Cesky Pivo

For some reason, the whole kitchen-floor-sleeping-crew was exhausted and nobody really woke up til about 1. We didn't get out of the house until 3. Seriously we have some pathetically lazy mornings.

Anyway, since it was the afternoon, we made our way to a place Leah recommended us for some quality beef goulash. She was not kidding. It was freaking amazing!!! It was served in a crispy bread bowl, filled with beef and goulash delicious sauce, with onions and sausage on the side. Leah even told us which beer to order with it, which is apparently only served at this particular restaurant chain and not bottled or exported. It was one huge, messy, fantastic meal!

Then David, who was at lunch with us, went to go find where his bus station was. Laura and I had other plans...see, on the metros and trams, I kept seeing a poster with the words: "Cesky Pivo Festival" which after my quality time spent in central Europe, I know means "Czech Beer Festival". The dates? The 14th through the 30th of May. Seriously - our timing has been AMAZING. Laura and I headed up to the beer festival then, only to find that after Spring Fest in Munich and Juwenalia x2 in Poland, we are incredibly jaded. There were only three tents, but they were all half full at most. There was live music sometimes, and a few food booths and some carnival rides outside, but nothing too exciting. Nonetheless, we were excited. The Czech Republic is the last country we're going to that is really known for their beer, so we figured the atmosphere might be kind of lame, but that had no effect on the quality of beer! The way this festival worked was there was free entrance to all tents, but you had to buy beer (or food) with tokens (called kolars in Czech). A token is worth 40 crowns, or $2, and you have to buy packs of 5 tokens. We only bought one pack and decided to share it for starters.

After one beer, we headed to this area of town where there supposedly is a 'dancing fountain' - or a fountain that dances to music and lights at night. However, when we finally found the fountain, we could hear the music and see the tip of it and it looked like a total let down! It cost $10, and after spending an iffy $20 on that black light show we thought our money would be better spent at the beer festival. I'm not an alcoholic, I promise. Back at the beer festival, we bought another 5 tokens and had a couple more beers, shared a bowl of delicious garlic soup with toast, and bought some soup for poor David who is sick and can barely talk! Also, the $10 that would have paid for the fountain instead went towards my wardrobe and I bought a pretty shirt that says Czech Beer Festival on it. It's bright yellow :) It definitely could be better, I wish it said "Cesky Pivo Festival" on it, but what can you do?

Soon, it was time to take the last metro home (it was only around 1030 I think). Waiting for the metro, I heard somebody speaking English. Excited - I've had great luck with English speakers in Prague - I asked where he was from. His name was Miguel, and he was from Mexico but was half American. He was with an Aussie chick named Tonielle, and another guy from Prague named Hansa. Then we embarked on the funniest metro ride of my life. See, Miguel and Toni had simply walked out of the beer tents with a beer mug and beer still in hand. Drinking beer on the metro is SUPER illegal and they would have gotten a HUGE fine had they been caught. But, oh, the glorious years of your twenties. There were no ticket checker people, and we spent the whole metro ride getting to know them and laughing at all the ridiculous things they were saying (see: quotes

When we got off the metro, Miguel sloppily wrote his number in my little black travel book moleskine and I told him I would call him tomorrow to see if this rag tag group could hang out again. He went on for like five minutes about how I wouldn't call him, but I told him I would call him from Skype so he should pick up if the number looked weird. Then we parted ways and Laura and David and I all made it back to Leah's flat. Laura told me that BOTH Miguel and Toni had drunkenly given their then-empty Czech beer mugs to her and she had them stowed in her bag. I was/am pretty jealous, but I have my trophy from Munich and she's the one that has to figure out where to safely put them in her bag! So I guess we're even :)


Quotes:
"Upstairs five!" - Miguel, this is the same thing as a high five...now we're just calling it something else.

"I wish the metro would stop moving so much." - Miguel, trying to drink his beer on the metro.

Accomplishments:
Went to a Czech beer festival.

Travel Tip:
Make friends that live in the city! (They don't have to be CouchSurfers.)