Ireland/Czech - Day 8

Today was theoretically the most important day of the trip, since I was giving my presentation on ‘Skeletal Blood Flow in Bone Repair’ at the conference. I was pleased to receive the invitation to speak, and had the privilege of presenting in the same session as two of my scientific heroes. Although I probably could have been more familiar with my material (a week of vacation does that to you!), the workshop went very well and I had a lot of positive feedback. In general, the conference was great.

The auditorium where I presented. Tori Amos just played here!

Because we had decided to attend the “Cultural Evening” that the conference provides at a significant discount (free for me, €15 for Lindsay), we had limited time for dinner and decided to check out the hotel’s restaurant. We were seated promptly on the outdoor patio to enjoy the gorgeous weather – today was, by far, the best weather of the trip. Lindsay decided that she wanted some soda, so she ordered a Coke. Soda in Prague usually comes in glass bottles – I don’t recall encountering any soda fountains in Czech at all, though cans of soda were available in grocery stores. When our server brought her soda, he held the end of the bottle and poured it like it was champagne … then proceeded to set the bottle down and arrange the label so it was facing her. In other words, this serving staff was well-coached on appropriate ‘western’ serving manners, although I’d say they might have gone a bit overboard! Either way, the food was at least as good as the service. I had “sous vide of pork” that came with mashed potato with onion and parsley as well as roasted spinach (169 CZK) whereas Lindsay had the “Tandoori chicken breast” that came with Basmati rice and pepper salsa (189 CZK). The bottle of coke (59 CZK) and the half liter of Pilsner Urquell (79 CZK) rounded out the 496 CZK / $25 USD total. [Yes, the menu is online so I could look it up! http://www.holidayinn.cz/en/jidelni-listek/] Although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend coming to eat here, if you are staying at the hotel, it’s quite convenient, tasty, and reasonably priced.

The special Coke! And our very nice food/weather.

We finished dinner just in time to walk out and get into the bus that was taking us down to St. Jakob’s Basilica. The concert was supposed to start at 8 PM, but we didn’t even get the first bus moving until about 7:45 PM. By the time we had collected all three bus loads of conference-goers and arrived at the venue, it was about 8:15 PM. Fortunately, this was a private concert and the organist was kind enough to wait for us all to arrive and sit before starting. St. Jakob’s is home to the largest instrument in Prague – a pipe organ with 4 manuals, 91 registers, and 8277 pipes. The concert program was performed by organist Irena Chříbková. Although organ music isn’t typically “my thing”, I enjoyed the concert. Lindsay and I agreed that we would have preferred to be able to wander around the very pretty church instead of sitting, since we weren’t able to actually see the performer – the organ is up in the loft whereas we were on the ground floor.

The organist is up there somewhere!

The very front of the church. Very pretty. We speculated about how much that glittered was gold.

St. Jakob's Ceiling

The concert ended about 9:30 PM, and we decided that we were finally going to go visit the Black Angels Bar (the place we had intended on going our first night in Prague). Although Lindsay didn’t really need much convincing, I was particularly insistent because I had heard so much about it before coming on the trip. I had gotten a little put-off since being in Prague, however, since the bar itself is directly in Tourist Central and directly below our first semi-tourist trap experience (U Prince). Either way, it was our last night in town so we went for it. On the other side, I can firmly say: if you consider yourself even vaguely interested in cocktails and mixology, this is a must-do in Prague.

 The bar itself is located in the second basement of the building that had previously been called the Black Angel. It was designed in the Speakeasy style of the 1930s, though you are surrounded by Gothic and Romanesque masonry from the 13^th century. When you enter, a hostess greets you to determine where you would like to be seated and also reminds you of their strict “no photography or video recordings” policy. For the record, I highly recommend sitting close to the bar if at all possible (the bar area is relatively small and does fill up). We were sat down at the bar and quickly opened their extensive cocktail menu to find that it was entirely in Czech. This was somewhat surprising to me especially, since Prague is generally exceedingly English-friendly. However, we quickly had a bartender come ask us (in English!) what we were interested in drinking. Although I came with an agenda (I quickly ordered a ‘Penicillin’), Lindsay was more wishy-washy. He asked her a few questions - Favorite liquor? Flavors? Sour or Sweet? – and then said, “Thanks” and got started.

The Penicillin - not my picture, but definitely the right one. Note the "whiskey ball"

 In 2013, the magazine Spirits Business ranked this bar as one of the Top 6 in Europe. I’m not surprised to find out, since Black Angels bartenders obviously take a lot of pride in their craft. One of the things we noticed right away was how much attention each drink receives. Although the bar has a wide selection of the usual suspects (no well stuff, though – expect ‘name brand’ drinks), there were also a variety of potions laying around on the bar – homemade concoctions such as honey-ginger syrup and freshly squeezed lemon juice. In addition, the bartenders have access to three different sizes of ice behind the bar – some really large chunks, normal size, and small pieces. After choosing the appropriate liquids and ice, the bartender vigorously shakes the drink – thinking back, it’s almost comical how much they shake each drink, making a little dance out of it when they were entertaining their customers. Importantly, they use straws to taste everything before serving it. (I imagine everything starts to taste great later in the evening - haha!) My first drink, the Penicillin, came beautifully presented with a whiskey-infused ice ball on a small platter. The drink itself was garnished with a large slice of ginger. In general, the drink was amazing. It really gets you in the back of the throat – it’s packed full of ginger, so it has that spicy/tangy flavor, but it’s also a bit sweet. Also, the flavor of the drink changes over time, since the ginger spice is essentially being diluted by whiskey and water from the ice ball. (When I later interrogated the bartender about the drink, he claimed that the inventor of the Penicillin (Sam Ross, Milk & Honey) said that Black Angels’ Penicillin was better than the original, thanks to the addition of the whiskey-infused ice ball.) I won’t go into too much detail about our drinks. However, I also had my favorite ‘normal’ drink, the classic Old Fashioned, which was also amazing. If Lindsay’s drinks had names, I don’t know what they were, but each was tasty and unique. I was particularly impressed with Lindsay’s second offering – the bartender built a small “basket” out of ice, then placed a variety of fruits in the basket as a garnish. As the ice melted, the fruit settled down into the drink. It was really a work of art.

Some other random stuff we liked about Black Angels Bar. First, there is a live piano player who is very talented. No singing, just playing of a wide variety of Prohibition music mixed in with some classics (“Bridge Over Troubled Water”) and not-so-classics (“Nothing Else Matters”). Bohemian absinthe (or Czech-style absinthe) is commonly served in Prague. At Black Angels, they don’t follow the traditional “fire ritual” – instead, they just light it on fire and toss it around behind the bar! Similar to some of the ‘potion’ bottles, they had a variety of spirits in perfume bottles that were sprayed onto the drink to finish it – pretty neat. We also found their tremendous selection of glassware to be pretty interesting and varied. Finally, the bartenders were extremely knowledgeable and friendly, even to the nosy tourists. I noticed one of them making a very strange drink – he left the bar to go track down some yogurt, which eventually became the base of the strange drink. Curious, I asked him what he was making – he said it was orange liqueur, yogurt, and lemon juice (I think he also grated some orange zest into the drink). Honestly, this sounded kinda repulsive to me, and I believe I said as much. Unprompted, he made an extra portion that he divided four ways (Lindsay, myself, and two others at the bar) for us to try. Actually, it was pretty good! Plus free drink! Speaking of free drinks, the prices were actually pretty reasonable. For four drinks and an extra shot, including an American-style tip (about 20%), the total was 800 CZH or $40 USD.

Our final night in Prague. Taken by a Slovenian Biker. Thanks dude!

I feel a little embarrassed that I just gushed so much about Black Angels, so now I’ll write about something else. Although I haven’t mentioned it explicitly, it should be fairly obvious that I don’t speak any Czech. However, we hadn’t expected that we would be so comfortable speaking English with the locals – almost everyone we ran into spoke perfect English. Before our trip, I memorized a couple of phrases – “Thanks” (“Dekuji”) and “Do you understand me?” (“Rozumite mi?”). As I previously stated, the metro system in Prague is completely on the honor system – you buy a ticket, but you don’t need to scan it or present it to anyone. However, occasionally the Metro Police set up a checkpoint to check everyone’s ticket. Coming home from Black Angels Bar, we ran into one of these checkpoints. I wasn’t exactly paying attention, since we knew the metro system pretty well at this point, so when someone pulled me aside and started talking Czech to me, I backed away slowly and said the only thing I knew in Czech – “Rozumite mi!” At the time I thought I was saying “I don’t understand”, but apparently I just butchered it well enough that he restated his question to me in English – “Tickets, please.” Fortunately, we had followed all the rules appropriately and he waved us on without incident.