The weather in Prague is playing tricks on us and this past weekend it was almost autumn-ish with high winds and degrees around 12. But today it finally turned for the better and hit a nice 24C as I grabbed my bike and headed out for a ride.

I got closer and ended up in this street where I could not see the beginning of the line. But for some reason there was a sign that said Walk Through and Food and I wanted to do both so I did – and avoided the line :)

In the area I met up with Christoph and Sue and we stood around waited from about 7.30 till Obama went on stage sometime around 10.30. It can be tiring waiting for so long.

I ran into Karen from the Empty Nest Expat blog which I seem to do quite often. It was fun catching up with her and someone at BBC had read her Open Letter to Obama and wanted to interview if it could be organized. I haven’t heard if they managed to interview her, but keep an eye on her blog. She also wrote a very nice piece on the Czech Democracy.

Obama finally showed up and the crowd was roaring. We stood on the grass quite far back and could not see Obama very well but there was a screen in front of us so we saw most of the action on that. Not as fun as seeing the real thing but still very cool.

Obama talked about US leading the world into getting rid of nuclear weapons as well as the historic significance of Prague, the Czech people and the peculiar situation of him, a black American president standing in a city that was under a communist regime just a few decades ago.

Glee with the help of a friend got into the VIP area so she ended up within good sight of Obama and the rest of the shananingans. She kindly let me borrow the shot above so you can see the guy who it was all about.

Pavel and Helge has collected a number of resources and news reports about the event, from before, during and after.

I’m sitting in Germany as I’m writing this as tomorrow morning I’m off for two weeks to Malta with Ann :D

I went to my local beer garden on the hill of Parukarka (or is the hill called St. Cross, I’m confused?) 5 minutes from our place. There was a long line for the beer but eventually I got one just before they ran out of glasses.

You buy the beer at either a small booth or inside a tiny pavilion pub and then you can take the the beer with you into the green field and hang around while watching the sun set over Prague. Here is a 360 shot taken outside the beer booth.

Just before the sun set the pub ran out of beer. But that didn’t matter I still had my beer and went further up the hill to see the sun set behind the Strahov hill just to the left of the big castle on the other side of Prague.

Did we just skip spring and went straight to summer?

Click on the images for more explanations of what and where they are taken.

Thanks for the inspiration for a coffee to Karen, a dark beer to Evan Rail and light beer to Ronald Pattinson.

In Zizkov this is celebrated with people dressing up and walking in parade from Jiho z Podebrad to Zizkov city hall where the city provides free food and beer. So we had to check it out.

As in other Christian celebrations, Masopust has elements of much older traditions involving fertility rites and celebrating the coming of spring. In Masopust these elements take form in the masks and costumes traditionally worn by revelers, representing various mythical characters and creatures. Like the guys in this video with wipes and strange face paint and costumes:

Later on the parade made it down to the town hall and the party got an extra lift from the free beers and food that plenty of teenagers and hobos also seemed to enjoy. Here is a cheeky Czech guy who offers Femi a drink of vodka and then later asks him for money:

Because of the cold weather (sigh!) we only stayed for one beer and by then we had seen a lot of the gimmicks. A funny thing was the odd mix of people with old women, students, young school children, expats and tourists – everyone with a big smile on their face.

Wednesday offered more entertainment in our neighborhood as Helge, a Danish friend, had invited us out to Akropolis. An Nigerian artist calledTony Allen was playing afrobeat with his band.

It turned out to be a fantastic concert and Akropolis has great atmosphere much in the same way as Vega in Copenhagen. After the concert we all went to a bar to celebrate Helges birthday, more people joined and the good times continued. We were about 8 or 10 Danish speaking people so it almost felt like being home.

In 10 hours Im on the plane to Stansted. Ann and I are spending a weekend together in Cambridge 

Its been a while since friends has stopped by Prague *hint*hint* so it was a great surprise to hear Daniel was coming. I had a great time hanging out with him for a couple of days talking about old days of Joint House and the cool parties we had as well as what we had been up to the last couple of years. I realized that Daniel and another house mate of ours live in Berlin now, so I should try and see if I can make a proper trip up there.

Daniel did 4 days of Prague right after my head, plenty of culture and plenty of beer. We started out Sunday night at Akropolis with reggae. Monday he did the the city center with Old Town Square and Charles Bridge etc. At night he went with another friend to see some underground stuff at the skate ramp on one of the islands and ended up clubbing at Roxy. Tuesday he did the Museum of Modern Art and the Prague Castle. In the evening I went with him to Laterna Magika (Magic Latern) to see a play and later on we continued to a basement bar with dressed up people in Malostranska for the rest of the night. Wednesday he saw Museum of Communism and the beautiful cubist museum. At night he rocked to two live bands at the very unique and wicked Cross Club with another friend. Thursday we went for breakfast together before he headed back home.

If I were here for a few days Id do something like that

One thing I hadnt done before and hadnt thought of before Daniel mentioned it was to check out some Black Light Theatre. Czech Republic and Prague became famous for their pantomimes using mixed media in the sixties. They even built a special stage for these plays at the national theatre in this building called Laterna Magika that looks like its wrapped in bubble-wrap.

The show we went to see was Wonderful Circus which turned out to be hilarious, partly intentional, partly because the show is some 30 years old. I cant really explain it but this is the start of the show;

Two clowns are hatched out of two eggs washed ashore by the waves. Before they know where they are, they are confronted by the Tempter, the symbol of the snares and deceptions of life, and by Venus, the vision of mysterious beauty, which leads them to set out on a pilgrimage.

The show uses pantomime and black light theater on a background of three projection screens. Parts of the storyline is going on in the film clips projected and parts on the stage. The characters would jump from one media to another in a quite imaginary manner.
I think the price is a bit steep at 730czk for regular tickets but I must say it was good entertainment. Here are the two clowns trying to catch the fleeing Venus:

Two weeks ago I was also in the theatre to see an English play. I didnt get around to blog about it but Karen did.

To hint some more at those people that could be tempted by a trip to Prague I might add that Daniel found a hotel room for 15eur(!) per night on HRS.de. It was quite basic but it was 5 min from my place, clean and included breakfast. For a better alternative try and get in touch with Laus for some Prague Apartments.

INXS – Never Tear Us Apart Uploaded by INXS

Two other videos of INXS was shot in Prague during the same visit. New Sensation filmed at the art nouveau Municipal House and Guns in The Sky filmed in a hallway – somewhere in Prague? All three music videos are directed by Richard Lowenstein.

Last year i made a Prague Christmas video where I also make my way across Charles Bridge and into Old Town Square.

Update: Terri in the comments below asked for the where in Prague the video was shot so I looked trough the scenes and plotted them on the map here;

View Never Tear Us Apart locations in Prague in a larger map

Dominic who organized the event had with the help of his Vietnamese friend Mickey found this delicious drink. It is snakes and some other unidentifiable animals soaked in vodka – yummy! Some of the others tried it out. I was a chicken but tried a sip of one of the others when they didnt colapse after trying it.

One of the new faces at the trip was Karen the blogger from Empty Nest Expat. It was really cool to meet her as I have been following her blog over the last six months. She had never been to Prague until 10 days ago but since she saw pictures from the Velvet Revolution 19 years ago she knew she wanted to go here. So she waited until her daughters went to college, sold her house and all her stuff and moved here to become a language teacher. Way to go!

Kathleen’s parents from Long Island, New York were travelling Europe and stopped in Prague for a weeks time. Kathleen and her parents decided to throw us an early Thanksgiving Dinner (although it should have been the last thursday of November). We were very thankful anyways and had a great evening with amazing food. So as the tradition goes the dinner is a true palette of flavours. There were turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, beans, sweet potatoes, cauliflower with cheese and apple something. (Click the image below to see what is what) 

After eating too much of the very well prepared meal the Renehan’s dished out with pumpkin pie and apple crust pie – more yummy stuff.

I think I counted 18 people in the small flat with people sitting on cusions all over the flat. The limited space just made it that much cozier and I think everyone had a great night.

Many thanks to Kathleen, Dan and Ann for their friendliness, delicious cooking and sharing this great American tradition with us.

See the rest of the photos from Renehan’s Thanksgiving in Prague.

Lat time I had Thanksgiving was three years ago when Femi, Chris and I went on the road from Michigan to North Carolina. Back then I was blogging in Danish but google does a decent job at translating it to English:

• Thanksgiving Road Trip part I: read in Danish or English
• Thanksgiving Road Trip part II: read in Danish or English