Last day in prague
My last day in Prague was a bit uneventful, but after my bout of the barfs, I thought I shouldn’t go too wild. I ended up at the absolute best cafe & ordered a vegetarian lunch of spinach tortellini stuffed with basil ricotta with a pumpkin purée sauce, roasted tomatoes & toasted walnuts. Holy shit was it ever good. I ended up writing quite a bit, so when I left & looked at my watch, I realized that it was already 3 o’clock & I wanted to walk to Kampa island. It wasn’t drizzling yet, but it was going to. The weather hadn’t been the best in Prague, but I didn’t mind the sullenness of it. Besides, the one warm sunny day gave me heatstroke, so I’m better off with some cool ones if I want to continue walking 20K steps every day.
Prague is the city of many bridges & I crossed over the Vlatava River into the west side of the city to get to Kampa. If the weather was nice it would have been glorious, but right then, the sun was starting to go down & the skies were starting to cry for me…wanting me to stay. I swear that is why it rains just before I leave any city that loves me as much as I love it.
I was meeting up with Whitney this evening for our goodbye dinner & cocktails, but we hadn’t made any solid plans yet. I told her to pick the spot & she chose to meet at Parlour, a trendy cocktail lounge to start our evening off & then we’d figure out a dinner spot. At six o’clock, after a bit of a search, I walked down a couple of steps to open a nondescript door with just “Parlour” emboldened on a gold plate. I was immediately hit with darkness & 20 more steps down into a basement cavern like room, where I had to put my hands out & sort of feel my way through the dark into the empty room. “Hello?” I sort of stuttered & a man muttered something to me from behind the bar. Not a very warm greeting, but the place had just opened moments before & maybe he was just getting his bearings. I stepped up to the bar & plunked myself down on a barstool, “I’m meeting a girlfriend here, she should be here soon. Can I sit-up here & wait & get a drink?”. His lacklustre response of, “ya” almost made me march right out the door & message Whitney to tell her the place was closed, but I swung my head around & there she was feeling her way into the room like I had.
With no menu to guide us, we each asked for a drink we were familiar with & he whipped up our potion & delivered it without a word. Well, so much for customer service. I would imagine the place was hip & trendy if we weren’t the only ones there, but without any music or ambience, we slurped our drinks down fairly quickly. Googling on our phones to find a place to eat, we came up with Deminka, a traditional Czech pub style spot, that was 300 meters away & when we arrived it was packed with people…mostly guys, which Whitney & I had a bunch of laughs about. A bit giddy from the drink, we talked about what we looked for in a partner, since both of us are single & I picked out a couple of guys for her. How did people meet in Eastern Europe anyway? God, they were so reserved & unapproachable.
Our dinner came & it was the traditional Czech style, meat & potatoes sort of thing, which was exactly what I wanted for my last dinner in Prague.
I was honestly sad to say goodbye to Whitney. We met in Krakow, followed each other to Wroclaw & then to Prague. We had dinners & drinks together quite a few times & I really loved spending time with her. She’s smart & pretty & ambitious & real. Until we met again girlfriend!
I took an Uber home as I was too lazy to walk the 30 minutes, packed my stuff, set my alarm for 6 a.m. & fell fitfully asleep.
Tomorrow is Vienna! I’m getting deeper into snotty people territory, but I’ll keep on smiling.
