Prague Leprechauns

Upon our arrival in Prague we went out to Cěrný Vůl and took a nap, then went into the city to the main square Staroměstské Nám.

A surreal sight greeted us: a heaving sea of emerald green- (and sometimes flag-) attired young men. That evening Ireland was playing the Czech Republic in a qualifying soccer match for Euro 2008.

Peter, Nora and Jason decamped to a cafe serving strong Turkish coffee, and I wandered through the Irish crowd. The good-natured slightly drunk young men took me back a dozen years to nostalgic memories of my bartending days in Cork City. Though the Czech police were keeping watch there didn't seem to be any trouble beyond the occasional drink accidentally knocked over.

The Irish fans sang songs, kicked plastic soccer balls around and generally had a good time. They were just happy to be there, with a great atmosphere and no malice in mind. Contrastingly, I doubt I would ever choose to walk through a similar crowd of English soccer fans... Though Ireland lost 0-1 to the Czechs, quashing their hopes of advancing in the tournament, we didn't hear any reports of subsequent bad behaviour.

New Blog

Rather than cluttering up this blog with talk about technology, I've started another - Testing Testing - http://baobabtech.blogspot.com/ - where I can indulge my inner geek and post away to my heart's content about technology and photographic technique (or lack thereof!). I've been playing with the new Nikkor 18 - 200 mm lens, so there's already material for the photo-geeks in the audience.

Though we haven't been posting much about our travels since China, there are subsequent pictures from Cambridge and elsewhere on Images Across The Earth - http://baobabgallery.blogspot.com/. We are off to Prague soon, and I'll ask Peter to provide his usual witty reports.