A Search For Sanity
This account has become something of an essay so if you can't be bothered to read it all, here's a summary.
- We went to Prague and drank lots of beer :-)
- Prague is full of towers and we climbed nearly all of them :-)
- The tourist guides we met in Prague were the wierdest we've ever come across. One wanted to hug a psychopathic ghost to free
him from his curse. The other had gappy teeth that interlocked and was more interested in pointing to Skodas then describing the
revolution. "Here is a Green Skoda, here is an blue skoda, here is an old skoda, the police use skodas, my son works for skoda, ...."
- Dan didn't drink enough tea and nearly died.
- Simon didn't eat enough and actually cried :-(
Prague, home of Skodas (getting better), Czech beers (already excellent) and the worlds largest metronome(an important part of the quest for sanity).
The reason for the metronome existing is quite simple. There used to be a giant statue of Stalin there. When the people of Prague found out
what he had been up to, they blew it up with dynamite. In its place rose giant billboards, first advertising Michael Jacksons concert,
then advertising the mayors election campaign. The peope of Prague felt these billboards were corrupting the fair city they stood over,
so they ripped them down too and erected a giant metronome. Brilliant. And quite clearly insane. Thus had we gained our first piece of sanity
simply by being among these people.
Perhaps a moment to explain searching for sanity. We took the Will Self approach to sanity. In his book, the quantity theory of insanity,
it is explained that any group of people maintain a set level of insanity. This means if you are with a particularly insane person
eg Dan, your own insanity level drops, thus leaving you more sane. This is how we will measure having found sanity.
Now let's take a look at the requirements for a good S-Division trip shall we?
- Alcohol - mostly in beer or wine form
- Tall things - mountains, towers anything you can climb
- Food - just you try moving Simon when he hasn't eaten
- Ghost Walks - We like to know we're not the only strange things on this planet
- Tea - the elixir of life
So then, did we manage alcohol? The picture below confirms this to be the case.
In a city where you pay extortionate prices for beer we lived the highlife. We went to the best bars in the fasionable Town square,
sat outside and paid thrice the bar price for waitress service. And what a price we paid. �1 for each pint.
We tried as many varieties as we came across (at least 5 a day) and we tested each one several times to ensure a fair test.
Now Prague is famous for one type of alcohol in particular. Absinthe. How much did we drink? None. Not a drop. And why not?
Because this was a search for sanity and as we all know, a side effect of drinking Absinthe is insanity. Witness the effect it has wrought
on Kim(though just how much he has drunk is unknown). Other people were drinking it though, making us more sane.
Below is a map which clearly shows several Towers Stretching upwards. We climbed them all. And some other ones too.
What have towers to do with sanity you may well ask. Here is the answer. Contained within the base of Pragues mini-Eiffel tower was a
short exhibition of the life-works of one Jana Cimaron. He lived his life believing himself to be a girl until the age of 11
when a chance sex education lesson in his girls only convent armed him with the truth. On confronting his parents they fessed up.
This man achieved much in his life. Here are the highlights.
- Friends with Monsieur Eiffel, he recommended fluting the legs at the base of the tower in stead of having them straight.
- He worked with Zeppelin on his most famous creation, missing the maiden voyage because he was collecting tickets.
- He created a bike with roll cage so in the event of hitting a curb, you would simple roll onwards
- The three headed hammer for fast nail banging was also his
- And finally, his greatest work, the Turtle he taught to tango, now stuffed
This man was not sane. Nor did he ever exist. Yet there was an exhibition for him. More sanity for us then.
So what about Food? Well, as you can see below, we ate in pubs and cafes which was necessary to maximise the number of beers sampled.
The food was on the whole very good. Every menu consisted of Meat. Lots of meat. And you could have garnish with the meat.
Garnish was usually chips. Food was of course necessary to keep Simon sane.
However, on our last night we failed to get Simon to a restaurant on time. And when we did the portions were small. Much of
our hard earned sanity was lost in a single blow. First came the silence and unwillingness to converse. Next was the uncontrollable
laughter when Dan nearly cracked his nuts on a bollard he didn't see. Finally, he broke down into tears because he was just so hungry.
Next on the list is ghost walks. Now, I'm led to believe that this invariably leads to meeting people of dubious mental faculty. And this
occasion was no different. There was the standard walk around the city with explanations of the resident ghosts, none of which went observed
by us. There came the explanation of the metronome. All seemed quite normal. Until the tale of the black knight. A man who mercilessly killed
pretty much everyone he met, including his drinking buddies. Apparently he only wanted some love. Now trapped in the spirit world, he
must wander Prague, becoming physically embodied occasionally (couple of hundred years I think). When we were there it was not long until
the next embodiment was due. And our lovely guide had taken it upon herself to go and give the guy a good hug and kiss and break his curse.
Lunacy abound, and up goes the sanity.
Tea, Tea, Tea. A necessity on every trip. Tea for breakfast. Tea for elevenses. Sometimes tea with lunch. Certainly Afternoon tea.
Don't ever forget this. At least not when travelling with Dan. We did. He nearly didn't make it home. There was only tea for breakfast.
We were too concerned with sampling the fine local beers to worry about tea. Result? By the time we landed in Bristol, Dan was delirious,
had been sick, had headaches and lost the use of one arm with the second fast following suit. Did I say delirium? Yep. Which is certainly
not a state commonly associated with sanity. So unfortunately the net result of our trip to Prague was that we experienced sanity
briefly but left it at check in. Never mind.
