Prague, July 7

This morning I got up early to pack so I would not be bothered by it later in the day.  By about noon, Alexandra and I took off to meet Charles and Martin at the Palladium shopping mall, where Charles was looking for sunglasses, shoes, and a bow tie.  Unfortunately, he was not able to find anything to suit him.  While there, and since the temperatures were working their way to the high 80s, I treated everyone to ice cream.  Afterwards, we took a combination of tram and subway to the Galerie Pavilion, where we looked at contemporary decorative art objects, furniture, rugs, chairs, etc., wonderfully and elegantly displayed in a space that looked like an updated arrivals hall of a train station.  While there, Charles got some information about a coffee set he was looking for, and, after a pick-me-up of water or cappuccinos, we went to a ceramics store and Charles found the coffee set he wanted.  I even founded some gorgeous mugs with a kind of Art Nouveau border, and bought two of them.  Then we headed over the Charles Bridge towards Indian Jewel, where we had eaten before, and ordered various dishes we all shared--Alexandra had mixed vegetable korma; Martin had chicken tikka, Charles had lamb saag, and I had mixed vegetable biryani.  Before we got there, we stopped at a glass shop, but the rain clouds were lowering, so we hoofed it quickly to Indian Jewel.  After dinner, and as we stepped outside, it began to rain so hard that the wind gusted down sideways, and lightning was immediately answered by thunder.  We remained within an arch until the rain subsided, then said goodbye to Charles and Martin and walked home.  Dempsey greeted us, and we had a cup of tea and fruit.  Next we are going to watch the film "French Kiss" before going to bed.  After all, we have a 3:15 a.m. Wakeup call tomorrow, with the taxi arriving at 4:30.  This will therefore be my next to last blog for this travel segment.  What a time we have had!  Goodbye, beautiful Prague!