(Happy belated birthday, Dad)
We explored more of the city today. I had found a listing for a Pavilion Mall in Praha 2 in an area called Vinohrady. We decided to go there today. The mall turned out to be small shops on the expensive side. Specifically, I wanted to find a hair salon that had someone who spoke English. Hanka said she would call her hair dresser, but I would feel more comfortable with someone I could just call an get an appointment with. I haven’t really looked for any up until now.
This area is just behind the National Museum and since it was such a nice day (and downhill all the way) we decided to walk over to the square and pickup a paper. As luck would have it we also found a very nice inexpensive Italian restaurant. So we had lunch there and then continued our walk to the square and onto where we normally pickup the tram. We even took a different tram. This particular one goes half way between our place and Mike’s old apartment. The area has steeper hills than our area. Some very interesting old buildings, but, I would not want the walk up to them. We then caught the bus to our apartment. It made for a long day, bu, we wanted to take advantage of the nice weather - without the wind that we have had the past week.
• Some things here are better than in the States. First thing that comes to mind is no loud car radios. Then there are things that just
make you wonder if this is still under the Russians. We stopped at a potraviny (grocery store). It was about 4pm. There were three check out registers open and each register had a line of people standing where the person packs their groceries (you bag your own, there is no one to bag for you) waiting for a cart. I only needed orange juice and to check vegetables. All of the baskets were gone too. I didn’t need that much so we just started to walk in. A guy is standing there and would not let us enter without a cart. I attempted to explain “juice only” to no avail
Its mind blowing to think that they would turn business away. Actually they are not turning business away. People are just used to standing in line. I can grasp the reasoning behind it. The store would just become too crowded, much like Delvita is on a Saturday (which you have to experience to believe). But this store has wider aisles. There were maybe fifty people in the entire store. I’ve never been in a store this large with this few people in it. Why should other people wait because the store only purchased fifty carts and a dozen baskets? Why not purchase another 30 carts and another dozen baskets? I mean it was like D&W on a Sunday morning at 9am. . . . needless to say we left without the juice. I bought a couple of bananas at the corner store for breakfast tomorrow.
• Did I mention our house guest from last week? I was bringing the plates back into the kitchen from breakfast and
next to the coffee pot was a mouse. Mice here are gutsier. I had both the overhead light and the light under the cabinet on. When I walked in all he/she did was to casually stroll over to the stove and stare at me. I had to shoo him away. The next morning I heard something in the bath tub - it was him (or her). He/she wasn’t able to get out. Being an equal opportunity household Jack said he would take a shoe and “render it harmless” (if you know what we mean) if I would remove it. I agreed as long it was definitely “harmless” and not just faking a nap.
So much for the cat in the basement. Probably still full from the Xmas feast they left out for it. We purchased a couple of traps and set them out each night in case another one decides to follow in the first one’s footsteps. Mice are cute to watch, but not from within our house.
No comments:
Post a Comment