Hey guys,
Once again a busy week at school with two tests so I didn't have too much time to write until now, but here was the synopsis on last weekend in Prague.
Kris and I took a night train (with slightly more comfortable seats than usual) on Friday last week and got into Prague around 10:30am. We managed to get the usual city metro/tram passes and found our way to the Hostel we had booked. The place we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard with a full bar and lounge area for reception which really fit to the "college kid traveling through town" atmosphere. We had a provided breakfast there around 11 and then headed into the Old Town to find a tour of the city. We were planning on doing a New Europe tour which are supposed to be very good, but unfortunately their English speaking guide was sick, so we had to find a different company. We ended up going with a local guide who owned her own company and honestly, I wish the other dude hadn't been sick. Our replacement guide spoke moderately (I'm being nice here) good English and had a decent knowledge of the city's history since she had grown up there. We walked around the Old Town and saw the famous astronomical clock, the remnants of the destroyed town hall where the resistance met during WW II and some other cool sites. After the tour was finished around 4pm, we stopped at a local restaurant for food and drinks. We were able to splurge a little bit this weekend because everything is ridiculously inexpensive compared to most foreign currencies. For example, we each had three beers and a full entree plus and extra side for about 10 euros per person (which by Czech standards is a massive meal). We then headed back to the room to change clothes and prepare for Saturday night.
For our Saturday night, we bought tickets to go on 'The Prague Pub Crawl' which was the biggest pub crawl in town, by far! There were around 250 people signed up for the night total, so they split us up into three groups. We went in the second group with some other GTL kids we ran into on the walking tour and had an hour of unlimited drinks at the Pub Crawl Bar followed by a crawl to two different bars, each with a welcome shot (literally the worst vodka I've ever had. I should have just thrown it away and done them a favor) followed by music and dancing at each place. Kris and I had a couple more beers in the night, but nothing too crazy meanwhile everyone around us was going berserk! We ended the night at the biggest club in Central Europe called 'Karlovy Lazny'. This place has five stories of bars, dancing, and loud music with a different theme on each floor. The basement was a typical modern age club with a light up floor and a bar, the first floor was the Ice Bar (which I wish I had the money to get into, but we didn't have free entry to that part) and a Lazer room (the only way I know how to describe it) with all sorts of colored lazers and light decorations shooting around the room. Moving on up, the second floor was an oldies dance club with an even bigger light up floor and plenty of retro decorations everywhere while the third floor was a hip hop club with a bar surrounding a dancing pit with a ceiling of LED lights that flowed over us in coordinated colors and patterns. The fourth floor (I guess this is five and the basement counts as one) was a chill bar area with some slightly less loud music playing and plenty of chairs and couches to lounge out on. Needless to say it was the biggest club I've ever been to and it was crazy fun!
Sunday was the day Kris and I decided to just walk around the city on our own and do some shopping. We first took the tram across the river from the Old Town to see the area we hadn't been to yet. We visited St. Nicholas Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire which was around 70 meters of stairs. We got some great views of the city and learned the history of how the tower was used by the Communist regime to spy on the locals as well as diplomats and politicians who stayed in town. (Creepy right?) We also read some history about the construction of the tower and how the bell was moved into place. My favorite paragraph I read had a hilarious joke in it about how they got the boys of the town to remember the momentous occasion: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QvGvFb0Al37K_bVVRIvRztMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
We then walked across the historic St. Charles Bridge where we browsed through souveneirs, and listened to the local 'Bridge Band' and listened to a couple of songs. They have some songs and performances on YouTube if you want to look them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedRtvynJLU&feature=related).
We then went souvenir shopping at some local stores and noticed that the Bohemians are famous for their glass work. All the shops we went into were astounding and if I could afford anything in there I probably would have jumped on it. Instead I got a nice half liter ceramic beer mug that was rather cheap and looks awesome. I'll have to show it off when I get back haha. We also passed one of the few tourist traps that I let myself fall into... A LEGO MUSEUM! Kris and I couldn't help but reach back to our childhood as we walked through the multi-story musuem with over 2,000 models of many ages of lego sets. Including many of the ones we build as kids! We almost weren't able to leave the top floor solely dedicated to Star Wars models but we finally made it out of there. For the full synopsis of the place check out the ridiculous amount of pictures I took on my Picasa page.
We then walked around and found another place to grab food that was once again really cheap. I had an amazing breaded chicken breast and potato dumplings with assorted veggies and a nice beer to wash it down for the low price of about six euros. The rest of the night wasn't too exciting except for the umteenth Irish Bar we ran into that had 35 Czech Crowns for a large beer, and 50 Crown Jagerbombs. I couldn't resist! but then we called it a night after not too long and got a full night's sleep before taking the bus/train combination 15 hour ride back on Monday. The ride back never seems to work out the way you want it to.
Heading off to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow!
-Brian
