Day Twenty
Vienna
27 August 2007 22:47

Since our hotel serves the breakfast earlier than our last two (they serve it 7:30 to 9:30) we got up a bit earlier than we have recently. Pretty standard continental breakfast.

Vienna does not seem to be as easy to get around as Prague, though the public transport system seems fine enough. The outer suburbs (compare to say, St Kilda) are not very picturesque and didn’t provide a great first impression. The inner city is quite nice though.

Today we saw many of Vienna’s most impressive buildings in the inner ring; many old museum buildings, universities, churches. One church we entered — the church of St Charles Borromeo — has a massive and very nice mural on the roof. Unfortunately (for us) the entire place is being restored which means there is a large scaffold in the centre of the church. However, there is an elevator you can catch to see the roof close up. At the top there was also a scaffold leading right up to the top. We both ascended but Justine went back quickly as it didn’t feel too stable.

As we decided to head back I turned and saw the Sacher Hotel. A famous cake (Sacher Torte) was invented by the owner so it’s a touristy thing to do to eat the cake there. So we did. We ordered one to share (a slice, not a cake!) and were given two. To be honest, I didn’t think it was that good, and Justine said it was “disgusting”. Justine made a Sacher Torte at school but says hers was different (more layers of cream and instead of apricot it had strawberry). Luckily for us they had only charged us for one slice so it sort of evened out.

While walking back to our hotel, we decided to try and rent bikes since they are free for the first hour after paying a registration fee. Unfortunately, my credit card wouldn’t work at all and though Justine’s worked at the final payment stage we got an “External Payment Refused” message. Weird.

Walking further we tried another bike rental machine (same company/service, but different location) with the same results. We also read just after you can only rent one bike per credit card.

It’s been really hot the past few days and today was no exception. You’d think this might mean things would be open late but supermarkets all over the city close at 7:00pm. In fact, most shops close at 7 sharp. Justine was even refused entry into one at 5 minutes to 7.

Most places in Europe run on 24-hour time also, which is different.

Day Sixteen
Prague
23 August 2007 - 23:41

We slept in this morning, and after breakfast (and being informed that there are no laundromats in Prague) Justine washed our clothes in the bath while I wrestled with the terrible internet connection which we paid 5€ for and is pathetically flaky.

Just as the afternoon hit, we left to go to Prague castle, again wandering the streets aimlessly. On the way, we grabbed an ice cream each (15Kc for one scoop, about $1) and sat in a well-manicured park, completed with fruit trees.

We climbed a large set of stairs up to the castle, which offered a great view of the city before heading into the castle — but not before looking at the “well fed” guards trying to stand still. We walked right past them.

There are a lot of old buildings inside the 1,000 year old castle, St Peter’s Basilica, which is just as old and a few other bits and pieces.

We entered a large cathedral and after marveling at the two storey pipe organ, the massive silver burial thing and the sheer number of people buried there, we climbed the 287 steps to the top of the tower. The stairway was so busy that condensation was forming on the walls. Yuck.

The view was OK, the trip down was just as awful as the one up. We then saw St Peter’s Basilica which houses St Ludmila’s bones in plains sight.

Next was Prague Castle which is so large inside they used to hold jousting tournaments there! Unfortunately, the castle isn’t that interesting so we left and descended the long hill.

We grabbed dinner at an Italian restaurant “Donna” something-or-other, where I had tagliatelle with deer ragu. Justine had porcini risotto. That and three drinks was around 360Kc, or $22.

Food in supermarkets here is incredibly cheap; especially beer. A 500mL beer costs 19Kc (or $1.13) and a 10×500mL slab of Staropramen beer is 89Kc (or $5.30!). If you buy the right products a lot of things are this cheap. In the touristy areas a 500mL water jumps from 15Kc (in a convenience store) to 65Kc or more!

Beer in pubs is as low as 25Kc for a good quality beer (500mL, as usual), which is a bargain too.

P.S. C’mon guys, where are the comments? Plenty day one, then nothing for ten days and nothing for six more?

This evening, Justine and I, and a few of her family members went out to a bistro to eat at the “Village Green” across from Brandon Park shopping centre. Unfortunately, upon entry, I discovered it wasn’t a bistro, but really an all-you-can-eat buffet joint; well, we’re there now, may as well eat. My brain reminded me that I haven’t been to a buffet “restaurant” since the Smorgy’s debacle of 1999.

Forty bucks later (for two of us), and I started on a plate of… brown (I think it was an asian curry) and rice. It was OK I guess.

Next up, roast beef and gravy; since I lurve gravy, I poured it over everything. Sadly, it was the worst gravy I’ve ever tasted (it was either burnt or one of the ingredients was pure evil, I’m not sure which) so I started a “reject plate”, which was filled by me quite fast.

Then came the fried group. I grabbed some “tempura” vegetables (they weren’t tempura, but crappy fat-batter), a spring roll and some chicken nuggets. The spring roll was as far away from “crisp” and “crunchy” as it could be while still remaining hard. I think the chicken was 80% cardboard.

Dessert can’t be bad, right? The “sponge pudding” had the consistency of shredded newspaper and the pavlova gave me some sort of gag reflex… twice (on the same piece, I’m not that dumb). The pink mousse reminded me of the stuff used for tooth fillings so was quickly avoided. Least the ice cream which they didn’t make was OK.

Obviously buffet and I are destined to be enemies. Still, I amused myself for the next two hours by inventing back stories for the families sitting around us. I don’t think Daniel Swanson’s grandfather — Vincent — minded being an immigrant (in the 1920s) from Armenia who ran a shoe repair cart for 30 years, no-sir-ee.

I mentioned the other day that Justine and I cooked a delicious vegetarian curry. The cooking adventure has thus far continued unabated and unchecked and may run out of control.

On Sunday evening, I cooked chili prawns and served them with steamed (OK, microwaved) rice. Unfortunately for me, the prawns didn’t turn out very well. I burned the garlic, cooked the prawns too hot for too long; most of the chili flavour disappeared, leaving only the hotness behind. I ended up just coating them in a bottle of chili sauce we have and gulped it down.

Luckily for Justine, she doesn’t like prawns so didn’t have to eat the sub-par meal I prepared for myself.

Last night, however, was more of a triumph (and was a lot simpler meal). We’d planned to have steak (vegie burgers for Justine) and maybe mash with vegies or something. At the nth hour I decided to turn my 150g sirloin steak and vegies into a super steak sandwich.

We popped down to the local Coles, and grabbed some nice lettuce, cheese and tomatoes (not the crap we normally buy) and a loaf of fancy white bread from the Baker’s Delight next door. The whole “meal” turned out fantastically.

The steak was cooked slightly more than I like (a little bit more on the medium side than the medium-rare side) but was fantastic anyway; the 1-inch slices of toasted bread and huge chunks of tomato/cheese/lettuce made me gulp the food down so fast there was a traffic jam on the way to my stomach.

By far the best steak sandwich I’ve ever had.

Justine and I just spent 90 minutes scrubbing mould. Great fun… not. Well, at least the place looks a lot better now, even if it wasn’t fun.

I wonder how long it will take to come back; if I get my way, never. Yuck.

Well, after this morning’s fiasco with the Godawful vegetable juice, it was eventually time for lunch.

For lunch today, I’d brought a frozen Lean Cuisine Thai Chicken Soup. Of course, one doesn’t expect much from a frozen “gourmet” soup, but I thought I’d try it anyway.

If the craptacular juice was horrible, this was even worse. I could tell that the juice would at least appeal to some who like drinking crappy cold tomato juice (there’s always gazpacho, right?) but this soup… Ugh. I can’t see how anyone would want to drink more than a milliletre of this crap. Damn you Lean Cuisine, I want my taste buds back!

A few weeks ago, Justine and I tried some “V8″ vegetable juice. The one in particular we tried was the “Citrus” one, which has more fruit than vegetables. It consists mostly of apple, orange and pineapple juices, as well as around a third carrot juice.

The Citrus “vegetable” juice was quite nice, so we decided to buy a large bottle of it. Fast forward to today and Justine decided I would like to try the vegetable vegetable juice (not the fruit/vegetable juice). Unfortunately for me, I didn’t realise it was the vegetable juice, and thought it was the fruit/vegetable juice.

Well, it tastes like cold, condensed tomato soup — except not as nice. I managed to make it through one sip before I chucked the whole lot out, and bought a carbonated, sugar-laden beverage instead. Being healthy can get stuffed if it’s going to taste like that!