Arriving in Prague……

So we got into Prague station around 7:30pm found the hotel on my Blackberry Google maps and walked for 20 minutes before checking in.

The hotel was in the old town area and soon after checking in we headed out to the cafe bar where Harry Waters was playing a gig with a few of his friends. The metro ride took us 10 minutes max and we arrived in what look liked a residential area of Prague, again Google maps on my Blackberry proved invaluable and took us straight to the door.

It was a small cafe bar type place with about 6 tables in front of the small stage and the rest of the place was made up with people standing around. I counted about 52 people in total and it was fully sold out! I saw India Waters at the bar and it was nice to see her again, i hadn't seen her since early on in the dark Side tour.

Arriving at Prague station             Promo poster for Harry’s show     Harry on stage left

   

We arrived at the bar around 8:45 which enabled us t see the last hour of Music, Harry was playing the piano and had a Double Bass, Drum and Saxophone player, all of whom were Czech musicians i believe. After half an hour i spotted Alfie walk in the door, Alfie is Jon Carin and Harrys stage tech guy, a real nice down to earth English guy. We spoke and chatted till Harry was done and off stage and we then all made our way to the Metro station to get the train back to the hotel. Kevin and i had had 13 hours of travelling on the train today so i was pretty tired. we said goodbye to Alfie as he got off the Metro the station before us 10 minutes later i was tucked up in bed snoring away!

I awoke around 10am the next morning after having an OK nights sleep. I got up, had breakfast and came back to the room to shower. Didn't do much at all during the day to be honest, Jens and Lars were due in at about 4pm, Phil and Laila had flown in earlier in the morning and George and Connie were arriving sometime  this afternoon.

Kevin and i spent most of the day online looking at various ways of getting from our next stop Lodz, to Moscow, a couple of days after the Lodz shows. We had visas to get plus the train ride was over 23 hours, it would be cheaper to fly but then we’d have to get the train to Berlin to get the real cheap flights. The other option was flying from Warsaw but this pushed the cost up quite a bit. Originally i was due to fly back from Lodz to the UK for a few days however I'd always wanted to see Roger in Moscow after enjoying the Dark Side show so much in St Petersburg a few years ago and i didn't take much persuading to decide to at least look at ways of getting to Moscow.

The cheaper option was the train from Lodz, this would take over 23 hours and as we looked into it there were 4 types of train travel. 1st Class, 2nd Class, 3rd Class and Common class! I had no idea what common class was but Dave K mentioned to me it was nothing more that some hard wooden benches and a plank coming out of the wall to sleep on! That didn't sound too appealing to be honest.

As it stands at the moment (its Sunday 17th April and were on the train to Lodz) I'm not sure if Kevin and i are going to make it out there. Were going to look into the Visa situation when we get to Warsaw and make a decision from there.

I was changing hotels today and sharing with Jens and Lars, Jens called around 4pm to say they had just landed and were taking a cab to the hotel. Kevin was staying in the hotel tonight till we saw if we could get a 4th bed in my hotel room, we could so he arrange to move there the next day.

just after we arrived at the new hotel, Jens and Lars arrived  in a taxi from the airport, we bumped into Phil and Laila too who were also staying in the same hotel for 2 nights.

Jens and Lars arriving                   Jens with his ticket ready

     

After us all getting checked in the room and sorting the luggage out we went to the “Um Pa” German style brewery next door to the hotel. The second we sat down this guy came by in a pair of lederhosen carrying a tray of at least15 beers and placed a large glass of dark coloured beer next to us all on the table. As most people know, i hate beer, i don't drink much at all,the odd glass of wine and Long Island Iced Tea’s when I'm out in the USA. Kevin shared my glass of beer out between everyone else and i ordered a glass of wine. George and Connie arrived soon after as did Phil's friend Dave.

We asked the guy below if he knew Outside The Wall but he just looked at us with a blank stare

Um pa bar                            Harrys replacement ?           Our bar bill                         Phil, Jens and Kevin

   

We stay in the bar a good hour or so, ate dinner and then headed out to take the Metro to the venue.

Jens and Kevin looking serious!           Lars, Phil, Jens and Dave                  Laila, Lars, Dave, Phil and Jens

   

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Prague day 3…….

I got about 4 hours sleep last night due to Lars and Jens snoring, I've never heard anything like it! it was like when the subway trains comes past during Rogers show!! the whole room was shaking the whole night! Of course in the morning both the guy say they don't snore, but as some of you may remember from my blog whilst we were in the USA i put audio clips up as proof!

Kevin came over to our hotel around midday and word on the street was Phil and Liala were still in town! They both had to be up at 5am to catch their 8 o clock flight from Prague to Warsaw, however, after getting up at 5, getting a taxi to the airport they realised their flight was in fact 8pm at night and not in the morning! They were able to check back in the hotel when they got back and were back in their still warm beds 80 minutes after leaving!

I’d had an e mail off my friend Matt who runs the UK Brain Damage website before i left the UK, Martyn from the Czech Pink Floyd fan club had e mailed him asking if he was able to contact me and invited me to the Pink Floyd cafe in Prague. We actually met up with them briefly at Harry's concert the night before just before we left.

Kevin, Myself, Jens, Lars and Dave stopped in a local restaurant for dinner on the way to meet the guys at the Pink Floyd cafe. The restaurants menu could have put some people off eating there for sure, i think a few things have been lost in the translation of the dishes somewhere!

Local restaurant where we ate      Executors devils fire anyone ?

    

We walked for 30 minutes before arriving at the cafe and meeting up with Martyn and Marek and several more of their friends. The bar was a local bar out in the suburbs with lots of Floyd themed Photos pictures and posters, they also had a nice garden area out the back in the sun where we all sat for a couple of ours sharing stories and drinking beer. They told of how they had met Roger at the airport a couple of nights ago as he flew from Zagreb to Prague and how nice he was to pose for pictures and sign their albums, they also spoke of Dave K and the other band member who all gave them lots of time and were happy to pose for pictures.

The Czech Pink Floyd guys meting Roger at the airport.

  

In 2009 they had all put on a production of The Wall and had an audience of 7000 people in the same arena that Roger was playing tonight, the O2. They had also invited Harry Waters to the show and he had played the concert with them! The were very proud of this fact and told us several stories of their production and even gave me  a T shirt and several other pieces of memorabilia from the show. They had had some very cool hammers armbands made for the show and gave us a dozen of them to use at tonight's show. Jens immediately tried it on as a hat but eventually used it as an armband.

   

Kevin used to sell T shirts after the shows for not just Roger but several bands, I’ve often heard him tell the story of the guy that bought the T shit off his back! he had completely sold out of all his t shirts at one of Rogers shows  when a guy came up to him and asked to buy one, he told him he’d no more left and the guy pointed to the T shirt Kevin was wearing and asked to buy that! Kevin took off the T shirt and sold it him there and then! Well as we were swapping stories around the table one guy, Marty told of how he met Kevin and bought the T shirt off his back. Kevin had no idea Marty was the guy and was amazed to get to meet him again.

Kevin and Marty                                      Group shot before we left

  

We all said our goodbyes and Kevin, George, Connie, Jens and Myself took a couple of taxis  to the Charles Bridge where Jens and Kevin knew of a great pastry shop where they had been before. It was indeed great and some of the cakes they had were hugs! We all had cake, some with ice cream some without, and George ordered the most amazing crepe filled with ice cream, covered in blueberries and covered in whipped cream drizzled with chocolate sauce! Jens immediately saw this and waned one! he didn't “need” one but he wanted one and that was all that counted!

Cake                                   Yum                                   My cake                             Jens’s second cake!

     

It wasn't until i saw George talking that i realised that the crepe they were eating turned their mouths blue, not only their lips but tongue and teeth! We headed down the street to find the metro station to get to the venue, we walked over the Charles bridge which was packed with people, this was really my first sight of the beautiful scenery around Prague and i will definitely come back for a weekend sometime just to sightsee

Walking over Charles bridge and the views

 

Jens and his blue mouth                                   On the way to the show      Jens and Kevin

   

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