Day 16: Brno Wanderings

My alarm rang at 9AM this morning -- the latest wake-up call I've had in over two weeks. Instead of sleeping in longer, Julie and I ate a quick homemade breakfast (Nutella on bread with banana) and went off in search of a Laundromat. We had read in Brno pamphlets how Laundromats here are often combined with cafés or pubs with Internet (which we still don't have in residence), so we headed downtown with our laptops and laundry. After a successful navigation of the tram system and a short walk, we ended up all the way past the city centre in a rather dilapidated and empty part of town, where we found the Laundromat closed. Its hours were 6PM-11PM...

Now only intent on finding WiFi, we walked around for over an hour to find a café. In Toronto, cafés are around every corner. In France, there were a million bakeries. In Italy, it was gelateries. In the Czech Republic, there are pubs -- ironically the only places open at noon on Saturday. We walked all around downtown and could not find any place that opened before 2PM. In the process, we did end up passing up a nice street market and saw most of downtown Brno.

At noon, we were almost ready to head back when we stumbled upon what's become the only place I can rely on in Europe for Internet and normal opening hours: Macdonald's.

Like in Vienna, it was a very nice Macdonald's situated right in the middle of the central square with the weird phallus-shaped clock. We stopped for an hour before heading back to our residence for an orientation and official tour of the city with the group.

A few hours later, we ended up right back at the same square with everyone. 

From there, we got ice cream and walked around downtown some more. Tonight was Brno Museum Night, meaning that many of the churches and museums were open late and discounted or free. We followed our group for a few stops to the Red Church and the New Town Hall.

However, the pace was quite slow and we split off, hoping to find more interesting things. Five minutes after splitting, we had discovered the best cocktail bar in Brno and a café with pillows hanging from the ceiling, as well as another beautiful square.

We passed the train station and got street food -- the only food in the Czech Republic that doesn't take two hours to make. After doing a few more circles along the side streets, which were rather nicely lit by night, we headed back to the bus home.

Photos by Julie Zhang.