Prague and other things

Well, that is certainly a disappointment... turns out the camera cannot plug into this damn computer (still w/ Polish spellcheck incidentally), and my grandfather doesn't have wireless... So I think we'll have to give more photos of Prague a miss this time, although several were quite funny. Ah well.

Okay, let's get the fun stuff done. Thanks Duncan for giving me airtime in your blog; for those of you who don't know, Duncan is this avid gamer (who has recently discovered 40k) who runs a mostly video-game-politics-related blog that is really cool if you're into that sorta thing. Also, Andrew (haha now you're forced to update again! #mischievousgrin) has a political-satire blog, which is (IMHO) very well done. These guys can really cater if you want to read about this stuff, I highly recommend both because I happen to like that sort of thing. Marx-wise, if these guys are innovative thought, I am religion. (Go on, try figure it out!)

Don't forget to check out my personal favourite webcomics, PHD and Wondermark. I wish I could make one of these...
But I just don't have the temperament. And besides, only Guy and Ismail would get the jokes. And only Guy would laugh :D

Oh yeah, and thanks for the support, Lisa. (and all you others too actually!)... Although whoever likes the pictures of me (mmm, sneaky suspicion, I have) will be sorely disappointed in today's post for reasons I have already explained.

At last, backlinks are out the way. So, it's been a long time since I wanted to rant like this on my blog, and I finally have the chance to. I apologize if this is a bit late, but if anything it's had a few days' thinking behind it.

Okay, don't get me wrong. Prague is a beutiful city, especially in its architecture, most of which is Baroque or slightly later, just renewed. It really is a wondrous sight to behold, seeing it all from above standing on church towers and all from below standing in the narrow streets. Okay, so far so good, if you're an unsuspecting tourist that is (enter me :D)!

They have the entire tourist thing all wrong. Yes, they have lots of people coming to the place. Yes, they have lots of people buying souvenirs. Yes, they do have everything in 12 different languages (some of the mistranslations were pretty funny. Oh yeah ismail, "Cary Mary" ,means "hocus-pocus". I can only guess what the last word is!). They have all that, but what they don't have is enthusiasm. They don't have tourist-looker-afters who are engaging, exciting, and/or in love with their job. Make that they don't have anyone who is in love with their job... Everyone is just over it, and I don't know why. It certainly dampens the spirit of things.

The second thing they do which takes the fun out of being a tourist is the money they squeeze out of you. And it's not even the fact that the3 price is too high, they just have this idea that they can make you pay for EVERYTHING. Such as going to a public toilet (1 euro on average). Even when you have already paid admission to get into whatever touristy place you've managed to stumble into. Even for going to a freaking church, you have to pay around 15 euros. And they only let you come in and pray for free from 8 to 9:30; the rest of the time it's a tourist attraction. And if you buy a ticket to visit the WHOLE of Prague Castle, they will still charge you extra for the Bell Tower. What. The. Dump!?!?!?!

Final reason why the tourism is screwed up: everything is a replica. The story goes like this: when the communist regime came about back in the day, they destroyed everything that was anti/non-communist. Then, they got bleak and tried to restore everything and failed miserably. Next, the democratismism regime came about, and they managed to do the same thing. They destroyed everything that was communist (including the beautiful park celebrating the Czechoslovakia Pact), and then later got bleak and tried to rebuild it. Obviously, didn't work because they had destroyed everything. So, that's why the Castle Armoury is filled with replica swords from a movie set, etc, etc.

Conclusion: that's why Prague is such a messed-up touristy place. Never going there again.

On the other hand, now that my rant is over, I can write about jolly stuff, but still no pictures unfortunately.

A funny thing happened to us on the final night. As we were driving back (I managed to find a statue of Tycho Brahe and Jo Kepler and have my picture taken), wmy dad said that the car behind us had been following us all the way. Scary, especially seeing as you consider that we had gotten lost and ended up on the other side of town. It was a small silver Hyundai, with two chicks in it, so we were major freaked out. We pulled over, and they stopped a few streets ahead of us. So we hit the gas, turnbed left, turned right, and lost them. But boy, had it been tense. We couldn't postulate why they had been following us, or if they really had been following us at all, but it seemed to much of a coincidence. I think that's one of the negatives of being rich and famous, people follow you EVERYWAR! Not that I'm rich and/or famous, but you know what I mean. Stalkers are not cool, dudes!

So, the drive back was a long one. Along the way, we stopped at a healing-water geo-physio-spring-thing, and had some (high sulphur content) water, which apparently is supposed to cure neurosis and obesity. I haven't seen a difference so far, maybe Guy is actually wrong about this. No offence Ismail.

Then, we got lost and went to some epic rock-tops with narrow corridors between tall rocks. I promise I will get pictures up in tomorrow's (bah fat chance!) post, you can see it all then. For now, MIND'S EYE!!!! Well, anyway, it was a really awesome location for freerunning and the like, pity we didn't bring any climbing gear. The views were also stunning.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful,. except for the fact that we got back at midnight, and my fencing equipment had been delivered!!! Awesome stuff! Obviously, my grandparents were completely dumbfounded, and my mum was complaining as to whether the lames were the right size, but whatever, I enjoyed unwrapping everything!

Today, we were visited by my uncle and his family (minus 1 cousin who had gone on a surfing camp with HIS HAIR CUT SHORT!!!!!), and my mum's prophecies of how I'm actually just like him is completely true... He just rips into everything and anything, much like me but of course in Polish. If I could tell you the things he said... Including his stories about fishing the ambassador to Equatorial Guinea out of trouble (he's a lawyer, see?) and about getting the Complete Works of Lenin delivered to his house (all 54 volumes). Indeed, it was class.

WOOOHOOO massive post! Finally done!