Sticking with my routine of taking it easy on the weekends, I got a late start to my Saturday. Still, the beginning of the World Cup inspired me to have a day of pub hopping and futbol watching. I started off walking from Strahov to a pub I pass everyday, but discovered no televisions there. I would later discover this to be a trend which I was not expecting. I walked into Prague 5 before I found a pub where the game was playing (or that had televisions at all). There I watched the Australia-France game with an Australian man here on holiday with his Czech fiancé. Although Australia couldn’t pull off the win, it was nice to converse and take in the game with someone actually interested in the outcome. It’s actually quite odd for me this time around, because there isn’t a team I’m particularly interested in winning.
Following this game, I decided to walk into Dejvicka to a place I have come to like (and I knew had televisions) for the Argentina-Iceland game. I picked up some desert while I was there and enjoyed a quiet space mostly to myself. I picked up some dinner on the way back to the dorms and took some time to myself in the room before I watched the late game in the dorm bar.
I understand that Czechia is not in the World Cup, but I thought it’d be easier to find pubs playing the games, or, 
at least, pubs capable of playing the games. After this experience, I decided to spend Sunday in the more tourist areas of the city, because I knew many of them were catering to their international tourists, even though I knew this would be more expensive for me.
Getting a much earlier start to my Sunday, I spent several hours reading before deciding to take a nice walk before 
the games. I think I may have found a new favorite place in Kinsky Garden. It’s just a different part of the ruins, but its completely enclosed and it doesn’t seem like many people pass through it. Laying your hands on the stone, you can feel the century of history contained in the walls. Although these ruins faced nothing too drastic and can’t put some great battle story in its place, they endured through so much (the First Republic, the Second Republic, German occupation, WWII, communism…) and you could feel it in the stone, from the etchings, through the graffiti.
I decided on a pub called the Kolonial for the early games. I watched the Costa Rica-Serbia game in relative 
silence, but the Mexico-Germany game definitely brought in some more people. I sat next to a group of Mexican tourists for the first half of the game and their seats were taken by some German tourists for the second half. I think those interactions are just as nice as the games, even if we don’t actually speak. I went back to the dorms for the late game, where the students watching were definitely routing for Brazil over Switzerland. It was a very relaxed weekend full of good beer and good futbol.
Raven K 