Hockey Time in Prague

While we were wrapping up our last week in Prague, hockey was still not back in North America yet. We decided to get our hockey fix while in Prague and go check out some of the NHL players on European teams while on the lockout.

We got tickets to the Lev Praha game on Friday night to see them play Lokomotiv Laroslavl from Russia. The game was a ton of fun and everyone was really into it. It wasn't too hostile between the two teams fans since the Russian team lost their entire team in a plane crash in 2011. They had a moment of silence at one of the breaks and played a video. Very sad situation, but the game was fun regardless.

Lev Praha won and it was a high scoring game. We saw some former Penguin players, Zedeno Chara and  Marion Hossa's little brother all play. It was fun and a nice date night. I guess this would have been a much better post if hockey wasn't back in America yet, but Euro hockey definitely is a different game. The area is more like a high school or small college stadium.

Now that the NHL is back we are hoping to catch some Leafs games while in Toronto. We are making a Toronto sports bucket list and are going to check some things off! The first item checked off this weekend was a Raptors NBA game. Look for a post on that later on this week!

Prague Art Scavenger Hunt

While researching things to do in Prague, Dan came across an artist- David Cerny- who had multiple works around the city. Cerny's work is known as a bit bizarre and different. We tried one day to find the most interesting piece that was on the far end of the city, but we never found it. So on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Dan and I researched all Cerny pieces around Prague and set out on a scavenger hunt.

Our first stop was to see Brown Noser- a sculpture of legs and a rear end coming out of the side of a museum. There is a ladder along the legs that you climb to view a very weird video inside of the bum. The video is of two people dressed as former leaders eating baby food set to the tune of We Are the Champions. No explanation. Just weird, but funny at the same time.

This piece is part of the Futura Gallery which was actually an amazing little art space. We saw a documentary there of Hurrican Katrina from the perspective of an art student whose grandmother is a LA native. Very interesting to see American issues through the eyes of a European artist and activist.

The second stop was to see the statues of Babies at the Museum Kampa. The babies are huge, but their faces are blank with just bars from the top of the head to the chin. I know I keep saying this, but there really is no way to emphasize just how different this art was. We did have a great time wandering all over the city and seeing each piece though.

The third stop was the Art School near the Charles Bridge called Amoya. In the courtyard of the building there are 4 large pistols hanging upside down. These were also done by David Cerny. While there we saw another exhibit by Cerny that we didn't know about- a man in a fish tank type coffin. 

Near the Castle in front of the Kafka Museum, Cerny created this sculpture/water fountain. Considered one of his most humorous pieces, "Piss" shows two men urinating on the Czech Republic. They turn from left to right and if you text a special number a message they can apparently write your message out. 

Next we walked through Old Town Prague to find the statue of Freud hanging by one hand off of a post over a pub. It is said that Cerny showed Freud this way to signify his constant struggle with his fear of death. Others believe that Cerny was questioning the status quo. The Open Concept Gallery says, "Man Hanging out is a fine example of the reason why Cerny is considered a leading sculptor and pop-culture icon."

Lastly, we stopped at a shopping center near the center of the city that houses Cerny's statue of Wenceslas and his dead horse. The horse is hanging upside down from the ceiling and Wenceslas is sitting upright on the horses' torso. The piece is said to be an attack on the Czech President, who is a fairly common target for Cerny.

Overall this was a great day adventure seeing an "off the beaten path" Prague. David Cerny is quite popular and controversial in the Czech Republic and across Europe. We really enjoyed the day- mostly because it was basically a scavenger hunt of weird art, but also because we aren't huge art people so this gave a humorous side to seeing art.  

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

The Myers, food & pies I didn't cook (but happily devoured)
and some card games I of course won! :)

Happy Thanksgiving! Just wanted to put up a quick post about our turkey day in Prague. Hopefully you all are stuffed with lots of savory turkey and dressing and filled with plenty of time with family. We are winding down our trip here in Prague...only one week left here before a 3 day stop in Munich and onto North America! 

As for our Thanksgiving, Dan and I were here enjoying lots of food, some American football, a few games of cards and lots of skyping. We don't have an oven in our apartment here and our stove has only two very small eyes so even making dinner on a regular basis is a challenge. A full Thanksgiving meal was out of the question. 

I did some research and found a specialty store that brings in some different items for Americans and Brits. For example you can find marmite, nutri grain bars, and some other specialty items. They also prepare foods for traditional American and British holidays. So I ordered a full meal for us from them, picked it up that morning and nuked it all in the microwave when we were ready to eat! For someone that love love loves to cook it was a bit sad to have a holiday full of take out containers, but not having to clean the kitchen was a prize!

We had salad, pumpkin soup (for me) and corn chowder (for dan), turkey, mashed potatoes, a little stuffing, gravy, a slice of pumpkin pie and a slice of pecan pie. Overall the food was delicious. Much better than I was expecting. 

Tonight we are heading to a Czech League Hockey game where a few big names from the NHL are playing right now. We spent today getting Dan and haircut and wandering through a Christmas market. Basically we are trying to stay busy to keep our minds off of the Notre Dame game tomorrow night! 

Big day planned for tomorrow- we are going on a walking tour of David Cerny's sculptures all over the city....check back Monday for a recap of that tour. He is an interesting bird. Then we will be holed up in our apartment from 4 pm on watching all things football- Game Day, Michigan vs. Ohio State, Alabama vs. Auburn and finally at 2 am Notre Dame vs. USC. Ahhhh! We are beyond excited. 

Hope you all had a great holiday and are steering clear of Black Friday madness. Just a little over 10 days and we are back! Check back in the next few weeks for posts about the end of Prague and our trip to Munich.

Prague- Castles, Clocks and Love Locks

Food Tents in Wenceslas Square & handmade marionettes

Sorry for the delay in this blog...we've been experiencing some issues with Blogger, our pictures and getting this thing to work! A learning curve for sure.....but here is our Prague Blog.....

We've made it to Prague. It's our second to last stop in Europe and we feel like we've picked a great place to be for our last month over here. On Saturday we did our typical touring day around the city. We saw the Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, the Love Lock bridge, John Lennon wall and more. We also were part of a Czech music video! Pretty busy Saturday...

The clock, Churches in Old Town Square, and a music video

The Castle was like a little village inside the walls, but we wandered around and saw St. Vitus' Cathedral. Since the hike up to the castle was pretty steep, we were able to get great views of the city when we left the castle area and were overlooking all of Prague.

View from Charles Bridge, Dan in front of Charles Bridge, Statue on Bridge

On our walk back down to the center we stopped beside the river and watched the enormous geese & ducks for a bit before stopping into a traditional Czech beer garden for a pint of Pilsner Urquell- a very popular Czech beer.

All Castle Pictures

Since we have seen so many churches and castles while being over here I try to find a few off the beaten path things to see on our days out too. On the list for Saturday was the Love Lock bridge and the John Lennon Wall. In full disclosure, the Love Lock bridge was an idea from the Bachelorette when Emily Maynard was here in Prague it was one of the day dates. We have read about these bridges popping up all over Europe, but we waiting until Prague to put out lock on the bridge.

View leaving Castle, Dan & a Pilsner, the ducks

The John Lennon wall was interesting. It's a smallish wall right next to the bridge and out of the way of most tourist paths. It has been painted over again and again both with graffiti and whitewash from the secret police in the 1980's. Since 1989 tourists have been making their marks all over the wall too. It was a symbol and political focus for Czech youth during communism and up to the Velvet Revolution.

Lennon Wall & Love Lock Bridge

After all of our traipsing around town, we ended the day with a nice dinner on the rooftop terrace of the U Prince hotel in the middle of Old Town Square. It is glassed in during the winter months so we were still able to enjoy the great views of Prague at night. It was an all around great day out. SO far we are enjoying Prague and still trying to find our way around for groceries and daily stuff. It is much more touristy than we remember Vienna being though. Hopefully we will head out again this weekend for some more sightseeing.

Check back later this week for updates. Hope everyone back home had a great weekend. A Notre Dam win- as stressful as that game was- makes everything better!