Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Prague Floods

The past week has been a bit of an adventure.

Greg arrived last Thursday.  I still had a cold, though I was feeling somewhat better than I had been feeling.  We decided to stock up on groceries for the weekend and then treat ourselves to dinner out at our favorite restaurent in Prague... a little italian osteria.  Unfortunately, they were totally booked for the night, so we headed back to my apartment and cooked salmon, fennel, peppers, zucchini, potatoes, and onions.  After dinner and catching up with Tamela, I headed to bed since I had work the next day.

Friday Greg met me at Opatov (about 1/2 way out to where I work) and we headed back into the city to do some printing and scanning for our universities.  For those of you who haven't heard- Greg will be completing a fully funded PhD at Cambridge through their NanoscienceDTC program (essentially nanotechnology that is presented through physics, material science, engineering, etc).  I'm very proud of him and he deserves a big shout out.  Anyway, he needed to get them some paperwork so we did that and then rushed home to have a quick dinner before going to see a dance show, "Bounce," as part of the Prague Fringe Festival.  The description said, "Bounce is a must see performance from New York Fringe! Eva Dean Dancer's 'five brilliant dancers' (nytheatre.com) move with circus globes, poi balls and physio balls to create wondrous worlds.  Dance theatre that has 'mesmerizing choreography.' (The Wall Street Journal).  An 'unalloyed delight' with an 'infinite-seeming range of the lithe expressive physicality', (The New York Times).

Based on that, I think my expectations were way too high.  I was expected something whimsical and acrobatic.  Maybe like a miniature, amateur version of Cirque du soleil.  Unfortunately, it was more just like modern dance with giant balls.  Parts of it were quite entertaining, but parts were just too weird for me and a few parts were maybe even a little boring.  Greg said he liked it so maybe I just didn't get it.  During the show I also started feeling feverish again, but Greg had been dying to check out the Prague Beer Festival so I insisted we head over even though I was feeling really under the weather again.  By the time we got there, I was feeling awful, so Greg drank a beer and took a quick look around and then hurried me home.

The next day (Saturday) we were supposed to go sky-diving.  I got us vouchers for Valentines Day and we've had this weekend planned for a long time.  Unfortunately, it started raining Friday night and was still pouring Saturday morning.  The company called to let us know that the weather was too bad to go, but they asked if we wanted to reschedule for the following day, which we did.  We made a big breakfast and then headed off to the beer festival in the pouring rain to spend the afternoon.  As soon as we got a table, Greg went to order us beers and met a guy from California in line.  He was in Prague for the weekend from his study abroad program in Germany and none of his friends had wanted to brave the rain for the beer festival.  We invited him to join us and spent the afternoon just chatting and getting to know each other.  It poured the ENTIRE time we were at the festival and still hadn't let up by the time we left.  Greg and I eventually headed home to get changed and make out dinner reservation at Da Clara.

Dinner was, as always, spectacular.  We started with our favorite salad (arugula, gorgonzola, walnuts, apples, and a lemon/honey/olive oil dressing and then drizzled with balsamic.)  After that, we split a pasta dish with eggplant, tomatoes, almonds, ricotta, and garlic.  It was phenomenal.  It had sounded good to me, but I didn't expect it to be so outstanding.  For our main courses I had duck in an orange sauce with roasted veggies on the side (potatoes, broccoli, carrots) and Greg had a steak with asparagus and cheese and a side of similar roasted veggies.  Although the food and service was wonderful, as always, they charged us a table charge, and for the tap water, which they have never done before.  We didn't complain, but it made me a bit sad... I'd honestly rather just pay a bit more for the food than have little charges tacked on.  Still, it's a minor complaint and it was a wonderful last meal at my favorite place in Prague (I say last b/c I doubt I'll spend the money to eat there alone before I leave).

After dinner we walked the short block home and watched A League of Their Own, which Greg had never seen, and also skyped with our good friend Brittany who we love and miss dearly back in Philly. It rained all through the night, including what sounded like a monsoon... or more just like someone pouring buckets of water over my building.  It was nuts.  Sky diving was cancelled again (boo) and we instead had a very lazy Sunday watching movies (Totoro) and reading (Wheel of Time series for both of us) and eating.  We also booked our vacation for the first week of July to Palma de Mallorca.  I was hoping for Greece or Portugal, but we got a great deal on Mallorca and I'm actually really excited to have some neat history and a nice mixture of history/sites and relaxation/beach.

That night Greg was catching a mit fahr (carpool) back to Munchen and we realized that the city was in bad shape.  We started looking at how he was going to meet up with his ride and realized that 8 metro stations had been closed, some trams weren't running, buses had been re-routed, etc.  We managed to get him to his ride without too much trouble, but I was curious to see how bad things were getting so after dropping Greg off I walked down to the Vlatava to watch it rise.  Lots of people in the city had the same idea.  It was still POURING out, and the river was roaring and crazy high.  I took some pictures and then decided to head back to my apartment.  As I followed the news after getting home, I realized just how bad things really were.... parts of Prague were being evacuated... including animals from the zoo.  This was quickly turning into the worst flood since the devastating flood of 2002 and THAT was the worst flood in well over 200 years.  

Despite the fact that all public schools (and most private schools) were closed AND that there were major transportation disruptions, my lovely school decided to open on Monday.  To be honest, my commute wasn't so bad on the way to school, but it took some teachers nearly 4 hours to reach the school.  What quickly became concerning, however, was how to get home.  It was STILL raining outside, so routes that had been open to get TO school, were gradually being closed throughout the day.  When I inquired to management about whether or not there was a contingency plan to help get staff home (there were still open roads but none that have public bus routes for us to use to get back into the city), I was told that management was dealing with "more important things" and "wasn't keeping an eye on the transportation situation."  Now, about 75% of the staff commutes in from Prague using public transit... and a small number of students do as well... so tell me why this wasnt at least being monitored.  Thankfully, I was able to make it home... in the rain.

Last night it finally stopped raining.  I made it to school again and so did most of the staff, though some teachers were evacuated and several have had their flats/houses totally flooded/damaged beyond repair. It's crazy to see some of my favorite places in the city just under water.

Keep Praha in your thoughts!


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