Prague, day 1

I got the 4.30 a.m. coach from Parkers Piece, arriving at Stansted at 5.30. I had some breakfast, which was a mistake, because it took me longer than I expected to get through security, and consequently I was one of the last three people onto the plane.

The flight took an hour and a half, with a 90 mph tailwind and an annoying child behind me. Coming over the Czech Republic into Prague was amazing. The houses really looked like brand new shiny toys, and I spotted some extremely green, dense, conifer-style forests. The temperature shot up the instant I got off the plane.

I got some cash, persuaded a man on the exchange counter to break my 1000 čK note, and went in search of the shuttle bus to the city. I found it easily, and paid my 120 čK (£4) for the journey. I took off a layer of clothing and rolled up my jeans to deal with the warmth. The shuttle took me to V Celnici, right near the Old Town Hilton, and I spotted Nik walking towards me almost immediately after. He stopped dead in front of me and loudly sang ‘Don Giovan-ni!’ before even saying hello. What a welcome.

We first went to pick up the opera tickets from the office in Ovocny, surprising a man with no shirt on. Then Nik managed to take me the scenic way through the not-so-nice parts of town in his mission to cancel the hostel for the Wednesday night, charging across roads in front of traffic, and we had a very bizarre game of charades involving monsters and Munsters while he was on the phone to the apartment people. Then to the nearest station, and he roundly insulted me for validating my train ticket the wrong way, but I won the escalator race. The train ticket cost 330 čK (£11) for three days, and included buses and trams as well. Bargain!

We found our way back to Anděl station, and the apartment, where everyone was thankfully dressed and ready to go. Sandy gave me a giant hug, and I met those who I didn’t know (Robin, Doug, Clare and Alex). The plan was to get some lunch and go to the castle, so all nine of us trooped outside, and back to Anděl station, where the others bought their own train tickets. Nik went on to confirm the apartment booking. In the interminable time it took the others to get their tickets, Nik met us back at the station, then we all went to the nearby tram stop. Simon was in charge of tram navigation, and he did well. We got off near the castle, and voted for lunch on the run. Nik charged off across the road in front of a tram towards a hot dog stand, and the rest of us got sprayed by a council truck. We ate, then started to head up the hill towards the castle. On the way we found a statue of Churchill that proved to be an idiot trap: photos were taken. We kept on, stopping briefly at the lookout, and then bought our entry tickets to the castle. They were 125 čK for students.

The castle itself was uninteresting architecturally, but St Vitus cathedral within it was spectacular. It was very gothic, and very black, and very tall. There was a big queue to get in, so we just dawdled around it for a while. Nik managed to get in and out very quickly, but Andrew and I still hadn’t been in and wanted to. So we all split up: some going to the old royal palaces, possibly elsewhere, and Andrew and I joined the queue. He knows a lot about architecture and windows, and so we had a good old chat, and took photos with our nearly matching cameras. The stained glass was absolutely gorgeous, and the light was reflecting through onto the pillars.

We met some of them back at the obelisk, and still had ten minutes to quickly see the old royal palaces. I took some photos of the beautiful ceiling and pillars, but a man asked us whether we had photography passes, so I put the camera away. We went quickly out onto the balcony, and I warned Andrew not to look over the edge because he gets bad vertigo (he still had a glance and regretted it).

We met the others back at the obelisk, and wandered back down the hill. Nik really wanted to see the Kafka museum, and so we went off in search of that. On the way, Andrew spotted that Nik had walked straight past an ice cream shop, and so we stopped in, and I had coffee and ‘smetana’ (cream), which was extremely good, and phenomenally cheap.

I wasn’t sure about going into the Kafka museum, but in the end, most people were, and it was cheap, so I went in. I knew nothing about him, and I didn’t learn much in terms of basic information, but I now know a lot about his frame of mind. One of the video exhibits was playing Smetana’s Moldau, and Nik commented about it being called Vltava. I said that I was 90% sure that it was called the Moldau; he was 90% sure that it was called Vltava. There was a mirror room to represent the endless bureaucracy of the office, which made cool circular patterns when you stood in a particular place. We went and sat in a nice park outside the museum for a while, then made our way back to the apartment.

Once there, Robin, Sandy, Doug and Andrew went shopping for the makings of pasta carbonara for dinner, and some breakfast things. Once they were gone, and I had started to help with the washing up, Nik told me about the plan to get Doug a cake for his birthday. So I went with Alex to try and find a shop that sold cakes. This proved more difficult than Nik anticipated. He suggested walking in the direction of the metro station, but there were just no food shops at all. So we turned left instead of right (to the metro station), and found even less joy. Just as we were giving up, I turned and saw a coffee sign. We tried there, and there were slices of delicious-looking cake. This was good enough for us, so we grabbed them and went back to the apartment before Doug et al returned. Nik continued translating the rules for the Bison game that he’d bought for Doug from German into English.

They got back, and Robin started cooking dinner while we read and ate crisps and those pretzel sticks. I think some card games broke out before dinner, and most people gave me their cheques for the opera. This resulted in my name being written on a piece of paper for spelling purposes, and Nik drew a picture of ‘Mary’ below it, in honour of all the Marys that he’d been working with in Erfurt cathedral. This was a running theme throughout the trip, but Mary was usually quite a scary figure. I looked at that piece of paper later on, and Nik had added ‘Mary’ as my middle name. Nik also asked me what my sightseeing plans were.

We ate, played some more card games (I was introduced to Bang and to that other one with the changing rules). Then the cake came out, and Doug’s present. Nik hadn’t finished translating, and Doug spotted that it was in German quite quickly. There was more card gaming, including Uno, and then Bison was ready to go. I was put in a team with Nik and Robin, but Robin bowed out. Nik understood the rules better than anyone, which involved placing a prairie/mountain/river tile and attempting to get the biggest territory possible with the most bison, fish and turkeys on it, so quite naturally, we won. Somehow.

We moved on to Mwahahahaha, but Simon had forgotten the rules, so we went back to Bang. We played until 5am, and by then I was quite good at it, so it was very fun. Sandy, as sheriff, managed to kill one of his deputies (Nik) in record time. Andrew didn’t appear to be playing by any rules in particular. In one of the last games, I was a Deputy, and I thought Nik was a Deputy too. He was the renegade, and he thought that I was an outlaw. But when the other Deputy was revealed, we couldn’t believe we weren’t on the same side. He’d been sheepish about disarming the sheriff, and I’d been helping Nik and shooting at the other Deputy. So then the game dragged on and on, with us turning on each other, until someone got killed. It was great fun.

Nik moved upstairs with Doug and Alex so that I could have his bed in the room with Robin and Andrew.