Prague: New Years Eve & Day – 31 December 2006 & 1 January 2007

Well I survived the first night in the dorm – even with the Norwegian snoring symphony going on above me :)

This morning Elsa and I got up early so we could get some pics of the Charles Bridge without anyone on it. We tried to be quiet but it probably didn’t matter – I don’t think a small nuclear explosion would have woken the boys and the French guy had already left.

Once we’d taken some lovely pictures on the bridge we walked up Petrin Hill. At the top of the hill is Petrin Tower – a 5:1 scaled version of the Eiffel tower. Elsa and I were not really sure why the Czech Government decided to build a scaled model of the Eiffel tower… why not something new and original?… but 299 steps later Elsa and I are on the top of the Petrin Tower taking in some pretty amazing views of Prague.

Then we walked around the Kinsky gardens then back down the hill along the Hunger Wall (we also have no idea why it’s called the Hunger Wall).

We decided then to explore Vysehrad. We walked along the edge of the river till we got to Vysehrad and then wandered around Prague’s ‘second castle’ and the graveyard. Some famous Czech artists, musicians etc are all buried here. It was quite moving the number of graves with fresh flowers, candles and other monuments on them.

After this we were fairly buggered so we went back to the hostel. On the way we stopped at the supermarket and bought some cheap champagne – gotta love cheap champagne in a foreign city! We sat around the hostel for a few hours, reading, talking to the Norwegians etc. From 430pm – from the moment it started getting remotely dark – people started setting off fireworks. It sounded like guns or little bombs going off then all of a sudden the hostel room window would be filled with coloured lights. I don’t know where people were buying them from – but every second person in the street seemed to have fireworks and they were letting them off flat out. It was brilliant.

About 8pm the Norwegians left – when they left it went dead quite. The German girl, Polish guy (French guy had left, been replaced with Polish guy), Elsa and I were all kinda sitting there and then we started chatting.

The German girls name is also Kathryn – but she spells and says is Katrin (my name sounds so much better when said with an accent!). The Polish boy is Christopher (although in Polish it’s Krzysztof – so many consonants!). Turns out Katrin is in Prague with a bunch of people from her school (about 37 total I think) including her boyfriend of 6 weeks. She’s been having a rotten time and really doesn’t want to spend New Years Eve with them. She also said she didn’t think she was going to get to 7 weeks with her boyfriend! We told her she should stay with us :) She assumed that Elsa and I were friends before and when we told her that we’d only met the day before she seemed keener to stay with us. I think before, she thought she’d be intruding. Anyways as she’s mixing her bottle of vodka and shock (like red bull but not fizzy) we convinced her to stay with us. We agreed to go with her to meet her friends so she can ditch them in person :) When her friends showed up at the chrsitmas tree they asked what we were doing and Elsa said going to the bridge – they were talking about going somewhere else, saying we wouldn’t be able to get onto the bridge it was blocked off. We said in that case we’d go to one of the nearby bridges and watch the fireworks from there. Then Elsa said to Katrin did she want to come with us – I and the others all thought that Elsa was talking to Katrin's boyfriend and then Katrin says ‘well I have no chocie I have to go with them’ and the boyfriend just kinda went umm… I’ll see – went back to his other friends then came back saying maybe he’d catch up with us later.

Katrin went from having the worst new years to the best. She was so happy to not have to stay with them, to be able to come with us, laugh and have fun. It was nice to know that us making her come with us – bascially to join the waifs and strays for new years – had totally turned her new years around :)

We went to the bridge next the Charles Bridge – it was only about 10pm and we could see from here that there were loads of people on the Charles Bridge so we walked down there. The only downside with standing on the bridge for new years was that there were no toilets – this is one of those times that girls wish they were boys… boys can just go stand in a corner to pee if the need presents itself. Anyways Elsa and Krzysztof set off to find toilets (ended up having to go all the way back to the hostel) and I stayed with Katrin on the bridge. She got a call from some of her other German friends – she was so excited – these were people that she really wanted to see. They found us on the bridge and when Elsa and Krzysztof got back from their toilet search we went and joined up with there other German friends.

So when the clock stuck midnight there we were – a bunch of random foreigners and a group of Germans amongst a throng of tourists and locals stood on the Charles Bridge in Prague watching the fireworks. There were at least 6 official looking fireworks displays – one in every direction, from every vantage point – plus mixed with these were thousands of random fireworks being let off by the people stood in the streets. For at least 20 minutes the sky was filled with lights – you couldn’t look in any direction and not see fireworks – it was brilliant.

Elsa and I were drinking our champagne from the bottle (all class :)) and cheers’ing everyone in sight. I also learnt a ‘cheers’ rule that I’d never heard of before – apparently when you cheers you have to meet the persons eyes otherwise you’ll have bad sex for the next 7 years. These are some pretty serious consequences so I decided not to risk it. I thought at first it was some crazy American rule that Elsa was teaching us, but Katrin said the same thing. So rather than run the risk it was eye contact all the way from then on.

Once the fireworks had died down and Katrin and one of her friends had returned from yet another toilet expedition we decided to try and find a pub – our criteria were simple – not too high a cover charge and a toilet. We didn’t think our expectations were too high. We wandered around looking for some options, but after 20 minutes we girls were desperate for a pee. Elsa and I even attempted to go pee behind a car, but they were parked too far apart and there were too many people so we went back to the hostel to use the loo. It was only about 2am so then we headed off to a bar the Katrin had been to the night before.

We were really lucky – when we arrived at the bar there was no cover charge, a great English singer and just as we walked in a big table opened up so the 10 or so of us were able to get seats straight away. Elsa and I only stayed for one beer and about 3am we decided to head back. By 3:30am we were snuggled up in bed – when we arrived back at the hostel we discovered two of the Norwegians asleep and the sink full of spew.

A couple of hours later the rest of the Norwegian came home. They were drunk and loud and hilarious. Tom, the one that is sleeping above Elsa apologised to us on behalf of Norway for the one that spewed in the sink. They kept saying ‘hey American girls’ and we kept saying there is only one American girl – I’m an Australian. They were saying ‘tell us to shut up if you want to go to sleep’ and Tom was telling us that he’s going to be an astronaut – they were hilarious. One of them was telling us about the three extra letters they have in their alphabet – so a different one started singing the alphabet song and then added the three extra on the end. I don’t even remember what else they were saying – but they were cracking us up. I don’t even remember falling asleep, but I’m pretty sure I fell asleep laughing :)

We didn’t really do anything on New Years Day – went out and had some bagels for breakfast, came back to the hostel and lay around reading, went out and got some dinner and came back again to the hostel. Krzysztof was gone before we woke up, and Katrin left while we were out at breakfast. Katrin left a note thanking Elsa and I again for a great New Years Eve. It was such a fun night.

The boys didn’t surface until very late in the afternoon and the one that had spewed cleaned up the sink. They apologies again for the mess and the noise, but we said it was fine. That they’d been very funny and that they hadn’t kept us awake.

All in all a great New Years Eve and a very relaxing New Years Day.