Do Not Forget the Knobbly Dumplings

Old Town Square, Prague

The problem with travel is that the details are often lost. Somebody will ask you "How was your trip?" and if you're not careful, you end up giving answers like "It was nice." But what does "nice" tell you? It shares nothing of what it was like to be there.

"Nice" is sometimes all that people want to hear. We don't often have time to hear about every detail of everyone's holidays. But sometimes I want to ask someone about their holiday and hear about how it was different. What little things were there that showed a different culture's way of looking at the world?

Here, then. I give you three little things that were different in Prague. In case you might be interested in the details, too.

* There are knobbly potato dumplings. They come served with a big clump of stinky half-melted cheese and nothing else on top. They are interesting in their cheesy knobbliness.

* This is how you order a chocolate icecream: "Jedna shockolade prosim." (Pronounced "yed-nah shoc-o-lada pro-seem." I can now order a chocolate icecream in German, Italian, French and Czech. Ahem. And I might have eaten a few icecreams in all of those countries. Maybe I had one every day.


Falconer holding a bird, Prague Castle

* If you explore the Prague Castle grounds, you might find the little part that is home to the falconry. At the falconry there is a peregrine falcon (fastest bird in the world, apparently it dives at up to 400km/hr) and an owl with the cutest ears and a lady who holds a bird on her arm that you can pat. As long as you pat it where it can see your hand. Its feathers are soft and... feathery. I do not want to imagine what its beak would do to my finger if I tried to pat the back of its head.