Karlovy Vary continued

Ok, so I totally ran out of steam on the last post, my apologies, but I figured that I should finish the weekend, so that I can more clearly focus on everything we did during the week in the next post. So, I believe that I left off Friday night after we got to the apartment, which I know I have said was pretty legit, but it is worth noting again.

Saturday, we slept till about 11 am, and then leisurely got ready until about noon. That is what happens when poor, tired college students travel...the day starts at 12 and ends at 12....unless night plans have been made. So, we made our way into town to look for breakfast. After walking for about 10 minutes, we stumbled upon the "Cafe and Tea Room" establishment. We each ordered a different type of tea, since they had a ba-gillion to choose from, and we actually got our own teapot. It was really cool! So we had a mini tea party, with pancakes (crepes) and tea...it was so girly, I loved it! After breakfast, or technically brunch, we headed out in search of place to get facials. We wandered into a couple places, but couldn't really find anything like what we looking for. Our wandering led us up what could only be described as a mountain. We were looking for a spa parlor, and we kept following these really vague signs all the way up this mountain. It totally wasn't worth it either. We got a couple good pictures out of it...discounting the fact that most of the town wasn't visible due to the semi-blizzard that blew through town while we were there. Eventually, we stumbled across a Thai massage parlor, and they were offering hour-long massages for a pretty good price. So, we gave up on facials and decided to get massages instead. We had a couple hours to kill till our appointment, so we did some souvenir shopping. When in Karlovy Vary, one essential souvenir that you have to get is a mug with a built-in straw in the handle. Like I said earlier, a lot of people are sent here for health reasons, and one of the things they often do is drink the natural mineral water. It helps with internal problems or something. So, you take your mug to one of the several fountains around town, fill your mug with mineral water,, and sip it through the day. You are not supposed to have too much because too many minerals will harm your body. After we each got a mug, we walked over to one of the fountains that wasn't frozen, since it comes straight up from the ground, and thought we would try the water in our mugs. I took a little in my hand first, just to see what it was like, and it was one of the most disgusting tasting things that I have ever put in my mouth. Filling up my mug was out of the question at that point. So we just did some photo shoots around town, and then headed back to the Thai massage parlor for our appointments.

The next hour includes one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. A Thai massage, my friends, is not like a regular massage. Not at all. First, you have to wear a very loose-fitting white cotton t-shirt, that was missing the bottom half. So, essentially it is a belly-shirt. Then we had to put on dirt-colored capris with a 15-inch in-seam...at least. There was no elasticity at all in the waist, which was actually so high, that it met up with the bottom of the t-shirt. We had to tie a drawstring around our waist in order to keep our pants from flat out falling off. We did not realize that this was how the outfit was to be worn...so we had a lot of assistance from the Thai women...who laughed at us...several times. Then, we were instructed to lay down on the floor...on a mat...that was only two inches think. The Thai woman assigned to me had, and I am not exaggerating, metal implants in her finger tips. As I write this, there are at least five visible bruises on my body, and I do not bruise easily. Thai massage is a mixture of pilates, wrestling, and karate. Stretching should be done prior to the massage, as well as after, in order to be able to walk the next day. Also, those with low pain tolerances, should steer clear of this sort of "relaxing" experience. Parts of me felt better after the massage, other parts...not so much. I am excited that I was able to get a Thai massage, just to say that I have had one, but I can honestly say I will probably never have another one again. After our adventure with Thai culture, we had to immediately go back to our apartment get our suitcases and get to the bus station. It turns out that the bus station we went to was not actually the main station, just a decoy meant to throw innocent tourists off the trail. Well....it worked. We were at the imitation bus station when the bus that we were supposed to get on pulled up. We asked if it was the bus that went to Prague, and the broken response was something like..."Not here...300 meters (points)." So, we managed to decode this after the second bus came, that there was another station 300 meters down the road where the buses to Prague were leaving from. Our station was only a drop-off point. So we power-walked to the other station, but it was too late. We missed our bus. After calling for several numbers for the bus agency we were booked with, we learned that we would be able to board the next bus, we would just have to pay for new tickets. That was a bummer, but at least we didn't get stuck in Karlovy Vary. It was actually a very appropriate ending to our trip, I thought. I thoroughly enjoy when things don't go according to plan, so this trip was a success in my book!

We got back into Prague around 9 pm. We proceeded to go see Alice in Wonderland with a couple friends at 10:30 at the awesome theater, because I really wanted Molly to see just how amazing this theater was. She was impressed. It was actually a better movie than I thought it would be, and I have decided that I would like a cheshire cat. The cat was my favorite character in the movie :) Molly didn't like it as much, so I would have to say that it might be a hit-or-miss movie depending on what kind of expectations you have for the movie. Mine were pretty low, so the movie exceeded them. The best part of the whole day though was the tram ride back to the dorm after the movie. The metro stops running at midnight, and so everyone has to ride the trams after that. Therefore, the trams are usually very crowded. However, on our tram, we ended up standing right next to a man (who I think was homeless) who "played" old-timey blues songs. He had a guitar, but all the strings were broken, so he turned it over and used it as a drum. The trumpet/trombone instrument was all him though. He could imitate it REALLY well with his mouth. So he would play his guitar-drum, and trumpet through his mouth to these really great songs. It gets better though. There was a guy and his friend on the tram, and they were pretty drunk, and so the one guy starts singing along in English, doing his best Louis Armstrong impression, and he was actually pretty good! So, we were serenaded all the way back to our dorm. It was really, really fun!

Sunday we just slept in late, went to church, and then I had to do some homework, so Molly watched a movie. That pretty much sums up our exciting weekend. Stay tuned for the adventures of the week!!