In Prague You Should Eat Mexican Food Of Course!

28/12/14 Second Day in Prague

I like to sleep with the window open. I get this from my dad, and from common sense. It is really uncomfortable and unhealthy to sleep in a room with (in this case) four other people with the window closed and the heat on. Many people don’t seem to understand this. They are still caught up in the world where cold air is what gives you colds, so you need to sleep in a sweat box. Instead, it is the sleeping in the sweat box that will make you sick, especially if someone else sleeping in the same enclosed space is already sick. Five people sleeping and breathing for eight hours in one room definitely uses up all of the fresh air, and you start to breathe each other’s air. You can see evidence of the disgustingness and unhealthiness of this situation in the condensation that gathers on the window and the smell that seems to cling to the room after such a night in a heat box. Perhaps you can understand that the heat and moisture is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. If rooms were not as large as they are with cracks allowing a tiny bit of air to seep into the room, we could suffocate in a situation like that. I know this is bringing it to the extreme, but perhaps you have heard of those people who get caught in a blizzard and have to spend the night in their car. They close their windows all the way because it is cold outside, and instead suffocate in their sleep. It is better to be cold, and that is what blankets are for. Most people don’t seem to understand this, and these Indian men definitely did not. Throughout the night, I listened as I heard one get up and shut the window that I had left cracked open. I am a light sleeper and this movement wakes me up, so, I waited for some time and got up and opened the window again. In the morning when he got up, he shut it again. At this point I let it go because I knew he would get ready and eventually leave the room.

The next day we woke up to the unpleasant sound of one of our Indian roommate’s alarm clocks going off at about 7:00 a.m. Needless to say we weren’t happy about this, especially since it didn’t seem to be pressing that he get up. He continued to lie in bed for a while after the alarm went off, and then proceeded to start getting ready at about 7:30 a.m. His time getting ready included spending about an hour in the bathroom, 45 minutes of which was spent in the shower and the rest of which was spent doing who knows what.  After He was done showering and getting ready, it was probably about nine. He proceeded to dawdle around, lying on his bed, playing on his phone, until about 10:30 or 11:00 when he finally left. So, why did his alarm need to go off at 7:00? He seemed as though he was waiting for us to get up so he could talk to us or something, (we continued to pretend to be asleep because after such a performance in the morning, we did not have any interest in talking to him) but he and his roommate finally left for the day.

Because Ali wasn’t feeling well, and I woke up feeling under the weather again we decided to take the morning slowly. This hostel did not serve breakfast for a price we were willing to pay (especially since they had already made us pay to rent sheets, except Kenzy who had decided it would be convenient to carry around a hostel sheet), so the only time commitment we had was to try to go on a free walking tour of Prague at about 2:00 p.m. that started out in the square we had been in yesterday. We did not know exactly how these walking tours worked, so we figured we could just show up about 10 minutes before it started and join in.

We arrived at the square probably around two hours before the tour started and wandered around buying and eating food, and enjoying browsing the various souvenirs offered in the stands before we went on a two hour long walking tour. We then went over to where the tour was meeting about ten minutes before it started as we had planned, and found that the tours indeed did have restrictions. The tour guides could only take up to 40 people on one tour. You could make reservations online to ensure your place in the tour and it would not cost anything, or you could show up earlier, but we did not know how much earlier. We didn’t get to go on the tour that day because it had filled up, so we decided to make a reservation for the next day just to be safe. We had heard good reviews about these tours, and did not want to miss out, especially since it was free.

(The strange silver statue that would be mentioned on the tour the next day as well).

(The prohibition themed restaurant)

(A closer picture for a better idea of what it looked like)

(The district with the prettier buildings)

Since our plan to spend our day going on a walking tour had not worked out, we decided to wander from the square in a different direction than the bridge had been in so that we could see something new. We did see many new things, such as a prohibition café, and a strange silver statue. We also found the edge of the Jewish Quarter and a Franz Kafka statue that stood in front of it. The stores in this area all seemed to be higher end designer-brand stores, but this meant that the buildings they were located in were beautiful. We decided it would be worth walking a little bit further into this area to see some of the buildings, and then head to an early dinner. However, it was still very early by the time we were finished exploring this area of the city, so we decided to find a bar and get a Czech beer since their beer is very good. This helped us waste about a half hour of time, at which point we decided 4:30 was late enough for dinner.

(I really liked the tree in front of this building)

(A Jewish synagogue)

(Franze Kafka Statue on the edge of the Jewish Quarter)

(Less zoomed in)

We had found someone’s travel blog that said the best Mexican food in all of Europe, was in Prague at a restaurant called Las Adelitas, so of course we had to go. We have all been abroad in Europe for months now and, although each country has its own cuisine, the flavors in Europe are very mild compared to other parts of the world, and we missed serious flavors. In addition, we are also all from the West Coast of the United States, where cuisine is heavily influenced by any country that uses strong spices, but especially easy to find is food and flavors that have come up from Mexico and that we all love. We grew up with this food.

Our early dinner was at this Mexican restaurant, Las Adelitas, which we had found the day before so that we would know where to go. Since this cuisine is so important to us, we decided to make this a big dinner and ended up spending more than we might normally spend on a meal. Thankfully Eastern Europe is cheaper than other parts, so it was not as expensive as it could have been.

We started our dinner off with margaritas because we were at a Mexican restaurant and really had no choice. Kenzy and I ordered the mango margaritas (they probably had about 10-15 different flavors for margaritas) which came recommended by our waiter. They arrived with a fresh slice of mango in them and were very good. Ali decided she would rather have a strawberry margarita, but after exchanging tastes of each, she wished she had ordered a mango one as well, but enjoyed her strawberry one anyway.

(Mexican food and Margaritas at Las Adelitas)

One of my favorite things to order in the United States at certain kinds of restaurants, even though it is not strictly Mexican, it is Mexican influenced, are nachos. I don’t mean the cheap tortilla chips with the fake nacho cheese (although I do guiltily like those too), I mean the nachos that are piled with beans, cheese, greens, salsa, sour cream, and so on. Looking at the menu in this restaurant because it had been so long since I had either, I could not decide between the enchiladas and the nachos. In the end we all split the nachos (which were big enough to be a full meal themselves) and I ordered the enchiladas. They had three different kinds of enchiladas (separated by the types of sauces). One had green sauce, another had red, and the last had mole (accent on the e) sauce. I wanted to try all of them because I am indecisive when it comes to food because I want to try everything, but thankfully one of the options was to order a plate with each of these on it. I really enjoyed the enchiladas with green and red sauce, because I am a salsa person, but the mole sauce was a little bit too sweet for me to completely enjoy on an enchilada. Regardless, they were all delicious, and this place was very good as promised. Finally I decided I wanted to try a Mexican beer in comparison to the Czech beer because they had Mexican beers at this restaurant. (The time and food intake between these drinks was enough that I was trying these drinks to enjoy them, not to experience any sort of chemical change).

We probably spent about 2-3 hours eating this meal, and decided to head back to the hostel and our lovely roommates at the end of it.