Nothing makes an already fun city like Prague even more fun than having a co-conspirator, so I was thrilled to have my friend Megan visit me this weekend in Prague. Megan is a fellow Intel-ite from the U.S. who is doing a three-month stint in our Munich office.
After she arrived mid-morning on Saturday, we headed to Old Town to catch an “Intro to Prague” tour, stopping for a quick bite at McDonalds on the way (my first foray into the golden arches since arriving in Europe, I’m proud to say). I had an amusing ‘could-I-be-more-of-a-tourist’ moment at the register when, after conscientiously looking up the Czech word for “sauce” so I could request my fish sandwich without it, the server promptly responded, “Fish sandwich with no sauce. Would you like that for here or to go?”
Unfortunately, after high-tailing it across town and rushing through McDonalds, the tour group was nowhere to be found, so we ended up arranging a bus tour for later that afternoon instead. We then passed a couple hours in typical red-blooded American female fashion: We went shopping. Prague has lots of fun souvenirs, including furry hats, communist memorabilia, crystal, decorative perfume bottles, marionettes, and amber and garnet jewelry. 
Our personal favorites though were the nesting dolls, which range in price from ten to hundreds of dollars, featuring everything from traditional designs to Elvis and Britney Spears. One shop owner was so keen to make the sale, he even played music by the artists whose nesting dolls we showed interest in.
After a satisfying round of shopping, we headed back to the square to catch our tour bus, and commenced on three and a half hours of sheer torture. Do you remember the teacher from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off, with the classic “Bueller… Bueller… Bueller” line? Well, he would have been wildly entertaining and charismatic in comparison with the tour guide we got stuck with. He had only one tone of voice, and maintained a slow, lilting pace in his presentation (made through a microphone in the front of the bus, not facing us) that led more than one member of the group to fall asleep. The rest of us chose to roll our eyes a lot and muffle our hysterical giggles at his bizarrely long pauses and drawn-out pronunciation of random words.
Style issues aside, the most frustrating aspect of the tour was the guide’s obvious disinterest in engaging with the group and his lack of substantial information to share about any of what we were seeing. At the end of the tour, I had learned only three things: 1) Jana Palacha Square is named after a young Charles University student who in January 1969 set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in protest against the Soviet invasion (a horrifyingly sad story that our guide glossed over as if it was nothing); 2) There are great photo opps to be had from the bridge north of Charles Bridge (which we went back and got today); and 3) You should never sign up for a tour without a recommendation.
The best part of the tour, ironically, was the very end, when our guide paid our entry into the Old Town Hall tower and left us to finish on our own. The views of Prague were gorgeous, and I was finally able to get that cool photo looking down on Old Town Square that I keep seeing on postcards.
After the tour, we grabbed dinner and then headed to a bar to drink away our annoyance with one of Prague’s famous specialties: Absinthe. Illegal in many countries, Absinth is the deadliest spirit in the world, with 70 percent alcohol content and a reputation for causing hallucinations. After a tutorial from the bartender, we commenced with the ritual of lighting a tiny spoonful of sugar and absinth on fire, then stirring the mixture into the green liqueur and quickly downing the shot. I can’t say I had any hallucinations, but I did get thoroughly drunk on the Scope-like concoction (along with no shortage of Vodka and Red Bulls and pivo).
Naturally, we weren’t the only ones out looking for a good time on a Saturday night. Before too long at the bar, we were adopted by a massive stag party, comprised of 17 Brits dressed in hilarious 70s garb. The guys were happy to buy us drinks and entertain us with their antics, so we stuck with them when they moved onto a strip club, where we got to watch several of the guys embarrass themselves as only drunk guys in a strip joint can. When we’d had our fill of that, we headed home, but demonstrated our own drunkenness with a last-minute detour to Radost FX for a late-night snack.
Unfortunately, Megan’s weekend in Prague was over almost before it began. After a late breakfast and a quick walk across the river to get the aforementioned photos of Charles Bridge, she had to head back to Munich to be back at work on Monday morning. But in just over 24 hours, she acquired lots of photos of Prague, authentic nesting dolls, direct experience with – and a small souvenir bottle of – absinthe, and plenty of ammo to successfully blackmail 17 British men, should she ever need to. :-)
With my departure imminent and the temperatures in Prague having taken a sharp downward, I haven’t been terribly motivated to do any new sightseeing (or anything else that involves being outside in the biting cold). I did make one last sweep of Wenceslas Square though, just in case there was anything worth buying that I’d somehow missed in the last two and a half weeks.
In just 15 years, Prague has caught up with the rest of the western world, with McDonalds and KFC intermingling with ancient buildings on cobblestone streets. Department stores and boutiques carry every brand of clothing under the sun – gone are the days when you could trade a pair of Levi’s for a car in Prague. 
And traditional Czech pubs sit side-by-side with cosmopolitan restaurants with sleek decor and names like “Hot” (though I had to laugh to see that the only two patrons at Hot yesterday weren’t quite living up to the name).
