Prague, Day 3

Tuesday!
While Dustin worked I went back up to the Prague Castle to one section called the Lobkowicz Palace, which unfortunately I don't have many pictures, because as I came to discover, most places in Prague either don't allow photos or you have to pay to take them. The most interesting thing about the Lobkowicz family that was back in the day one of the Lobkowicz kings was friends with Mozart and was one of his biggest financial supporters. This king would pay Mozart a yearly salary just so Mozart wouldn't have to worry about making ends meet so he could focus fully on his music. Mozart's most famous works were dedicated to his benefactor. They actually have some of Mozart's original scores and adaptations on display in the museum. Every day the palace has a classical concert in one of it's parlor rooms so I was able to go back in time a little and enjoy the music.

The museum ticket comes with a free audio guide and I really enjoyed listening to the history and lineage of this family. The family was still living there in the palace up until the second world war when the Nazis took over control. Eventually the family reclaimed everything only then to have it taken away by the communists. By then the remaining airs were living in America. After communism fell they came back and found out that they had one year to gather papers on each and every one of their belongings and fill out extensive paper work, but to their surprise they got everything back. Not having the wealth that their predecessors had the now owners have turned the estate into a museum in the hopes of preserving what there ancestors had so painstakingly kept well preserved for hundreds of years. I think this may have been the highlight of the trip for me :)

I headed to the Astronomical Clock to watch it's display change on the hour.

It's a little creepy to say the least. As the hour strikes, "death" (a skeleton) rings a bell then out of some little wooden doors pop some saints, which look down on you pretty discouragingly! After that's done a trumpeter plays at the top of the clock-tower and every one applauds. It is really hot here, especially standing around with hundreds of other tourists in the blazing son, but I had some ice cream, which always helps!

Back to the hotel to meet Dustin for dinner at a more local restaurant. The food was kind of Californian meets Mediterranean, but the atmosphere was very different then we had experienced so far in Prague, it was in the basement and was made to have the feeling of being at the bottom of an aquarium, one would think that this would be relaxing, but just about every five feet of wall space hung at least a 50in. plasma screen tv with the best of VH1 videos, we watched lady gaga in all kinds of strange get ups, very Madonna esq. I thought that there was no way I could ever drag Dustin to a place like this in a million years. I guess the trick is to get him to another country, make sure he's really hungry and jet lagged, and trap him in a basement.

Sidenote...I was a little apprehensive to enter a very expensive looking crystal boutique the other day, you could see velvet couches, video cameras, and calculators on every counter, but as I entered I heard to my surprise, "Ice Ice Baby" playing on the very expensive sound system. I thought okay...I'm not intimidated anymore!