Hello again. Well this is my second full day in Prague. After spending yesterday on an all day tour around the city, today I plan to relax and revisit the sites that I most liked. Yesterday morning I had breakfast and set out to Wenceslas Square where I met the tour guide and group. There was a mix of different nationalities, the one that stood out however were lots of Irish people. I also stood out as being the ONLY person who was alone on the tour! HAHA! Prague though is definately a beautiful city. Tree lined streets and beautiful squares and buildings everywhere. It's fascinating!
Our tour-guide's name was Suzanna, and her English was very good, however she had to typical habit of Eastern Europeans to add 'yes?' to the end of every sentence. She was hysterical though, (I thought). During the tour we walked through the old and new towns and saw most of the main sights. The Astronomical Clock, the Charles Bridge, several churches. We also took a boat ride along the river to see the view of Prague from the water. After this we stopped for lunch at a semi-traditional restaurant where two lovely guys from Dubai took pity on me and insisted on sitting with me at lunch. We started talking and I discovered that one of them was in "corporate communications" while the other was an orthopaedic surgeon who was now specialising in spinal surgery. An older American guy who was nearby joined our conversation and we learned that he was travelling with his daughter. (I had just been assuming the entire time that he was a sugar daddy for this young girl). I however managed to keep my composure, while one of my new friends (the "surgeon") said "Really?!?" It turned out the American guy was in charge of distribution in the US for a multi-national liquor supply company!
After this, buoyed by the consumption of beer, I was a little more chatty to the rest of the group and they were mostly quite nice. There was another American on the tour, some sort of professor, however the only thing I like about him was that HE didn't like Bush!! Ha!!
Suzanna was even more hysterical later on, and I wished I'd been able to capture some of her funnier comments. At one point she was telling us about a famous story... (skip the next paragraph if you're not interested)...
There was a King of the Czech state, hundreds of years ago, who suspected his wife of infidelity. Suzanna mentioned that it wasn't KNOWN if she vos unvaithful (v's are deblierate) and so the king questioned his wife's priest and ordered him to divulge anything his wife had disclosed in confession. Saint John, refused at the time to disclose anything, and as such the King then threw him off the Charles Bridge (famous Prague icon). Suzanna remarked that he vos now the patron saint of swimmers and, I quote: "But maybe he should be the patron saint of NOT SWIMMERS, yes?" As we all stared at her with blank faces, she added: "Because he drowned, yes?"
Maybe I just found it hysterical after my two pilsners with lunch....?
In the evening I went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was traditional Czech cuisine and I wish I'd brought my camera along to take a couple of pics. It seemed quite reasonably priced too, although it's very difficult to work out conversions when you're dealing with all these ZEROS!! I withdrew 3000kc from the ATM when I arrived which is roughly 200AUD. A 2 L bottle of water from a mini mart was like 14kc which is roughly 1AUD. I ordered a beer, (which came out in a .5 L glass mug!) an entree a main as well as a side salad. I settled back to read my book and waited. I was seated outside and the weather was beautiful!!
My entree came out and it was huge! Just as I finished it I was thinking I'd need a break between that and the main, but the waiter just brought out the main as I literally finished the last bite of my entree. I waited a while and ate my main. All of it was very delicious and very filling. It definitely wasn't what you'd call, 'light food'. At the end I relaxed for a while reading, and then asked for the bill. When it came out I got the shock of my life. The bill, quite clearly I thought, read 2341kc. This is roughly 170AUD!!!
I was outraged! The bill was hand written, and it was clear to me that the amounts scribbled couldn't possibly add up to this much. I went to speak to the waiter, whose English was limited and asked him to explain the bill. He clearly thought I was an idiot as he proceeded to check the amounts against a menu and show me the individual sums were correct. I tried to convey that it was the total I was concerned about when he suddenly said the total as 234. What I had interpreted as a 1 was infact just a dash or comma of some sort! It turned out my entire meal, with two courses, salad, sprite and half litre of Czech pilsner was only about 17AUD, and this guy thought I was complaining about that! Ha!
I quickly apologised and tried to explain that I thought it was 2 thousand, not 2 hundred, however I don't think he got it. I quickly paid, thanked him and left.
How embarassment... once again!
2 comments:
hahahaha! bet you'll never go back to that restaurant ever again.
you should embrace being a lone traveller! use a fake name and part your hair to the side. introduce yourself as Danoir. or at least look mysterious and interesting whilst eating your lunch alone in order to inspire interest, not pity in your fellow travellers!
Haha.. will definately try something like that next time Mish! Any advice on how to look mysterious and interesting while eating lunch? Meanwhile, I did actually go back. I tried to apologise for my error, but I think I just made it worse!! I ended up tipping him about 50 crowns hoping that would send the message the second time around! Haha!!
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