Alex and I arrived in Prague Tuesday evening. We had originally booked a 12+ bed hostel room, but when we saw ours, we decided to upgrade to a double room. The room in our hostel had 20 beds, and there were another 20 beds in an adjacent room, all connected by a common kitchen and a door which led out to the main hallway. The beds had no privacy (most hostels have curtains you can pull around the bunks), and the room was gross. The double room was much better, and only cost us a small amount more per night. It was totally worth it.
After checking in at the hostel and getting our room squared away, we went out for dinner at a cute restaurant near our hostel. Then, we walked around for a little while before getting settled and going to bed. Although we didn't do much, I've learned that traveling takes a lot out of you, even if you are just sitting on a train all day.
Wednesday morning we woke up early to get ready, eat breakfast, and then catch a free tour that left from the Old Town Square at 11:00 am. We arrived to the tour just in time. We also managed to stumble upon another random festival, this time it was for the Czech police forces. They had a stage set up, a band, lots of informational tents, and even a herd of baton twirlers! There was also a helicopter that was flying around Prague with a mysterious suitcase-looking thing for most of the morning. It was really odd.
Our tour took us all over Prague to see many different things. We were able to see all of the sights in the Old Town Square, including an old astronomical clock that does a dance every hour, and a church with two steeples (one smaller and one larger) to represent Adam and Eve (the towers are also named after them). Something random that I learned while we were at the clock is that apparently there are only 366 names that you are allowed to name your children if you live in the Czech Republic. Each name has a day associated with it, and on your name day you are expected to take all of your friends out and treat them to drinks! After this, we walked farther into the city, where we saw a theatre where Mozart premiered many of his most famous works. Apparently he loved playing in Prague because he felt that the people appreciated his music. We also saw a statue of Franz Kaftka, a famous Jewish writer from Prague. It is a statue of him riding on a man with no body or head and just a suit. Apparently Kaftka dreamt this one night, and this is where the inspiration for the statue came from. This statue marked the entrance to the Jewish quarter, which is where we went next. We were able to see the oldest practicing synagogue in Europe, along with the exterior of a building that houses a memorial to the Holocaust. Inside the names of each and every Czech Jew that was killed are painted on the walls (over 84,000). They also have drawings on display that were created by children who lived in the concentration camps.
The tour ended at Charles Bridge, the most famous bridge in Prague. Alex and I crossed the bridge and headed to the John Lennon wall, an attraction that many of our friends had told us about. The John Lennon wall is basically a wall in the city that you are allowed to graffiti and it is a tribute to John Lennon's life and values. There is a giant peace sign painted on it that says IMAGINE along with a faux gravestone with Lennon's face on it, many Lennons hiding throughout the wall, as well as lots of Beatles' lyrics. You are able to sign the wall, which I did, and overall it was just a really cool place. After visiting that, we ate lunch in a cafe behind the wall where I had a delicious chicken caesar salad and some chocolate mousse. Yummy.
Once we finished up lunch, we walked along the river to a giant metronome that the city had built where a statue of Stalin had once stood when the city was controlled by Communism. The metronome supposedly represents the time that the city lost to Communism, but there are many different theories as to what it means (the creator never revealed its meaning). The metronome stands up on a hilltop which has a beautiful view of the city. Alex and I walked up to the top and just enjoyed the view (Prague is a beautiful city, especially from above). The top of the hill was also apparently the cool place to hang out for middle-school skaters, as there were tons of skateboarding and breakdancing (yes, breakdancing) kids hanging out up there. Totally random.
We left the hilltop to have some dinner before heading out to a pub crawl we had heard about during the day. We had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and then headed to the first pub. Alex and I decided to try absinthe, which turned out to just be really potent alcohol and doesn't make you hallucinate like the stories suggest (or maybe we just didn't drink enough to hallucinate. Who knows). We then headed out to a couple of bars with the crawl, but got bored and decided to go home early. Many of the other crawls that we had been on had over 100 people on them, but this one only had about 15 people, so it was just small and kindof awkward. Plus, most of the people were creepers. Fun times.
Thursday morning we slept in a little bit and went out to get breakfast instead of eating it at the hostel. We went to a delicious bagel shop and had bacon, egg, and cheese bagels. I haven't had a good bagel since I've been in the United States, so I was really excited about this. Unfortunately, my wisdom teeth began to give me a migraine, so we went back to the hostel for a bit so I could lie down, and a few hours later we managed to start exploring again. We started off by seeing the astronomical clock go off (totally overrated) and then headed across the river to Prague Castle. This required us walking through a different part of the city that we had been in before, and it was really quite beautiful. We also accidentally stumbled upon the Czech State building which had really pretty gardens. We decided to explore for a bit, and the garden was full of really funny statues. Alex and I decided to play the "imitate the statue" game and take pictures, and when we found the perfect statue, we had to try to balance the camera on self-timer. The statue was of a man standing triumphantly and an mean little dog standing beneath his legs growling menacingly. Alex was going to be the man and I was going to be the dog, and we set everything up, and everything seemed to go well, but my camera decided to not self-focus. So, we tried again, but we got kicked out of the garden by Czech police because it was closing. Epic fail. After this, we headed to the castle which was stunning. The castle had a mix between modern and medieval architecture (apparently it's a big joke in Prague that Czechs never like to finish their buildings, and they just continue to add to them indefinitely). We finished walking through the castle's grounds and then found a little vineyard in the side of the mountain that the castle stood on. There was a really nice view of Prague from here. It even rivaled the view from the Communist metronome. We sat and enjoyed the view for awhile before heading back down to the city center.
Once we got down the mountain, we went on a wild goose chase for this really cool museum/pub place that we had been told about. We got really lost and ended up trying to find a really cool brewery that we had been told about which ended up actually being a sketchy bar full of old, fat Czech men. So, we walked back towards our hostel and finally found somewhere to eat dinner (most of the restaurants were really packed) at a Mexican style restaurant. After dinner we headed back to the hostel, packed our suitcases as best we could, and tried to sleep as best we could (we had acquired some new hostel neighbors who were really loud and rude and were up for practically the whole night causing a ruckus. Ugh.)
Now I am (you guessed it!) on a train again on my way to Berlin, Germany. We will be there for three nights as well. Only an hour and a half left to go - I can't wait to arrive!
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