Farewell to Prague

Live from Vienna, it's Hostelmania!

Judging from the roughly sixteen bzillion photos that are going to be posted along with a comparatively paltry amount of text, you'll probably be able to guess that I found Prague to be an absolutely gorgeous city.  It has a great atmosphere, reasonable prices, good beer, amazing scenery, and more.  

   

Our final day in Prague was spent fairly simply- walking around.  We got an even later start than usual, went out for a traditional Czech late lunch/early dinner at a cool little restaurant we happened to wander into.  I had something that I couldn't begin to pronounce, which was essentially a pork/beef patty stuffed into potato pancakes (potatoe pancakes if you're Dan Quayle), with sauerkraut on the side.  I washed it down with a Kofola, which is apparently "Czech Coke."  It was a delicious cola, very herbal, smelling strongly of liquorice.  

     

After lunch we walked around the area near, and the gorgeous grounds of, the Prague castle.  It's a beautiful, immmaculately-kept Bohemian castle that looks plucked from a Disney set.  

 

     

     

   

I'll be visiting Prague again someday as well.  Who wants to join me?

And now for something completely different.

I've meant to ask this for ages: What is it with Europeans and change?!  It seems to greatly offend any and all shopkeepers if you can't produce exact change to pay for a purchase, or if you can't at least produce payment in a manner that makes their giving you change easy (ie paying $20.25 for an item that costs $10.25 will give you an even $10 back instead of $9.75).  It seems that nobody is capable of breaking big bills, either.  If you've just gone to the ATM and have a crisp new bill worth more than, say, the equivalent of $20, you'd best be heading to a chain grocery store or a McDonald's to break that bill, because you'll be flat out refused service by many mom-and-pop establishments.

Plus, if they realize you're not local, which is generally a painfully easy conclusion to reach, whoever's behind the till is likely to become even more fussy.  As you produce from your pocket a wad of bills and a handful of change, they're likely to make a quick, pecking grab into your hand for the correct change before you've even gotten the chance to begin to count it out yourself.  

Perhaps it's because we Americans aren't as used to a coin-centric culture that we have a hard time managing the inevitable (metric) ton of change that builds up in our pockets, but as we spend more time around it, metal money becomes easier and more convenient than paper ever could be.  It's easy to quickly pull out, push around, and count exact change for a soda or sandwich, then walk away quickly.  It's easy to handle small purchases with change.  It's easy to add it up and realize that it's handled much more effectively in Europe than our useless attempts to replace the dollar bill with a coin.  When I get home, I'm trading in my Washingtons for some shiny new Sacagaweas.