deconstructing mark
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Thursday 19.6.03 | JUST popped in to say that things will be quiet until Monday, as am off to Prague with Claire tomorrow, dahlings (this reminds me of when one of my friends here, who runs a cafe, looked at me in alarm once when I was sitting in said cafe and asked why my mouth was not in motion, so unusual is such an event) so until then... Tuesday 24.6.03 OH wonderful. This new, second picture is now on the site of the choir which I am a member of. It's actually quite a sweet photo (don't remember it being taken) but utterly cheesy, and, erm, blonde. Anyway, Prague. Spent the weekend there. Yes. I know that have a special talent for picking holes in, well, anything, but on a superficial level, I do have to hand it to Prague as a city. It's beautiful. It's also not difficult to navigate (says Mark, having trundled after Claire for two days whilst she held the map and made the geographical decisions) and quite compact, so perfect for a weekend away. Obviously you can fault the fact that it's full of tourists (us excepted, naturellement) but that's not exactly the fault of the city itself. We arrived on Saturday morning after an overnight bus-journey (niiiiice, I hear you all say), pretty shagged-out but quite excited. We weren't wonderfully continental, as the first thing we did was go to McDonalds, but we were starving and I needed an urgent caffeine-infusion, and it was the only place open. But we then managed to see the city without anyone else around (we're talking at 6 in the morning here) which was magical, before we remembered to panic as we had nowhere to stay. Luckily, we found a hotel which wasn't too expensive which had rooms, so all fell together nicely. So Saturday was spent trekking around, seeing the sights, taking stupid photos, that sort of thing. We were exhausted by about 5 so we went for a lie-down before going to the magical state-opera in the evening and seeing La Traviata. I'd never seen an opera before and was impressed; I won't be running back for more, but I wouldn't be averse to the idea in the future. So that was that. Claire insisted that we hire a boat on Sunday, which we therefore did, and rowed up and down the Vltava a bit, and I got very splashed trying to get Claire wet. We then decided that we hadn't had enough of the river so went on a boat-cruise-thingy. So it was all very pleasant and relaxing, a welcome surprise given that I it was Claire I spent the weekend with (he says, hoping to God and the sodding tooth-fairy that she never gets round to reading this.) Oh god yeah, and we went to the Prague branch of Tesco (I kid you not - there is one) to check it out, plus the amusingly-named Church of. St. John at the Laundry, which sadly did not have a sign outside announcing its name - would have made a wicked photo. Managed to lose my ticket for the bus-journey back but you will not be surprised to learn that I simply therefore talked at the driver in German (which, it transpired, he didn't understand) until he let me on said bus. So rah. Other than that, and rather knocking the my chronology out, we went to Potsdam last Thursday. Main event was when Claire announced that she had spotted the monastery we had been reading about in the guidebook, and I concurred. It then occured to Claire that it probably wasn't said monastery given that there isn't one in Potsdam and she'd noticed it in the Prague book. Ah yes. Oops. Potsdam is a nice place, especially the gardens around Sanssouci Palace, although once you've walked through it once, you've pretty much seen it all. But it was definitely worth it. Anyway, more later this week once I have managed to start on my sodding dissertation... (plus once I have thought out a suitable demise for Matt after the nasty trick he played on me last night - Matt, if you're reading this, believe you me, you're for it... :-)) | |||||||||
