Remember when we went to the Czech Republic? Feb 24-28

Remember when I said Paris was my favorite city that I’ve visited?  Well, I lied.  Prague definitely takes the cake on that one.  I swear, the whole time I felt like I was in a Disney princess movie or something.  Minus bearing the cold (it was below 0 centigrade), Lauren, Kelly, Audrey and I had the time of our lives.

We arrived in Prague in the afternoon, wondering why in the world we EVER left the gorgeous 65 degree weather in Granada to freeze in the Czech Republic.  After checking into the hostel, we got information about a free walking tour which was starting shortly, so we decided to take advantage of it to get acquainted with the city a bit.  We found many problems with the public transportation in Czech right away.  First, you can’t buy bus tickets on the actual bus, you have to buy them ahead of time at unidentified stores (which from the reception desk we figured out was a tobacco store right down the street from the hostel).  Secondly, the tobacco store conveniently closes RIGHT in the middle of the day for who knows what reason.  So, we started the short hike to the city center or “Old Town.”  There we met our tour guide, James, who was from Ireland and incredibly difficult to listen to because his humor was HORRIBLE and I felt like he had no idea what he was talking about half the time.  I tried to not let it bother me because the views of the city and the things we were seeing were breathtaking!  We saw churches, the Jewish ghetto, and many other historical places in Prague.  After 3 hours of touring our toes were literally numb so we decided to head to the grocery store to make something for dinner (our hostel had a kitchen we could use which was very convenient.)  We bought some things that looked edible (no one spoke a word of Czech and the directions weren’t in English or Spanish) and cooked dinner before we went out.  Two of my friends from high school, Tim and Scott, were also in Prague for the weekend so we decided to meet up with them.  We headed to Kralovy Lazny, supposedly one of the biggest clubs in Europe, to meet up.  The club was pretty sweet; it had 5 floors with all different “themes” of music but wasn’t too busy because it was only a Thursday night.  When we decided to call it quits, we agreed on taking a cab home.  Weird thing #3497 about Prague: you bargain for your cab price otherwise they’ll usually rip you off if they start the meter when you get in (especially because we all screamed tourist).  Thankfully we got home safely, although I’m pretty sure our cab driver thought we were racing in the Indy 500.

Timmy, Scottie and I

Streets of Praga

Being so exhausted from traveling on Thursday, we agreed to sleep in on Friday morning and that we did.  When we finally rolled out of bed around 12:30, we headed to Old Town again to meet up with another tour; this time of the largest castle in Europe!  We ended up meeting two guys, Neil and Craig, from Tampa on our tour on Thursday so they met up with us as well.  Our tour guide was the cutest (in a “I wanna pinch your cheeks” way) guy from Czech who’s famous saying was an enthusiastic “Let’s Go!” after each stop we made along the tour.  Although we never actually went inside the castle, we were able to learn about all the buildings and history on the castle grounds.  Since the castle was all the way up on a large hill (which yes indeed we CLIMBED… Kelly wouldn’t let me take a taxi) we also got amazing views of the city during the entire tour.  By the time we got back to Old Town again, it was pushing 6:00 and we wanted to be ready for a famous international pub crawl that we were told by other people on our program in Granada to try.  We cooked dinner quickly again and headed out for round #2 in Prague.  We had the time of our lives on the pub crawl, mainly because the group we were with.  Craig and Neil ended up meeting up with us along the way and we got to know people from all around the world, some being stage 5 clingers and others pretty cool to talk to.  I’d say one of the funnier parts was having Italian boys try and communicate with us and Kelly politely telling them it wasn’t going to work out if we couldn’t understand a word each other was saying.  They didn’t understand that either, but finally got the hint when we walked away (I think?).  Our last stop was Kralovy Lazny again where we were loving on the 90’s music style floor until the early morning.  When we decided to leave we bargained with this old man for a cab ride even cheaper than the night before.  He must have been desperate for some business but knew he wasn’t profiting very much so he decided to go probably triple the speed limit to get us home.  I’m pretty sure he saw Audrey covering her face in the front seat in horror because he laughed and said “crazy cab!”  The fun ended right down the street from our hostel when we saw the familiar red and blue lights in the rear-view mirror… YES, OUR CAB GOT PULLED OVER IN PRAGUE.  The cab driver didn’t even seem fazed by what just happened, he accepted his ticket and we were on our way.  Although we were all slightly nervous about getting pulled over, we got a second wind when we got back to the hostel and were obnoxious, oops.  We got “yelled” at a few times by some of our fellow hostel-stayers and it was all eyes on us the next morning when we headed to breakfast.  Sorry I’m not sorry for having fun!

View from the castle at dusk

On Saturday we did more of the typical touristy things, but this time without a quirky tour guide!  We headed first to the St. Charles bridge which was PACKED with people.  Thankfully we were all smart about our purses and kept a good eye on them because a gypsy tried to steal from Audrey!  She stuck her hand in Audrey’s purse and Audrey smacked her hand away, shut her purse and then pushed the lady backwards.  The gypsy wasn’t able to take anything but it definitely gave us a wake-up call to be even more attentive.  On the bridge, there’s a famous statue that people rub for good luck.  We sought it out and waited for the mass of people to take their turn and make their “wish”… we were the obnoxious ones that had to take 90 pictures in front of it.  After spending a little more time on the bridge, we headed to the John Lennon Wall… a famous tourist sight and tribute to the Beatles’ singer John Lennon.  The wall is covered in graffiti, lyrics, sayings, etc, to commemorate John Lennon.  We all took our turn and signed the wall to say we visited.  It was cool to see all the things that people had written.  Lauren and I even found some fellow Kappa Delta’s who had written our open motto on the wall “Ta Kala Diokomen” which means let us strive for that which is honorable, beautiful, and highest.  We overheard English (which sounds weird to say, but seriously in foreign countries it’s the most comforting feeling) and ended up meeting girls who were studying in Seville, Spain.  One of them went to high school with Lauren (at Stevenson) and another knew my friend Reid from his high school (Fenwick).  Such a small world!  After the wall, we hiked back up to the castle to see the famous Toy Museum within the castle walls.  My favorite part of the museum was the Barbie exhibit which featured generations of Barbies; how she began, her “family”, Ken, etc.  The most interesting part was probably all the clothes she had in the different decades and the things that didn’t even make it to shelves.  Strangely enough, all the way in Prague, there was a Fighting Illini Barbie – yes, representing U of I!  How crazy right?  We were too lazy to make dinner after our long day, so we stumbled upon a little Italian restaurant and decided to try it out.  Although the dinner literally took 2 hours, the food was delicious and very fresh; definitely worth our long wait!

Leaving my mark on the John Lennon Wall

The bridge

good luck!

Lauren was reading Kelly’s “Let’s Go Europe” travel guide and found information on bobsledding in Prague.  At first we didn’t think she was serious, but then we all thought what the heck?  and made that our priority for Sunday afternoon.  The track was just outside the city of Prague said the website so we got there anticipating an ice/snow covered track (anyone see Cool Runnings on the Disney channel!?).  False.  It was nothing more than a metal track with these little carts to sit on (I think I was more relieved than anything, I didn’t know how we were going to manage actual bobsledding) and we gave it a try.  It was actually pretty fun, and once again, the track wove through a small hill and had a really nice view of the city.  We got some homemade pizza from the clubhouse and ate lunch overlooking the city.  On our way back to Old Town square we got the crazy sensation to get our ears pierced.  I know, random, but we wanted to do something to remember Prague and all of us had talked before about getting our cartilage pierced.  We found a piercing place in the center of the city and all decided to be spontaneous and go for it.  Before you freak out (my mother is probably hyperventilating right now) it a) doesn’t look bad b) I could have gotten a tattoo of the Prague flag on my calf (much worse) c) I can take it out at any time and my ear will be back to normal.  Soooooooo we did it.  Now how cool is it to say I got my ear pierced in Prague right?  I thought so too.  Haha.  Since we were planning on leaving pretty early the next morning, we made it a low-key night and hung out at our hostel with our very interesting roommates.  Why does this always happen to us?  Let me explain…

My new piercing - ouch

Bobsledding

We did actually have a few normal roommates; 2 guys our age from Paris (who took a liking to Audrey HAHA) and a couple in their 20’s from Germany.  Crazy roommate #1 was a weird man, yes man, from Transylvania who had supposedly locked himself out of his apartment and needed a place to stay.  One night, that story makes sense.  But 3 nights?  Umm do you not have a landlord or a spare key?  Sketchy story to me.  Needless to say he told us he’s from “where the vampires come from” but “don’t worry, I won’t suck your blood tonight it’s not a full moon.”   Promising.

Crazy roommate #2 was a guy from Boston who I swear had to be on drugs 98% of the time.  A normal conversation with him made ZERO sense and literally jumped from topic to topic in the blink of an eye.  No joke one minute we were talking about him getting dual citizenship in Czech (?) and the next minute he was telling us to learn a new language on Rosetta Stone, except we could probably get cheaper books from the bookstores here if we really tried because they get discounts so it would be in our best interest to look into them..blah blah blah blah.  We tried to hold our laughter in as best as possible and as soon as he shut that door to leave the room we were all peeing our pants.  Why would he leave the room you ask?  To sit on the internet and eat entire jars of pickles at a time.  This is no joke.

Overall, I don’t think I stopped laughing one time when I was in Prague.  It could have been the group I was with or the crazy adventures we had, but I’m assuming it’s my favorite place so far because of how truly gorgeous the city was.  It’s unique in its own way and definitely one of the coolest places I’ve been thus far.

My updated city ranking would have to be: Prague, Paris, Sevilla, London, Madrid after this weekend!  Heading to Dublin, Ireland on Friday for my last trip for a LONG time, thankfully.  Although I love traveling to all these new places I can’t wait to explore my home in Granada a little more because I haven’t seen half the things I want to yet.  When I get back from Dublin I hope to update this with pictures of the house I’m staying in, my walk to school, and a lot of the places I’ve mentioned around here.   It’s been 2 months already, I think it’s about time : )

Famous atronomical clock