Sunday, January 25, 2004
Look at the Bones!
For our weekend getaway, we took the train to Kutna Hora... to look at the bones.
After looking at all those bones we got hungry so hiked a few kilometers
into Kutna Hora proper for some lunch. But it was just as dead.
We did find a decent open restaurant, though, which is good because otherwise we may have frozen solid before we made it back to the train. We were guessing around -10 degrees. (Today on our way to the castle it felt a few degrees warmer and proved to be -8 degrees, so it may have been more like -12.) We also met a couple of cool Kiwis at the station (who are also coincidentally in one of the photos above--can you guess which one?), and later met up with them for dinner on Wenceslas Square.
By coincidence, we ended up walking into the same place Clare* and I had gone a couple of weeks ago. At first we thought this was a bonus, since we knew the food was good, the prices reasonable, and the service fair...
The food was good, and the prices reasonable (despite a small panic when we all realized the menu we had ordered from didn't have prices--we'd been there before and were getting the same thing so hadn't thought to look)... But when the bill came, it had two successive 10% "servis" charges added to it (totaling 21%). We asked what they were, and the waitress was very curt and just said this is the bill! We didn't whip out money in a hurry, and while we were collectively scratching our heads over the bill, the other guy working the place came over with a bill fold to collect our money. We asked again what's this with the servis charges? He explained a couple of times, in something between feigned earnestness, threatening annoyance, and politeness "it's 5% per person" (there were four of us).
Now, I may be no wizz at restaurant arithmetic, but I live and breath percentages as a conceptual tool and I almost spewed my pomeranchovy juice at this one. Fortunately there was still some active dialog going on so I regained composure before blurting out anything I might have regretted--a moment later Clare* mentioned that we had been there before and paid no such charge, and as if somehow this transition made perfect sense he said "oh, you've been here before, didn't pay service charge? Ok, then just pay this" [indicating the portion before either servis charge]. So we politely paid the price for the dinner and even a fair tip and said goodbye politely in Czech on the way out. Fuckwads.
We all eventually meandered down to the Globe for some more of those great hot chocolates, and discovered when the bill came they had gone up 25% in price in the last two weeks.
If I come to Czech again, Prague will not be on my itinerary.