A very early morning this morning got us to the bus station in time for our bus to Prague. The guy on duty at the hostel was really nice and got breakfast organised for us even though it was an hour and a half before breakfast officially started. This put us in a good mood for the day, especially considering the early start, and between that and our naps on the bus the five-hour trip went quickly. First impressions of Prague were not good, as we drove through a few very run-down suburbs. It felt like the relic of Communism that I had expected Poland to be. The other thing that takes some time to get used to is the currency; it is 25-30 Czech Krony to €1. This meant that we could justify getting a subway train to our hostel rather than walking. The hostel (U Melounu) is clean and friendly, but the kitchen is very small and lacks an oven. It is also a good 10-15 minute walk from the city centre. Once in the city centre, though, you get a feel for why everyone loves Prague so much. With the sun out, it really did look magical. I think one of the reasons it is so good is the consistency of old buildings – unlike a lot of places, every single building here is (or looks to be) of the same era, giving the Old Town a really brilliant atmosphere.
Exploring a bit, we saw the astronomical clock do its chime on the hour (a very underwhelming experience) but did climb to the top of said clock tower. The view was incredible, no doubt helped by the excellent weather. We found a little market and just generally got accustomed to the city. The real excitement happened tonight though. We went to the Image Theatre just off the Old Town Square. It is a pantomime show for around €18 with the majority of it under UV light (or 'black' light). The room is darkened to pitch black and the stage and background are all black, and under black light anyone wearing black can't be seen against this background. This allows the performers to use big pieces of fluorescent material, fluoro props and costumes to perform without being able to make out the dancers. It's a difficult thing to describe in words, but very cool to watch. They were very clever with their use of screens and movement, so things would just 'disappear' off the stage and 'reappear' later on. Likewise the dancers could interact with props so that only parts of their bodies were visible, for instance there was a caterpillar costume with three dancers standing in it but we could only see their legs because they were wearing black tops. My personal favourite was a dance with these spherical props with pieces cut out of them, so they looked like four broken hula hoops put together, and the spheres would be suspended with rods or something so they would fly around the stage. Likewise, there was another dance with glowing spheres that seemed to levitate as the people behind them moved them around. The highlight, however, wasn't a black light act at all but the slapstick antics of a couple of 'maintenance crew' who mimed things like stealing aeroplanes, falling off scaffolding, ten pin bowling and my favourite, opening up the heads of audience members to reveal what was going on inside. For example, one guy was 'thinking' computer sounds, one was 'thinking' about a football match (cheering), and one lady had water on her mind (at this point they sprayed the audience with sprinklers). It was really enjoyable and the best part was it was something we just stumbled onto in our travels.
Get what you want at ebay. Get rid of those unwanted christmas presents!
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