Weekend with Grandma and Poppy

I just ate my last breakfast with Grandma and Poppy and am now lying in bed doing a little web surfing. I had a fantastic weekend with Poppy and Grandma! They arrived Thursday afternoon and called me while I was in class. I called them back when I was done and met them for dinner later that night. I wanted to take them to Old Town Square for dinner because it was close and its beautiful at night. Little did I know there was a HUGE free outdoor concert that night. The entire square was packed with literally thousands of people. We found a place to eat and had a very nice dinner. Poppy and Grandma went home after dinner because they had a big travel day.

Mitch and Brett had called me during dinner so I called them back after I walked Poppy and Grandma home. They happened to be at the concert so I walked back and listened to the music with them. It was the coolest concert I think I have ever been to. I cannot classify the music. It was a cross between old Israel (fiddler on the roof style), ska (No Doubt/Sublime-esque) Big Band (1920s era) and Monk chanting! I just found the name of the group/singer: Goran Bregović. Type his name and Old Town square concert into You Tube and you will find a clip of it. It was an awesome concert. After Mitch, Brett, Levi and I went to the wine bar.

I was supposed to meet Grandma and Poppy for breakfast at 7:30 the next morning but my alarm didn't go off! So I ended up meeting them and their tour group at Prague Castle and toured the city with them for the day. It was very nice, and everyone in the group was very nice too! The tour was a LOT of walking so once we "were free" we ate a quick lunch and parted ways for the afternoon. I met up with them again for dinner and I took them to a Czech restaurant on St. Wensenslas square. They loved the square and the dinner! It was a very nice meal. After we shopped around. Poppy bought roasted nuts and grandma bought some crystal and an ornament. We stopped for a beer in Old Town square and sat and people watched for about an hour. I really appreciated and enjoyed talking with grandma and Poppy, I don't think I have ever had one-on-one time with them for more than five minutes at a family event! We really got to know each other a lot better. Then we wandered home our way back to the hotel through the streets of Old Town.

The next morning I managed to wake up and meet them for breakfast which was really nice because the hotel had a huge spread! I loved it :) We then left for a half day tour with their tour group. We toured the Estates Theater, where Mozart composed and premiered Don Giovanni. The theater was beautiful! Our "guide" was an 84 year old man who has worked at the theater his entire life! He was this tiny tiny man in an over-sized thick, shaggy sports jacket and he was hysterical! He was so sarcastic and knew everything about the history of the theater. We also got our own little concert where a part of the orchestra played four pieces for us. Then we got to go into the Royal Box and our guide said "Enter my Kings and Queens!" someone in the group shouted "There's a princess here too!" and then everyone, including the guide, called me Princess for the rest of the touring! I was the youngest there by at least 40 years! It was very fun!

Then we walked over to the Municipal building and toured the inside. The building was built in 1905 when the Germans took over the Czech government. The new "king" made German the official language and forced Catholicism on the then Protestant Czech people. The Czechs did not like this and wanted a place for their own so they built the municipal house in the spirit of Czech nationalism. It became a meeting place/ballroom/congress convention center for the Czech people. The building is huge and very ornate. It was a nice tour. The whole touring ended at 12 with coffee and cake! Yum! All the people in the tour group were very nice and interested in my studies etc. I think they enjoyed having me there!

Then I took Poppy and Grandma to the Jewish quarter where we peeked in on the cemetery and synagogues. We then made our way along the river and across to my school. Luckily it was open so I got to show them some classrooms etc. I took them to the Lennon wall and to a park I love to go to and then we hoped on a tram to go to my apartment. I think they really enjoyed the tram ride because they got to see a ton of the city they wouldn't have been able to...and they could sit! I showed them my apartment and they met Mikaela...my other roommies were not home. Then we had a drink at the square outside my metro stop and just enjoyed the scenery and people watched. I then took them home by metro, which they also really enjoyed. I met up with Mikaela and Alex (another girl in my program but not my roommie) and we then went for pizza with grandma and Poppy. We wandered a bit before taking Gma and Poppy back home.

On the way back we ran into a street rave! There were hundreds of kids dressed very bizarre, dancing and booming techno music in the square right outside of Gma and Poppy's hotel! And let me tell you the were doing more than just dancing...There were police everywhere and it appeared to be some sort of flash mob/underground-spontaneous party that the police caught wind of...so we had to walk all the way around the outside edge of the square to get around this "event" and safe to the hotel. Gma said the booming was very loud from their room but stopped at 10:00 pm. This is because there is a strict noise law in Prague that forbids outdoor festivals and concerts and noise after 10:00 pm. The police must have closed the rave down. So Grandma and Poppy got to experience the whole range of Prague culture in two days!!

I then met up with some friends (American and Spanish) at the beer garden but made it an early night so I could go to breakfast and say goodbye to Poppy and gma. They are probably getting on the bus and heading to their river cruise of the area as I'm typing. I really enjoyed my weekend with them and hope I didn't wear them out too badly! Its so cool that I could spend the weekend with my grandparents in a foreign country!