hesky vikend

After going out on Friday night I slept in on Saturday morning. I awoke to find some people from my group getting ready to go to the Prague Wine Festival on the river, which I had heard about earlier in the week. We headed over there after and taking an unnecessarily long metro ride finally arrived to about the same place we had rented the boats last weekend.

The festival was expensive and nothing special. I didn't see barkouk (traditional seasonal wine, only available for a few months in the autumn-- it's a young plum wine) which meant it was really touristy. But it was 3 pm when we got there so I was content to spend my mandatory 150 K worth of tokens on just a few of the nicer tastings.

Czech lady bug

Then we went to grab a beer and popped by the department store on top of Tesco but found nothing special so we continued home.

That night we went out again. I'm convinced that we were at a bar that was half gay half for tourists but many disagreed. You should have seen these bartenders! And many of the men around the bar were gay. People kept disagreeing with me... but I know what I know!

Sunday I took the tram with my friend Mike in the direction opposite of that we usually do just to check out what was in our neighborhood. We came upon some kind of renaissance fair. I've never been to one and I wanted to go in but they were charging admission and the line was too long. We found a small and cute cafe and our friend Veronica met us there for burgers and studying. They had an exam the next day and I just wanted to brush up on my Czech, having floundered all weekend.

In the evening we went into Old Town for a drink at a popular tourist bar, Chapeau Rouge. The prices aren't too bad and there are many international travelers there, with a bar in the spacious upstairs area and a club downstairs. I have been there a few times because it is busy on weeknights, reasonably priced and only a ten minute walk to the tram stop back to the dorm. However, because it is so touristy it serves more as a stand-by than as a great destination so we wandered into a jazz bar around the corner.

It was great. Very small intimate setting--there couldn't have been seats for more than forty people, including the mezzanine above the ground floor for more people. It was very loud and I enjoyed the set. It too was geared toward tourists (almost everything in Old Town is) but it was a great way to spend a Sunday evening.