I stopped blogging half way through the trip and that's mostly cause I didn't have time or I was just being lazy. Anyway, we did go to Dublin, Ireland and that's a wonderful city. There, we spent the first day walking around the city trying to get lost and stumbled upon the Dublin Castle and the Jameson Distillery. While we didn't go on the tour, we did enjoy an Irish Coffee in the bar there. It was pretty one great tasting treat.
The next day we spent the majority of the day at the Dublin History Museum, called Dvblinia, and of course, the Guinness Store House museum. Let me tell ya, the Guinness tour is a total must-see. It's 7 stories that are full of interesting things from the brewing process to history of the beer, and so much more.
The next few days back in Prague were more of trying to be a normal Czech citizen than anything. I still went to do sight seeing but ended up mostly just hanging out with Scott, Cecilia, and their friends. Scott and I went to the home opener of HC Sparta hockey match and that was alot of fun. It's suprisingly cheap for beer and hot dogs. Really, really, really cheap.
Other than that, there was alot of walking and walking and walking.
Here's some other random tidbits from the trip:
- Coffee Heaven - enjoying a cup of coffee in another country is pretty much the same universally. There are people sitting around on their laptops on wifi, people reading books, and people just conversing with one another. It's a beautiful thing.
- Prague itself - for a city that was under communist control just under 20 years ago, it's quite amazing how far they've come and quickly they've been able to adapt out of it.
- Food - In both Dublin and Prague, food is heavy! Lots of meat and potatoes and bread. Carbs crazy! It's like thanksgiving at each meal!
- Beer - I think I went to the beer capitals of the world. Dublin of course for Guinness, Smithwicks, and the like, but Czech/Prague is also home of the original Pilsner Urquell, which actually is in Pilsen, nearby.... and beer in Prague is dirt cheap! Cheaper than water!
- Airport security - Heathrow security sucks, but not sure if its worse than Sea-Tac. On the other hand, Prague and Dublin's airports were reasonably quick and painless.
- Disneyland - Prague looks like Disneyland... or should I say... Disneyland looks like Prague. Just take a look for yourself.
- They like their sports. I only made it to one hockey game and while the game crowd was fairly tame, they went pretty crazy after the victory, especially on the subway train. I have video / audio clips of the crazyness.
- Prague has some of the most technically amazing shopping malls I've ever seen. The Palladium, which has 200+ shops in Old Towne Center area, is a visually stunning and ultra-modern piece of work. While it looks pretty normal on the outside, the inside is just eye-pleasing. The top floor restaurant level is super-swank, and the mall in general has a very modern decor to it.
- Our hostel in Dublin had no hot water. That sucked.
- KFC is very popular in Prague. On the other hand, Burger Kings were everywhere in Dublin.
More photos are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/ahnguyen or on my facebook.
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