Wednesday, September 18th

Recap: It's 4pm – Natasja just left us at the Ameriky Bar and we took Dad back to start his nap.

Mom & I head over to the Metro and make our way to Prague Castle.

On the way to the tram, we pass this lovely fountain- landscaped with curly kale!

Momma and the cutest curly kale.

Then, it starts to rain. Again. Mom kept saying that the rain made the cobblestones look so pretty.

What do you think? (That's me, trying not to fall down on the slippery cobblestone.)

Ok- back to our trip to the castle… the Guinness Book of Records lists Prague Castle as the largest ancient castle in the world. It is basically a walled city with a huge cathedral in the center of it. In fact, it doesn't really look like a classic 'castle' but there are guards posted at every entrance.

Mom really enjoyed the view- those red roofs are her favorite. You might notice the cloud cover is thick.

Photo Copyright: © OUR PLACE, The World Heritage Collection

We had a traditional Czech dinner (which turns out to be very similar to a Slovak dinner) of meat & gravy, boiled potatoes and dumpling- which are a steamed bread, sliced. It looks something like this…

This is also where we discovered the magic of Medovnik- a layered honey cake! Yum!!! No photo, but you can check out the recipe & a pix, here: http://www.czechinthekitchen.com/2012/03/31/honey-cake-medovnik/

We also had a yummy Czech beer, so now we're tuckered out! Plus, we have to pack up & get leave Prague

in the morning!

Thursday, September 19th-

Good-bye, Prague! The Sipkovsky's are off to explore Slovakia!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not so fast! Remember how we had to put the rental car in the parking garage when the parents arrived? Well… It turns out that we royally messed that one up! We knew to park in the underground structure of the Ibis hotel, next door. We were not staying at the Ibis, so we parked in the green area marked, VISITOR. Easy, right? The green area had some parking spaced roped off, like they had just been painted, so we drove past those and a huge steel door slid open and there were open spots! Great! Let's park here!

Upon our return, the door that had magically slid open for us was LOCKED! No answer from the intercom box, either. We headed upstairs & the hotel desk clerk informed us that the green area was for the law firm next door… they moved their offices 2 years ago. She could not help us- besides, we might have been towed already!!! EXCUSE ME?

Freak out time!!! Dad kept his cool & we left Mom to wait with our luggage while we tried to get our car back. There was another hotel that shared the garage & when we told them our sad story they called in a guy with a walkie-talkie. Making no promises about whether our car was still there or not, he followed us down to the inpenetrable steel door. The intercom worked for him! After a lively conversation in Czech where he explained that the American 'tourists' had created a 'problem' with their 'auto', THE DOOR OPENED! Deep breath…. and our car was STILL THERE!!! Apparently, the other cars we saw in that area belonged to the construction workers who were renovating the old law firm. We were so relieved! We paid the $60 parking fee ($30/day) and high tailed it out of that crazy city! (Dad has sworn never to return. That means Budapest too, so don't even ask if he'll go there!)

Whew. Now we can all relax. Road trips are totally our thing!

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