This is going to be a bit of a shorter post, because in honesty not a great deal happened today (yesterday at time of writing). The evening before Yvonne and I went out to a bar/club called James Dean, which was really good fun (highlights include a chainsaw and some rather interesting decor) but it did mean that we were feeling a little on the delicate side the next day, so rather than setting off to do the standard tourist spiel we went to the Kino Svetenor.
This cute little cinema is known as the only art house cinema in Prague that has English friendly screenings of films, and often showed amazing Czech art house films. I’m a lover of all things film so it sounded like a fantastic idea, but instead of any local productions there was instead a screening of Lars Von Trier’s latest work Nymphomaniac . The only details I knew about this film was that it was graphic, so I had no idea what to expect. I won’t go into detail, but it was a good film that exceeded my expectations. After the film we had a quick wander around Wenceslas Square and admired his impressive statue, but we went home early to get ready for New Year’s Eve.
It was a fantastic evening. A lovely meal at the Mandarin Oriental (slightly marred by a confusion in directions and a no-show tram) follows by a night of insanity on the Charles Bridge. It was heaving with people, and fireworks were going off left right and centre, both off into the distance and some a few metres away from where we were standing. It was terrifying at first but when you succumb to the crazy nature of it all it was a fantastic night. To top it off, a lovely group of people (of some Eastern European country) offered us a swig of their champagne. Some people truly are wonderful.
However, like every event dealing with massive amounts of people, the worst part was the walk home. Imagine a herd of sheep being shunted through a tiny gate, but one that stretched out over a good kilometre of cobbled streets, and you might have an idea of the nightmare that was trying to get home. To make matters worse, there were indiscriminate explosions going off all around us. I have never been so happy to be back in my hotel room.
Anyway that was our New Years Eve, a lazy start with a magical ending. The next post will be a bit more substantial, so until then!