What makes a good tour guide?

            It came as no surprise that on our first night in Berlin – our first night of no longer being Dublin residents – that we ended up at an Irish pub. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll be drawn to Irish pubs for the rest of my life. Sure I always loved hanging out at Innisfree in Tuscaloosa before this trip, but now I feel as though and Irish pub is part of my own culture. It was a similar feeling to when I first saw there was a Forever 21 in Dublin – I absolutely had to go.

Fat Tire bike tour

            Becca and I were worried we would have a hard time meeting people since we weren’t staying in a hostel. Every guy that walked by in a polo shirt, Becca would ask, “What about him? Think he’s American?” Our problems were quickly solved when we met a group of about 20 guys from London who were all there for Beer Fest. They were crazy and loud and so much fun.

            The next day we did the Fat Tire bike tour of the city. It had been recommended to us by a few different people as an easy and fun way to see the city in a day. Our Australian tour guide, Randall, was hilarious and took us to historical places in Berlin we would’ve never found on our own. I think I know more about the city of Berlin now than I do about Houston. We spent the rest of the day at the International Bier Festival, then ended the night on a pub-crawl.

Bier Festival

Next stop was Prague, and everyone I had talked to that had been there said we had to go to the 5-story disco. Nobody knew the name, but everybody knew the place. Luckily, Becca’s cousin had been living in Prague for two years and acted as our personal tour guide. She took us to a cool underground restaurant and to other various bars before walking us to Karlovy Lazne, the 5-story disco. Each floor was a different theme, but when we heard “Sweet Home Alabama” playing in the Oldies Room, I made a mad dash to the dance floor and barely ventured to the other levels after that.

Becca dancing on the oldies floor

Prague is one of those cities where you stay out until the sunrises but somehow manage to get up and sightsee the next day. It’s one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to, and when I woke up to a sunny day I couldn’t wait to go look around. We had seen Edinburgh on a bus tour, Amsterdam and Portugal on boat tours, Berlin on a bike tour and were now going on an old-fashioned convertible tour of Prague.  Joseph, our tour guide, was one of the most memorable people I met all summer. Not because of his tour guide skills, because in fact he severely lacked in that department. He wasn’t as cute as Tom in Amsterdam or funny as Randall in Berlin, and definitely wasn’t as easy to understand as the recorded voice in Edinburgh. It’s highly possible that he was on drugs and probably shouldn’t have been operating an antique automobile. Despite being a native to Prague, his facts of the city were probably as credible as the National Enquirer. He was like a bad soap opera we couldn’t stop watching. Becca and I still talk about how we miss him on a regular basis.

Joseph driving the convertible

Another night at Karlovy Lazne resulted in us missing the 9am train to Munich. The next one isn’t until 5, so for the first time since I can remember I have an excuse to stay in bed with nothing to do. I love traveling and the fast-track life we’ve been living, but I’ve forgotten how nice it is to just lay in bed.