Our Apartment in Prague and other stuff…
Note: This is an old post, marking the start of our full-time travels in 2014. Too many memories in this one to delete from the blog…
July 14, 2014
Hello from Prague!
It’s been a crazy last 10 days; moving out of our apartment in Montreal, putting our stuff in storage, moving into a temporary apartment while we sorted out last minute work arrangements, doctors, dentists and travel vaccines. Then our move to Prague 5 days ago. So I apologize if this post is all over the place.
Our apartment in Prague
This is our apartment in Prague; a main living room/kitchen, a large bedroom, a huge bathroom and an equally huge storage room. It is located in a quiet suburb of Prague, about half an hour from downtown by bus and metro. We actually love the apartment and the neighborhood, it is quiet and peaceful, full of trees. A huge contrast to the frenetic pace of downtown Montreal. The funny thing is that it is located right across the street from the largest mental institution in the Czech Republic. So even if we don’t remember the address, we literally tell taxi drivers to bring us to the mental institute. No kidding.
People will be interested in what an apartment like this goes for in Prague. We’re paying 9125 Kc including wifi, that’s about $500 Canadian (i.e. roughly $470 US). We are so grateful to Irene who set us up with pages and pages of instructions on everything we needed to know, left us maps, kitchen and cleaning products, some metro tickets, even a bottle of wine and some beer.
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Jetlag
We are a frigin mess. 5 days in Europe and we haven’t gotten our hours regulated. The first day, after a long night with no sleep on the plane, we slept 12 hours straight. The next two we would be awake through the night, falling asleep around 5 am. I don’t know if it is jetlag or just the excitement of the recent changes in our lives. Last night Lissette actually turned to me and started complaining that the sun comes up too early in Europe. And those damn birds…
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Booze
We went shopping for food and beer on our first day and ended up buying all this:
The cost? $21 Canadian.
Let me break it down:
4 cans of Argus beer, 500ml each 43.6 Kc = $2.43 Canadian (that’s $0.61/can)
French Bordeaux wine, 750 ml 99.9 Kc = $5.58 Canadian
Australian Chardonnay, 750 ml 64.9 Kc = $3.62 Canadian
James Cook brown rum, 700 ml 169 Kc = $9.44 Canadian
Total: $21.07 Canadian (approx. $19.60 US)
Overall everything is cheaper, most notably cheese and bread (I’ve always screamed blue murder about the cost of cheese in Montreal, usually averaging $6.00 for a 200 ml block of decent cheddar). I’ll have more on costs in a future post.
Language
Czech is a really tough language and there’s no way we’ll learn anything more than the most basic phrases in the 2 1/2 months we’ll be here. I’ll admit it’s a bit intimidating the first days, especially in a neighborhood that sees few tourists. But we tried our first “Dobrý den” (Hello) the other day and got a big smile. Then we said “day coo” (pronunciation of “Dekuji”, meaning thank you) and got another smile. That broke the ice and we’ve felt a bit more comfortable. I usually say that if you can’t learn any other words you should at least learn ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. They are the most essential in any language. A few other Czech basics:
Ano (yes)
Ne (no)
Pardon (excuse me)
Update: Just found this great site which includes enunciation of the words.
Air Transat
We flew Montreal – Prague with Air Transat. They are the only airline that flies direct to Prague from Canada (Montreal & Toronto, but only on Tuesdays) and are also the cheapest airline doing that route. We paid $692 each one way. If you google airfares between Montreal and Prague you’ll find comparable rates in the $1,100 range. I’ve heard other bloggers say it but it’s worth repeating – always check the price of charter airlines because they often don’t appear on internet searches.
The plane was modern (an Airbus 330) and service so-so. We were seated in an aisle with toilets on either side – I figure that after sitting there for 7 hours we’re pretty much immune to anything by now. We might even consider going to Varanasi and dunking ourselves in the Ganges.
Netflix
We were surprised to see that Netflix doesn’t work in the Czech Republic. We love our crime series and foreign movies and are having withdrawal symptoms. We’ve watched a few shows on Youtube but find the quality spotty and the searching infuriating. And I can’t watch a British crime series without proper subtitles. Can anyone recommend anything? We don’t mind paying for it, just looking for movie options…
Thanks for reading!
Related: What are Czechs like? A Review of the “Xenophobe’s guide to the Czechs”
Related: A Walking Tour of Prague’s Old Town (and things to consider when choosing a guide…)
Related: 50 Things to do in Prague
Ps. If you find our blog helpful, please consider using our links to book your flights, hotels, tours, and car rentals. Have a look at our Travel Resources page.
Nice apartment and already nicely decorated. I like the hardwood floors. Looking forward to reading about your adventure in a new country.
Thank you, we love it. You never know sometimes when you book an apartment without having seen it but in our case we were lucky!
Yep..Hola unblocker works great. That’s how we watch our Netflix. All our stations are in Maltese or Italian (great for hubby,not me!). Enjoy Prague. I hope to visit one day.
Hi Kemkem. I’m a bit nervous about it – I looked it up and most of the issues all over the internet seem to be about how it’s malware, that it becomes the default search engine, and that it is a pain to uninstall. So I’m having my doubts about using it. I don’t like it when I install an application and it hijacks all my other functions. You haven’t had any such problems?
Nope..not a single problem in the whole year and half of using it. When you install, it does ask you if you want to make it your default search engine, you have to remember to untick the box (which they helpfully..not! Have ticked for you 🙂 ). Most people never read that part of anything they are installing..lol! . I only wish l could use it on the ipad as well. I stream stuff all the time..
Thanks Kemkem – you’ve convinced me. I’ll give it a shot!
Kemkem/Samantha – thank you both. I installed it and my Netflix is actually even better than before – if I access it using USA as my country I get movies that we didn’t even have on Netflix Canada (which has always lagged behind the US version). Yes, you have to be careful when installing it because you get a few pages at the beginning where they ask to use Hola as the default, as well as another at the end. But it seems to be working now. Fantastic!!
SO excited for you both! I’m surprised/impressed at the really affordable rent and spacious size of the apartment, not to mention how affordable the drinks (and food, when you get ’round to it) are! Can’t wait to see upcoming posts on your new home. Be safe!
Thanks Sarah. Hey, I got a food pic coming up just for you! Next post I promise 😉 .
Try filmon.com its what I use here – alternatively install Hola toolbar onto your crome and it acts as a VPN hiding your location! 🙂
You’re a tech wiz Samantha. I like that idea of the Hola toolbar – there’s a bunch of sites I regularly use which I can’t seem to get here, including the live streaming of the World cup I was trying to get on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). I’ll give it a shot! Thanks so much.
Hi guys, welcome to Prague! We’ll be there in about 3 weeks, hope we can meet up there!
Hi Ivana – it would be a pleasure! We’re a bit of a mess right now but I’m sure we’ll be sorted out in 3 weeks. Look forward to it!