Prague Times 3

After our trip to the Big Buda, the in-laws wanted to see Prague. This was my third time in just under a year and I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. I find new things every time I take a turn I haven't before. One of the days was devoted to shopping, so I let my three companions knock themselves out with that and decided to go to the zoo. But I couldn't find it on the tourist map I had so I asked the receptionist at the hotel. She said it wasn't on the map and gave me directions, which involved taking a tram to a metro stop, then walking to a bus stop and looking for the bus with all the animals on the side. But I had the whole day and decided to just walk, since I had a pretty good idea where the zoo was. Two and a half hours later, I arrived at the zoo. It wasn't really that far, but I got sidetracked on the way when I stumbled upon some sort of expo center/museum/sports complex/dancing performance fountain/carnival. I spent about 30 or 40 minutes wandering around that before continuing my quest for the zoo. Along the way I had to walk through a big park, and apparently it was police recognition day or something. Every 100 yards or so there was a group of Czech cops with a different display. A couple of them had games set up for kids, there were cops on horses, they were giving people rides in the police cars and on the motorcycles. The coolest thing ever though was the booth they had set up where they let people try on all the riot gear stuff. They even let people pick up the assault/sniper rifle (not exactly sure what it was, didn't get a good look at it but it was the kind with the tripod thingy attached to the barrel).

But that wasn't the end of my adventure yet. As I exited the park I had to cross the river, and as I was walking over the bridge I noticed downriver there was an area that they turned into a man-made whitewater rapid obstacle course. There were a bunch of people in kayaks so I headed over to check it out. Turns out if was the Swiss national team practicing. Why the Swiss team was practicing in the Czech Republic I don't know, but it was pretty cool to watch for a while. Then I got back on the trail to the zoo and it was only another 10 or 15 minute walk until I finally got there. The zoo was pretty impressive and I spent a good 3 or 4 hours wandering around it before heading back to meet up with the family for dinner.

We went to a great restaurant that Kim and I had been to before. And since I felt like rewarding myself for the entire day of walking and exploration, I had a pina colada followed by a liter of beer. I'm not talking about two separate glasses of half a liter each, I'm talking about a gigantic 1 liter glass that weighs about 8 pounds BEFORE they put the beer in it. And something about this particular restaurant makes me feel adventurous (last time I tried rabbit) so I ordered the wild boar with fresh mushrooms and cranberries. It was excellent.