat heavy diet or ever crave fried food.  I used to be a vegetarian and am one of the few people that honestly enjoys eating kale.  But in Prague I can’t get enough pork chops, schnitzels, pork knuckle, and fried chicken steaks.  And beer.  Light Pilsner.  Eastern Europe is the only alternate universe where I enjoy a good Pilsner.  No where else in the world.

On top of all of this, Prague also gives an weirdo-friendly off-beat vibe.  True, the National Theater puts on a great Opera. But the city is equally known for marionette puppet shows and black light theaters.  I went to both during my stay and highly recommend them. 

The most famous marionette show has been running for decades and is adapted from an Italian Opera called Don Giovanni.  It’s about a male puppet sentenced damnation because he won’t give up his promiscuous ways.  The show includes pictures of naked women, a puppet murder, sexual innuendo, and a bathtub scene with a naked Don Giovanni marionette.  It was unexpectedly un-family friendly, incredibly well done, witty and hilarious.  Similarly, the black light show was half dance performance, half comedy theater, and half magic show.  I know that math doesn’t work, but it does in Prague.

Street performers include a lot of sad clowns.  In the same day I saw a man dressed up as the grim reaper staring down tourists for money, and another person in a giant panda costume taking pictures with children in front of the old clock tower.  In front of the Kafta museum, there’s a fountain made of men peeing, complete with rotating pelvis and moving phallus.  None of this makes sense but somehow it all fits together.

I love this about Prague.  It’s a city that’s a little bit darker, and a little bit stranger.  It’s a place for history buffs, beer drinkers, artists, architecture lovers and weirdos.  It feels like home.

Back in the Swing

In Madrid, the heat and the tourist crowds made me feel a little lonely for someone I knew.  In Prague I feel the opposite.  The four days I spent here, I was very content to be traveling alone.

The exception to this was my accommodation.  I broke my own rule in Prague and stayed in a shared room hostel.  When starting this life adventure of travel, I knew my government-salary-funded savings account meant I needed to stay in hostels and budget accommodations.  That’s fine.  I’m not too picky.  I just require a clean and safe.  But I also decided I would NOT be sharing rooms.  I have nothing against this concept.  I slept in many a 12-bed room hostel in my early 20’s.  But I don’t want to be woken up by strangers at 1am anymore.  I don’t want to sleep in a bunk bed.  And I want to fully expunge the contents of my backpack without being worried someone’s going to swipe my laptop.

Europe, however, is expensive.  Compromises must be made.  So I stayed in a 5-bed, female shared room in Prague.  This was my trade off to get a hostel with a good location and good rating.  I met some nice people in this room.  A young Pakistani girl who just got married and graduated from college, and was doing a month long tour of Europe before starting grad school.  A slightly oddball but outgoing Brazilian woman.  She gave me a daily update on her nightly heartburn along with a list of everything she ate so we could discuss potential causes.  I also met a pleasant Korean lady, who told me she didn’t take trains because she was too old for that, she had a bad shoulder, and it was easier to fly.  Turns out that bi-otch was two years younger than me (she was actually quite nice, but seriously, women need to stop calling themselves old the minute they hit 30.  You’re not old so just stop).

I talked to all of these women, but I didn’t go out of my way to invite anyone to dinner or ask if they wanted to walk to the castle together like I have often done in other cities.   Here I was content to spend time with myself.  Prague was a pleasant companion.

A lot of people ask me if I get lonely on this trip, spending so much time by myself.  Yes, of course.  I frequently miss friends and family and being near people I know.  If I feel lonely, it usually doesn’t take much effort to find someone to hang out with.  I enjoy meeting new people and have artfully conquered the skill of making four hour long friendships in foreign places.

But sometimes its nice to be alone.  I can do what I want.  Some days that’s being an active tourist or a hiking a mountain.  Other days it’s taking a nap for half the afternoon.  No one asks me why.  I don’t have to worry about  what someone else wants to do, what kind of mood they’re in today, or if they want to see the same risqué adult-themed puppet show I want to see.  

I’ve talking about this before, but I’m still adjusting to the idea that it can be ok to be ‘selfish’ and stop worrying about what I’m supposed to accomplish, or who else I’m supposed to please.  I’m a woman of to-do lists and late hours in the office, so this transition is still a work in progress.  But I spend more time lately getting coffee in quiet cafes.  Or let’s be honest, while in Prague, it’s drinking a half liter of beer and devouring a cinnamon sugar donut funnel filled with frozen yogurt.

Happiness (and the path to diabetes) is this right here 

Prague in Review

I can’t leave this post without highlighting a few of the beautiful amazing things to see in Prague.  It’s impossible to fully convey how much I enjoyed my time here.  In between the Pilsner Urquells and the meals made of sugar, I did get my fair share of enjoyable touristing in.  

I’m not an advocate for saying that people need to visit every last castle, museum, or church in the cities they visit.  There are a lot of them in Europe, and this is a quick path to exhaustion.  But Prague’s castle happens to be smack in the middle of town, set amidst acres of lovely gardens, and perched on a hill giving a lovely view of the river and city below.  I paid extra to climb the stairs in one of the towers of St. Vitus Cathedral.  The views of the city below made this money well spent.

I spent many a happy afternoon just walking through the city squares or across the famous Charles Bridge, listening to the street performers play classical music and taking in the gothic architecture.  The city has a large Jewish quarter with several synagogues and Jewish cemetery available for touring, though I opted not to pay the fee to go inside these places.  Prague also offers plenty of cheap boat rides down the river which is also not a bad way to spend an leisurely afternoon.

Prague is a city I will come back to one day.  I wish I had followed my original plan and came straight here from Portugal instead of stopping in Spain.  But well, you don’t know what you don’t know.  I didn’t know I’d be visiting Madrid in the middle of global warming induced heat wave, and I didn’t know I’d love Prague as much as I did.  I’ll take it as a win that I got to spend time in this lovelycity at all.   It’s certainly better than sitting in an office in DC.

Until we meet again! 

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