July 19, 2004 Archives
Two weeks after checking out Brno, Czech Republic, with my dad, I drove there again yesterday with Thorsten and Cat. We left around 10:30 and got there around 12:40. Brno is a pretty cool city (it's the second-largest city in the Czech Republic). Granted it's one huge construction site, but it's got a lot of nice places. There's the hill with the cathedral and the hill with the castle. We checked out the hill with the castle, which has a large park around it. The view was great, as was the weather. We went to some random non-touristy restaurant at the bottom of the hill. The only beer they served was the local Starobrno, but somewhere around ten different kinds of it! Check out the prices: The regular beers cost 50 cents for half-a-liter, and the "expensive" beers cost 80 cents for the same amount. Our meal, which consisted of a soup and then a big plate of meat and potatoes cost ’Ǩ2. As a reminder for my US-based readers, ’Ǩ1 currently equals $1.20.
We drove to a big supermarket (Interspar) and bought lots of stuff for really low prices. I love how a lot of stores are open horribly late, even on Sundays. For the US-based readers this isn't a big deal, but in most of Europe stores aren't open on Sundays, period.
We then randomly drove around, in what seemed like for awhile, circles. Eventually I followed some random tram tracks and we ended up in this neighborhood with a big park. We sat there for awhile and Thorsten even fell asleep.
We drove back downtown and went to some hidden local place, after which we went to a more touristy place for dinner. Then we headed back out on the highway towards Vienna. Suddenly we saw a KFC sign and we changed our plans. Unfortunately we missed the exit and we had to travel another five minutes down the highway until we found an exit where we could get to the other side of the highway via this small village. We found the KFC, which is located in the Futurama mall (all stores were open as well, despite it being 8 p.m on a Sunday), and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, the "Party Menu" for the equivalent of ’Ǩ8.50 (around $10.20) which has an insane amount of chicken and fries. The guy behind the counter was insanely shocked and glanced at the warmer tray thing and kept saying "uh-oh," but finally told we could get it if we waited fourteen minutes.
We ate a bit on the ride back and then had the rest at Cat's apartment. It was a really fun trip. Oh, and the sign you will see the most in the Czech Republic is "nonstop!" It's everywhere! "Nonstop Gas," "Nonstop Tobacco," and my favorite: "Nonstop Alcohol!" Unlike the US they don't try to cover it up by calling it "liquor store," "spirit shoppe," or something. Just plain "Nonstop Alcohol!"
On a much sadder note, I found out that one of my grandmothers died on Saturday. I'm going to be in Germany from Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon to attend the funeral.
