Prague, Czech Republic

I ended up spending a week total in Loket. It was just really hard to leave. The hostel was great, and the people running it, Doug and Bianca were awesome. Bianca found train and bus times for every day trip I did, and then gave me advice about what to do when I got there. After Karlovy Vary, the next day I went to Cheb. Cheb, very close to the German border, used to be full of Germans until they were all expelled after World War II. The old center of town is nice, and the walled monistary garden is really beautiful. My last day trip was to Marianske Lazne, another one of the big spa towns. There were fewer water drinkers, and more people enjoying the beautiful central park and gardens. I could only actually find three of the fountains, the others seemed to be in locked buildings or mislabeled on the map. On the way back I took the train to Karlovy Vary, which was beautiful, although I had a hard time staying awake for the first half of the trip. The czech's really love their gardens.

My last adventure in Loket was going to see a play in the castle courtyard. Normally, theater is pretty easy to go to, but there were only eight of us watching and it turned out to be audience participation. It was a sort of modern version of Don Quijote de la Mancha. I understood the bit that was in spanish, but nothing beyond that. They still had me participating though, and they didn't really seem to get that I had no idea what was going on because I didn't speak czech. At the end we were all standing on stage with our shoes off as don quijote was dying and then we did a collective curtain call and got participation prizes. I guess the play was really funny because everyone else laughed almost the entire time.

After Loket I went to the university town of Olomouc in Moravia. The hostel there was also fantastic. In both hostels when you arrive they show you a map and point out lots of places of interest. I managed to get there in time for the last concert of the street theater festival, but was a bit bummed that I missed the rest of it. There are just too many festivals. While in Olomouc I visited the modern art museum (good photography) and the archdiocese museum (lots of jeweled gold cups and old czech people scolding and telling me things I didn't understand). I had chocolate pie, climbed the tallest tower in town that has a double helix staircase (and then a scary metal staircase) and kept walking through the town square. The town reminded me of prague, but smaller and with almost no tourists. In other words, more like a real place.

Tomorrow I take a bus to budapest at 6:30 in the morning :( and then will take a 36 hour train to Istanbul.