WE CAME.......WE SAW.....2018 (PART 2)

       

Happy Nigerian Independence Day everyone. 

'Unku' Tinubu, Lagos no go spoil Ooo, literally! (If you know....you know!) 

I’ve kept my word to continue with a 2nd part blog about our travels to Prague. See part 1 here. 

    Prague Squad:  Foluke, Yemisi, Sholar, Olabisi, Moi, Uloma & Ada (Gabby missing)

Now where did I stop….oh yes, we had gone back to the hotel on evening of day two to re-energise for our nocturnal activities i.e. another fine dining experience. We had heard about a good Thai restaurant, so around 8pm we met up in hotel lobby where our ‘satnav’ Gabby was waiting, phone in hand with google maps ‘at the ready’. It was about a 30 minute walk, across a long bridge, though it was dark the weather was warm. We strolled leisurely, so much banter and insults being traded between us as we moved along the bridge. 

    The only evidence!

We arrive at restaurant and request a table for 8 and are ushered to our seats, I didn't even need to look at menu before I knew i'd be ordering a red thai curry with rice, we place our orders and wait for our meals to arrive.  

Now as I scroll through my phone and finding only ONE photograph to document to this particular evening (my half eaten meal) it dawned on me that when you are genuinely having fun and engrossed in what you are doing, you won't necessarily have time to be flipping out phone to be taking pics. This was one such evening and a half🎉🎊. 

    Lennon Wall: Gabby, Ada, Uloma, Moi & Yemisi 

    Lennon wall: Uloma Woz 'ere! 

    Lennon Wall: Gabby & Moi

One of us shared an experience of a team building away-day at their place of work. When they were asked by their team leader to participate in an ice breaker; sharing a fact about themselves that nobody in team knew about them. What they observed was the staff of African origin in the team missed the point of the exercise by merely reeling off all their academic qualifications and achievements, listing their professional body memberships, bachelor, Master and PHD degrees…basically disclosing nothing new as this info could easily have been obtained from their CV or HR department! This led to a huge debate between us about ‘our people’ and why academics define us! We then decided to test same icebreaker between ourselves. And some interesting revelations came to light like one of us had anchored a TV show back in Nigeria😳, another had climbed the steps of the Eiffel Tower as a young child👏🏾👏🏾 while one of us once broke a U.K. record running in 100m x 4 relay race for their club back in the day 😲😳   

   Our doctors in the house: Yemisi & Ada 

    John Lennon Pub, Mala Strana. 

    Clockwise: Tosin, Fimi, Tega, Gabbie, Funlola & Rimi (Young Shall Grow)

Of course there will always be that one person! As ‘one of us’ insisted that being a true African, apart from all ‘their’ academic qualifications and career achievements nothing else really mattered so ‘they’ had nothing else to share with the group (will the Real Slim Shady identify themselves please?)😐🙄🙈 

Back at the hotel that night ‘sat nav’ Gabby who also moons as Mr Motivator Gym,Fitness and Nutritionist Guru mentions that next morning those of us up to the task could meet him at the gym at 7am for 15 min High Intensity Interval training (HIIT) workout. 👀  

I ask myself why only 15 mins ké? That's gotta be a breeze! We roll up at gym next morning where he and his Mrs, Ada, are there waiting for us. He has a sheet of paper in his hand and asks us to warm up on the treadmill for 10 mins and then meet him on the gym floor. He spreads out a sheet of paper with list of exercises we are to do. He is holding a stopwatch in his other hand! 

 

    Gabby kicks butt👀

 

 Charles Bridge

15 mins later I am out cold, I have worked up such a sweat and gasping for breath as Gabby continues to reel off the exercises we are to do. Olabisi has also come down to the gym floor, but wise lady is O-Y-O (on your own)  and not under Gabby’s instruction she is toning her upper arms by slamming some 5kg weighted balls on the floor repeatedly, she like me is sweating like a banshee, however the difference is her pain is self-inflicted unlike mine that has been inflicted by Gabby😩. Those of you excitedly scrolling through this blog expecting to see ‘foto’ of us in our sweaty gym wear.…apologies it ain't happening, I will be gracious enough though to share Gabby’s handwritten list of our gym exercises 'should in case' you get the urge to workout. 💪🏾 

    Stock image: Petrin Hill Funicular Railway  

    Funicular Tour Guide Uloma😛 

    Ada On Colourful Streets Of Prague 

    Controversial Pissing Statues By Cerny in Prague 🙈

    Ada and Uloma at Old Town Square. 

    Tosin with Uncle Yemisi

The next morning our destination is one of the coolest places to visit in Prague; The Lennon Wall. The wall is filled with John Lennon inspired graffiti and lyrics from The Beatles songs and paintings. It stands as a symbol of freedom and rebellion against the communist regime. In the 60’s people left messages protesting, it was also known as The wailing wall. In the 80’s people started using the wall to write messages about John Lennon and his music, which wound up the communist regime to the extent that they had the wall painted over in green paint! This really peeved the people who then became even more defiant and the nature of the messages written, changed to political and anti-communism messages.   

Crowds visit every day to take pictures and leave their own inspirational messages. Some locals seeing a business opp actually loan out marker pens for a fee, so tourists can write their own messages on the wall. Uloma digs out a pen from her bag. We all agree on a message she can write so she etches this popular naija salutation on the wall: 

9JA (NAIJA) NO DEY CARRY LAST  interpreted as “Good or bad we Nigerians always stand up to be counted where ever we are. We don't hide in the shadows, it is a prompt to renew effort till we succeed!”

Having literally left our mark at Lennon Wall from there we leisurely stroll down one of the most beautiful bridges in Europe, The Charles Bridge. It is also popular with Czech artists, musicians and souvenir vendors whose stands line both sides of the bridge year-round. From there Sholar guides us to the Jewish quarters, that was nothing like I expected, it was very upmarket and reminded me of Bond Street, London. By now we are so tired It's been another long day and we return to hotel early evening to re-energise for dinner that night. 

 

   Riding Trams Of Prague

 

   We Are A Family: Olabisi, Foluke & Sholar

Though by now I'm craving junk food and feeling rather tight fisted so I declare to the squad that I will not be going out with them for dinner that evening but rather would be having a cheeky KFC from city centre besides the hotel…I'm told blatantly told that we would be sampling Czech cuisine that evening so I WOULD be coming out with them…..never one to argue I say ok🙄 

    Room service! 

     It's Not You....It's Me 👀

    Remember Bata...... We found a store!

So we catch the tram to a hidden treasure in Wenceslas square in the centre of Prague, a Czech traditional Restaurant. The exterior looked ordinary but when we went down the stairs it opened up to a lovely unusual cave restaurant built under the main streets of Prague. The interior was great and the ambience was so unusual. I just kept looking around wondering how much we would be paying for this meal 😱

They had the most attentive waiters and before we knew it they had placed a wooden box on the table, I was wondering why this ‘briefcase’ on the table sebi it was food we came to eat here….. then the waiter opened the box to reveal 10 pairs of reading glasses of varying reading strengths laid out on satin cushioned lining😳. My people....the reading glasses were on loan to read the menu in case your forgot to bring your own!

Anyways the food is great, I will let the pics do the talking. And by the way those things on my plate are dumpings and not yam slices as someone who saw pics commented.  

    Triton restaurant: Stock image 

    Box Of Spectacles 

   Glass always empty!

    Triton Czech Restaurant: Here's Gabby!

    No its not dessert, it's butter with beetroot sitting on top!

No visit would be completed without a visit to ‘A Memorial To The Victims of Communism’ at Mala Strana Prague, located at the base of Petrin Hill, a series of 7 male statues dedicated to the victims of communism and shows how the political prisoners of communism were affected, each statue in various stages of decay. As you can see from the pic 1st man is whole, 2nd man rib cage is open, the next one has a missing limb and goes on like that till last statue that is barely there as it is in the final state of decomposition. The memorial is harrowing and there is also a steel bar running alongside the statues that lists the number of victims😢

   Memorial To Victims of Communism

From there we decided we wanted to climb to the top of the ever so steep Petrin hill on which stands the steel framework, Petrin Look-out Tower. Initially we were waiting at the base of the hill for the Victorian Funicular Cable Railway that runs to the top of the hill. Most visitors do this and then walk back down through the trees and woodland. However when we got tired of waiting for the cable train a few of us decided to walk up instead. Big mistake, the grade of that hill was crazy I thought I was going to have a heart attack and I could hardly breathe. The walk I would liken to climbing Mount Everest. Once I started climbing I was too scared to look back.  Sholar, Ada, Yemisi and Gabby were way ahead of me and egging me on with words of encouragement as I was sweating and shaking with fear. Good thing the funicular stops half way up the hill, so we boarded it there and met the rest of the lazy squad who had rode on it from bottom of the hill (on this one occasion I will not name-and-shame)😐

We arrive at the summit of the hill to meet a lovely landscaped Petrin garden and this beautiful  tree. My most favourite photograph taken on this trip is this one of all of us except Gabby (he took the photo😢) under this tree

    Prague Squad minus 3

    Wenceslas Square

Next day we each decide that we all wanna do our own thing. So the group splits up…can you tell I'm getting tired not too much detail now🙈.

So for the 1st time I ventured out by myself I have no sense of direction, but I really had a point to prove so I march out with my backpack, map and transport guide. The only area I am bold enough to venture is area we visited night before as I can still remember the tram number and it is straight forward journey to and fro one tram go/come. Now I am tired of writing there is no way I can documents the whole of this trip. I will let the pics do the talking. You may be wondering where our young adults are in all these are shenanigans….truth is as I explained in part one of blog they were doing their own thing. Only pics I have of them were ones they took themselves and reluctantly gave me!

    So long...farewell🙋

I think I've tied up all loose ends except 2 spoiler pics I showed in part one, photo of Foluke leaning on me was when she had a bad bout of hayfever (allergies) and was feeling unwell.

The pic of the trainers is a long story that I'm gonna shorten; I went to Prague ill prepared with inappropriate footwear because of the uneven cobbled pavements. My feet were so sore and I was threatening to sit in hotel and not go out as I was not willing to spend a kobo on trainers when I had back in UK. So the gracious squad sent me to go and price up trainers….the rest is history😐

We did have a good trip though and I'd love to go back there 

Have a good week ahead. 

Come to think of it squad…. what about Nigeria as our next destination?

Friends and good manners will carry you where money won't go~ Margaret Walker

💅🏾