Peeking into the rock

Frank took us to the Monastery beer garden at the base of Petrin Hill. Maybe not the base, maybe partway up. There's supposed to be an antenna on that r. We had beer and beer-based food. Emma and Frank adored ther goulash in bread bowls: I would have found it too salty to finish. Emma also ordered a beer cheese spread and potyato pancakes but could only eat a little, and I could only help her out with a few bites: way strong. I had beer-onion soup and a kind of blue cheese (don't know what kind of blue cheese) on thin whole wheat toast. And a cucumber salad with roasted pumpkin seeds and a tin splash of soy sauce (I thought it was probably dark beer at first, but it wasn't). We had two beers between us: an amber and the Easter beer, which was kind of lager-y or ale-y, I don't know enough about beer to say. Anyway, my Easter beer was a rich, light yellow color, with a light taste but a strong aftertaste that I called pleasantly bitter and Emma called too hoppy. Frank's amber had a thicker, sweeter (but not too sweet) taste, and an interesting aftertaste, less so than mine. The waiter was terribly surprised that we didn't want more beer.

Not far away in the complex of buildings around the monastery was a miniature museum which seemed to showcase the work of a SIberian who also designs tools for eye micro-surgery. Which explains why his wok features things like horseshoes on a flea and a caravan of camels marching through the eye of a needle. Understand I am speaking of literal fleas and needles and poppy seeds and mosquito wings. The museum has a series of counters which hold actual microscopes which appear to have been made for the purpose as the housings are fine oak. You cannot see the works without the microscopes.

Then we were on our way somewhere else when we had the idea to show Emma the HungerWall. This is a medieval version of the Works Projects Administration. So naturally we walked around the wall for a long time talkng about economics and governments and taking pictures (which I will post some of eventually). Then it felt like time to go and check on the funicular and see if it was running and we were coming down a shortcut and . . .

Emma took a nasty tumble and did something to her ankle, and it took us a couple of hours to just get down the hill and into a tram hotelward. Frank did some quick diagnostics and we iced her up (which involved me having another awkward conversation in Czech at the potraviny around the corner, where they nemaji led but the receptionist at the hotel found us some. Then we sat around talking and Emma chatted with Jason online and after a couple of hours Frank and I went out in search of food which was a minor adventure and finally produced kung pao beef, beef with broccoli, lemon chicken (without deepfried coating), and tiny glasses of plum wine for Frank and me while we waited.

It's early, early morning -- I'm going back to sleep for a while after this, I really only got up to get more acetaminophen for Emma (and me -- I am not damaged but we're on the fifth floor and I've been making a point of hardly ever using the elevator) and to pee. I kind of think Emma will still be in pain today. The pan for today is to put her on a streetcar and to ride around town just looking at things. If she's not up to even that, I intend to take that as a sign that she should be seen. So if it's that bad I'll ask the very helpful receptionist how to do that. They are very fluent in English, so I can dodge trying to express all that in Czech.