NoJennyNo: Happy New Year 2016

Happy New Year from Europe!

I was a bit exhausted from the last few weeks' worth of travel and holiday prep so for New Year's Eve just stayed in and got drunk off of champagne. We skipped the annual New York trip in exchange for a relaxing night in. You can call it getting older, but we did have double the travel this season in comparison to other years AND had to work during holidays. At least that's my excuse for my lack of energy for a NYE party.

In the spirit of the holidays, I will resume the unfinished Prague post starting with the Christmas Market in the Old Town.

This year it ran from Nov 28 - Dec 23 and like every year, drew a large crowd to the heart of Prague. It's absolutely beautiful and filled with delicious scents like roasting chestnuts, smoking ham, and my favorite, trdelnik. Trdelnik is a traditional Slovak bread that's made by roasting a sugar-and-walnut rolled dough over fire, which tastes a bit like a sweet nutty pretzel. They sometimes fill the inside with sweet fruits or savory toppings.

Chestnuts

Trdelnik

A little fact:
The highlight of this market is obviously the tree, which many tourists (like me) snap photos in front of. Every year there's a competition of 'who gets to be the Christmas Tree' and one lucky winner is chosen. For the last 6 years, though, they only chose among trees that were going to be felled anyway and support local causes. Good stuff.

This year's tree is 50-65 years old and 23 meters or 75 feet tall. The company that is supplying the tree received ~$400 and planted 10 new trees in place of the big tree with the money. Aww.

Another little activity that was a first for us was the segway ride around Prague. We were approached by a man at the Christmas market who tried to sell us the tour. I've done the segway in another city before and enjoyed it a lot, but was a little apprehensive about shady salesmen.

Charles Bridge

Alas, he won us over with a large discount of ~$40/person for a 2 hour tour with a private guide and multiple language translator gadget at hand. The tour turned out to be 3 hours with a very friendly guide who was just a local college student who enjoyed segways and wanted to make a bit of money. He showed us around briefly and stopped by for a beer at a well known brewery. It wasn't exactly educational, but it was nice to just browse the entire city in a short span of time with someone to take photos for us and help us whenever we fall off the segway (which happend way too often, LOL). I highly recommend.

In my full regalia: Asian tourist armed with camera and segway with a mismatched headgear, awkwardly posing in front of the John Lennon wall, a little puzzled that a graffiti mural like this would persist for decades and gain notoriety after a man who's never even set a foot in the country.

So off we went.
I think my most exciting moment was running into these giant swans that came up to my waist. I mean, check out the size of that pigeon in comparison to a swan's... wastes. They are a bit aggressive in trying to find food in your hand, though, so wear gloves.

Peeing statues in front of the Franz Kafka Museum. No time to go into the museum, but we got a brief summary of these David Cerny pieces. It's a tongue-in-cheek pair of statues with certain parts that move up and down. They are peeing into a Czech-shaped fountain and move around to write in messages sent via text message.

We got to see the palace, the beer garden, and full view of a rainy Prague Old Town area. An Eiffel-duplicate telecommunication tower was also in the list of the quick tour.

We finished the night off at a lovely new find, a restaurant called V Zatisi. It's a higher end restaurant that serves amazing Czech dishes that is cozy enough not to be intimidating. A little surprise: they serve equally delicious Indian food as well. Very random for a Czech specialty restaurant, but we decided to go for both Czech tasting menu as well as the Indian one. They give you both regular bread and piping hot fresh naan at the beginning.

Amuse bouche, with deer pate.

Indian menu, which I was DELICIOUS and in my opinion, even better than the Czech menu:

Lentil soup

Tandoori spiced shrimp

Butter chicken, super tender and flavorful

Lamb, also buttery tender and spicy

Grilled pineapples and pistachio ice cream. Yum!

Czech menu, which was also great.

Sour cream potato soup with dill

Quail breast with chestnut cream and barley

Pikeperch, a whitefish

Deer meat with pumpkin chutney

Christmas gingerbread cake with nut ice cream

Bonus!
I found a lovely little Italian grocery store called La Bottega di Finestra right next to the hotel. Little did I know they served the food right at the grocery, like choose-your-own-meat-or-fish that they prepare for you right there! They also make you fresh fruit juice of the fruits of your choice. It's quite small and quaint, but they have a great selection of wine, cheese, and meats. They are famous for their breakfast and homemade dessert/salad bar, which you can eat in or take out by the kg. So fresh and delicious.