Prague, Czech Republic – 07/30

(Michelle) We had a small (2 hour) delay on the train getting into Prague… Allegedly there was a train accident ahead of us, so a 4 hour ride turned into a 6 hour ride. Not a huge deal, except this got us into Prague at 11:30pm, making the 20 minute walk into unknown territory a little scary.
We shared a room all three nights with some very friendly sweet girls from Ireland. We told them that at the end of April when we were in Ireland it was sunny everyday. They said there hasn’t barely been one sunny day since then (they remembered that week).
Our first full day, we went to Prague Castle. We saw the “Story of Prague” where I learned things like:
1) In the early 13th century, the Bohemian area was the most advanced in Europe (according to them)
2) Bohemian patron saints had some fantastic symbols, although a bit confusing because many of them had 5 or more and they overlapped a lot. Symbols could be a lance, an oar, a club, rain, spears, an eagle, stars, palms, a bridge, a scepter, an orb, fish, a flame, or even … the devil??? They all made sense to me except the devil. Unless he was FIGHTING the devil. What would my symbol be? Please feel free to comment. I think the mine would be a cup of hot tea, spaghetti noodles, a spinach leaf, a camping chair and a keg of beer?
3) The museum had old castle and surrounding community ledgers for certain things… including feasts for weddings. As we are getting married at some point, I paid close attention to the wedding ledger. In 1587 for a 3 day wedding feast, they needed 36 stags, 49 hind (we don’t know what hind is), 1290 hares, 5800 carp, 4,560 field fare (heads of lettuce??), 150 barrels of white beer and 70 heysheads (??) of wine. That is one hell of a party. You should not expect that from our wedding except perhaps the beer and wine count. There is no way we are serving 12 let alone 1290 bunny rabbits.
4) This is where Good King Wenceslas was from… so I couldn’t get that Christmas tune out of my head the whole day, although I don’t really know the words except… Good King Wenceslas was watermelon watermelon feast of watermelon….