how I managed to get lost in Prague

It's not easy to get lost in Prague. It's small in size and there's trams and buses everywhere, and the stops have detailed signs with lists of the other swtops on them, and the vehicles have a sweet woman's voice telling you the ultimate goal of the trip, the swtop coming up, and the stop after that. And there's an electronic device on some of the cars that shows a shifting list of all the stops left on the route.

Well, I managed it.

I decided I would actually see Mala Strana today while Frank took his embryology exam (which unfortunately turned out to be about retinoic acid instead of the genesis of organs, but he'll take it again in a week and be okay). All the guidebooks in English will keep calling Prague landmarks by their English names -- in this case, Little Quarter -- but that was not my problem. I have been walking enough that my legs hurt, so I wanted to ride a bunch of trams today to sit down. So I took one over to Namesti Karlovo so I could look at the Faustuv Dum again. It's an amazing house, called after Faust not because there's any reason to think the old guy lived there, but because at least two (I think three) actual alchemists did live there at various times. Nowadays it has a pharmacy in it and Amiruth takes his Czech classes there. It's the medical language department for First Faculty. Frank's classes are in some old buildings behind Motol Hospital over in the west.

I can't remember exactly what I did after that, but it involved looking at a really strange statue at Palackeho Most (Most is bridge, and the c is always pronounced as ts), deciding I would try to see Karlovy Most (Charles Bridge, to some of you -- fucking ghastly language, Frank interposes), so I went round a few times trying to figure out where to get off to be able to see the bridge so I could walk to it. But I never could see the bridge when I was anywhere near a tram stop, no matter which strategy I chose.

Then I was going to change trams and walked a ways thinking "how odd, that these Mala Strana places are sporting signs about Andel and Smichov and . . . hey, isn't that Namesti Arbesovo?" In other words, I got turned around when I got off the tram and went a half mile south instead of a half mile north which wouldn't have been much of a problem -- I ended up in the part of town I've actually gotten to know something about -- except that I was cold and tired and hungry and had to pee and I had passed up a really good sounding restaurant.

Back to Novy Smichov to get lunch in Tesco, on to another tram that turned out to take me not to Petrin Hill but to Petriny, a whole different thing.

And back again, through some interesting places. I will upload pictures eventually but for now Frank wants his computer back.

I'm an American and I spell it skeptical, by the way.