Day 42 - Prague

So 3 hours of sleep really sucks. Was up by ine becuase it was so loud and bright and so i headed down to breakie feeling like shit. Met up with Olivia and ate with her and hung out in the common room. Me and Rob didn't have anything planned other than wandering around for the day. Nice relaxing day and then hockey at 6:30!

After the game in Vienna we decided that we had to go see a game if we could i Prague so we'd checked ahead and saw that Sparta was playing at home in the T-Mobile Arena Friday night and decided we had to go. I mentionned to people that we were going and within an hour we had 6 others coming with us, all of whome except for Kate had never seen hockey before and they were pumped to be going with two Canadians to their first one. Its up to us Canadians to spread word of the greatest game in the world and we've been doing a good job so far. I'd already picked up 8 tickets for our group the day before so we were all pretty pumped.

Olivia had made drunken plans the night before to tour around with Kath so she was waiting for her, but she must have forgotten lasat night that she was leaving for Krakow the next morning and by the time we went looking for her she'd already booked out. So since 'Liv was now all alone and i had nothing to do anyways, i walked around town with her doing pretty much the exact same tour as the day before, seeing the change of the guards again, and then around back to the hostel by 2ish. Rob was with us for a bit, but the took off shopping on his own. We (me and Liv) had a good time together and she was pumped because her Mom, Dad, boyfriend, and Grandmother were flying over that afternoon and meeting her at 5ish and then headig back to Florence with her.

We chilled in the common room with Kate and Rob after hitting a grocery store for a snack and I passed out on 'Livs shoulder (lucky girl). I woke up around 4 and Liv took off and we all got ready for the game.

I'd told everyone we'd meet in the common room at 5 to head over to the game together adn by the time our group all met up we'd grown to over 20 people. Me and Rob felt like sheppards leading sheep. It was pretty awesome that we could influence so many people and they were all pumped to see hockey (17 of the 20 were going to their first game). So we headed to the station and jumped on the subway down to where the area was supposed to be. When we got there though there was no arena to be found, but I saw this kid (about 12 years old) with a jersey on so i asked him if he was going to the game. He didn't have perfect English, but he did pretty well (probably from learning at school) and told us to follow him and his parents. We had to jump on a tram for one stop to get to the arena and we talked to him about hockey along the way and he told us how his favorite team is the New Jersey Devils and how last season was much better than this season in Prague because guys like Havlat and Nedved came back and played for Sparta during the strike. His parents spoke no English, but you could see how proud he was and especially how proud his mother was because he could speak English with us. Maybe his first time ever to anyone outside of school. It was a pretty cool experience and he seemed to enjoy it and made sure we followed him right to the gate.

The arena was bigger and nicer than the Vienna one, but the crowd definately was nowhere as crazy. And that wasn't for lack of beer because a pint (half liter) was only 25 Cr! That's under a Euro a pint and well under $2 Canadian! I couldn't believe it. That's like a fifth of the cost at an NHL game. So we sure as hell weren't going to let the opportunity go to waste (because we obviously haven't had much beer on this trip so far) and took full advantage of the economics of the situation.

I sat between Sophie from down under and Meg and Kim from the OC and explained the key rules and what was going on in the game as it went on. I'm pretty sure they all had a blast and we cheered hard, but Sparta lost 3-2. Good, close game though with some very nice goals. We had awesome seats right at center ice and the tickets only cost 115 Cr, or less than $6 Canadian. Rediculously cheap and it was the same cost for any seat in the house. Great, great time.

After the game we headed back to the hostel and chilled out in the common room for awhile and had a few more beers. At the end of the night, me, Rob and Meg hung out in the office with the owner (don't remember his name) who let us hang out behind the desk and serve ourselves our own beers. He was a really cool guy and we just shot the shit about differen stuff and made fun of Meg. He decided that the walls in the office were too bare since the place is less than a year old and he let me and Meg be the first two people to sign the wall which he eventually wants to fill. I wrote something down about his hostel, his girlfriend, and Czech beer all being awesome which he loved.

Definately was a great hostel with great beer...and his girlfriend was probably the sexiest European girl I've seen yet...haha.
outta time...to be continued....