Second-hand Clothing and Hypomobile Elevators
I hope all is going well out there in the world. Things here in Prague are going well. We're busy preparing for mid-term exams and our Christmas Party, which is coming up next week. I got my first haircut in Europe last Friday. My hair was getting very shaggy, so I got Marsha to chop it off for me. She did a good job of it, and, although it's not quite what I'm used to, it's not at all bad, and I'm very happy with it.
Last Saturday night, Jerry played in a folk concert with our Czech friend Marek. It was broadcast over internet radio, which I forgot to mention to everyone, but it will also be archived online for your listening pleasure. It was an excellent concert and has songs both in Czech and English. I'll give everyone the address they can go in order to listen to it once I find out what that address is.
Last Sunday afternoon and evening Jerry, Sissel, Marsha, and I checked out a second-hand clothing place here in Prague. You pay by the kilo, and there are different areas of the store with varying levels of quality. One large room was 25 Kc/Kg, one was 80Kc/Kg, one was 130 Kc/Kg, and one was 2-hundred-something Kc/Kg. I didn't purchase anything there, but Jerry got a hat and a nice 80's Olympic-style warm-up jacket that says "Judo Team" on the back. Sissel and Marsha also got a few things, though nothing stands out in my mind as well as Jerry's blue jacket with hot pink and neon green embellishments.
After finishing up with rummaging through piles and piles of old clothing, all of us went to hotel Dum and then decided to go out to eat. We got in the elevator, which is normal procedure for leaving a building of multiple stories, and pushed the button for the ground floor. Well, usually it stops at the ground floor, but this time it continued going down to the basement and didn't even bother to stop there. We ended up being stuck in the elevator halfway between the basement and the bottom of the elevator shaft. I think it must have been one of the most ridiculous moments of my life.
We pushed buttons for some of the higher floors, but to no avail, so we pushed the alarm button. This didn't seem to have any effect on anything, so we pushed it several times for varying lengths of time. We also managed to pry open the first set of doors from the elevator, but the outer set was stuck shut. We were in there between 5 and 10 minutes before the mechanic (who spoke no English) showed up and got us out. As we were leaving the building we spoke to the guy at the reception desk and asked if the elevator got stuck very often. He said "Yes, and we're waiting on the mechanic to get here to open the doors." We told him that he had already opened the doors and that it was us who had been stuck. He laughed, shook his head, and said, "Oh, it was you who rang the bell so much."
So anyway, we went out to eat and couldn't decide where to go. We started off by the school and wandered down to Old Town Square. We didn't see anything particularly appealing, so we wandered down through the Jewish quarter. There wasn't anything appealing there either, so we continued on towards the river. We stopped at a pizzaria close to the river, but they had no tables, so onward we wandered. By this time we were close to Charles Bridge, so we walked over that since Marsha hadn't been across yet. At that point we decided to go to a restaurant called "Little Buddha", which Nick (a Czech friend) had recommended.
We had passed it once before on a walk near the Castle, so we had a basic idea of where it was. It was just a matter of hiking up the hill to the castle and wandering around a bit more until we found it. Well, we finally did find it, and had a good meal, but it was an ordeal wandering across the entire city of Prague (probably 2 1/2 miles) for our supper. So that concludes our adventures from last weekend. The rest of the week continued basically as normal, so there isn't anything terribly exciting to write about. I hope everyone has a good week as the holiday season progresses.
Last Saturday night, Jerry played in a folk concert with our Czech friend Marek. It was broadcast over internet radio, which I forgot to mention to everyone, but it will also be archived online for your listening pleasure. It was an excellent concert and has songs both in Czech and English. I'll give everyone the address they can go in order to listen to it once I find out what that address is.
Last Sunday afternoon and evening Jerry, Sissel, Marsha, and I checked out a second-hand clothing place here in Prague. You pay by the kilo, and there are different areas of the store with varying levels of quality. One large room was 25 Kc/Kg, one was 80Kc/Kg, one was 130 Kc/Kg, and one was 2-hundred-something Kc/Kg. I didn't purchase anything there, but Jerry got a hat and a nice 80's Olympic-style warm-up jacket that says "Judo Team" on the back. Sissel and Marsha also got a few things, though nothing stands out in my mind as well as Jerry's blue jacket with hot pink and neon green embellishments.
After finishing up with rummaging through piles and piles of old clothing, all of us went to hotel Dum and then decided to go out to eat. We got in the elevator, which is normal procedure for leaving a building of multiple stories, and pushed the button for the ground floor. Well, usually it stops at the ground floor, but this time it continued going down to the basement and didn't even bother to stop there. We ended up being stuck in the elevator halfway between the basement and the bottom of the elevator shaft. I think it must have been one of the most ridiculous moments of my life.
We pushed buttons for some of the higher floors, but to no avail, so we pushed the alarm button. This didn't seem to have any effect on anything, so we pushed it several times for varying lengths of time. We also managed to pry open the first set of doors from the elevator, but the outer set was stuck shut. We were in there between 5 and 10 minutes before the mechanic (who spoke no English) showed up and got us out. As we were leaving the building we spoke to the guy at the reception desk and asked if the elevator got stuck very often. He said "Yes, and we're waiting on the mechanic to get here to open the doors." We told him that he had already opened the doors and that it was us who had been stuck. He laughed, shook his head, and said, "Oh, it was you who rang the bell so much."
So anyway, we went out to eat and couldn't decide where to go. We started off by the school and wandered down to Old Town Square. We didn't see anything particularly appealing, so we wandered down through the Jewish quarter. There wasn't anything appealing there either, so we continued on towards the river. We stopped at a pizzaria close to the river, but they had no tables, so onward we wandered. By this time we were close to Charles Bridge, so we walked over that since Marsha hadn't been across yet. At that point we decided to go to a restaurant called "Little Buddha", which Nick (a Czech friend) had recommended.
We had passed it once before on a walk near the Castle, so we had a basic idea of where it was. It was just a matter of hiking up the hill to the castle and wandering around a bit more until we found it. Well, we finally did find it, and had a good meal, but it was an ordeal wandering across the entire city of Prague (probably 2 1/2 miles) for our supper. So that concludes our adventures from last weekend. The rest of the week continued basically as normal, so there isn't anything terribly exciting to write about. I hope everyone has a good week as the holiday season progresses.
Concocted By An Enlightened Fellow on Saturday, December 08, 2001
1 Comments:
That was such a fun day! I wish we could do it again, even though Marsha and Sissel were so mad because I wanted to keep walking. It seems like this whole ordeal, except for the elevator part, was repeated at least 3 times...
Well, I don't know if you ever wander back in the archives to find new comments, but I'm leaving one anyway. Dec 31 Marek and I are going to have another concert in Trinec. Any chance you could make it? Just thought I'd ask.
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