Day 12-16_Prague

Dianna, Emily, and me
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First Day in Prague!

Emily, Dianna, and I got into Prague around 1:30.  We took the bus and metro to our hostel to find out we had made a mistake when we booked it, and they didn't have room for us that night.  Luckily, the receptionist was really nice and let us use their phone and internet to find another place.  It was Easter weekend, so finding a place was not an easy task.

Our first night we went out to eat at a place recommended by the receptionist at our hotel.  The food was so good..and a lot cheaper than Italy!  I had a big salad with chicken, tomatoes, and peppers in a "Hawaiian sauce".  For dessert we split hot raspberries and vanilla ice cream!  After our nice dinner, we were excited to have a good night's sleep.

Charles bridge, early in the morning
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Second Day in Prague!

Our day started with breakfast at our hotel.  There's a little restaurant underneath it, which is a cute little place with a bar.  We had cereal, bread and jam.  Then, we went to the train station to go ahead and by our ticket.  We got into one line and I heard the guy in front of us asking in English how to get the train schedule.  So we followed him to another line.  We got a schedule in that line and then started talking to him.  He was from New York and came to visit his girlfriend in Prague and travel (but they broke up!..so he was traveling elsewhere).  We ended up exchanging e-mails with him so he could contact us when he came to Krakow. (A few weeks later he came with one of his friends and we all took him to a party).

In front of the museum on Wencelas Square
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After getting our train ticket, we met at Wenceslas Square for a tour of the city (with the yellow umbrella tours).  Our tour guide, Evan, was crazy.  He was entertaining and knew a lot about the city.  The tour was nice because it gave us a good overview of the city.  The most interesting things we learned:  The Russian army in 1968 thought the National Museum on Wencelas Square was a government building, so they shot at it with machine guns; the Jewish Quarter was not destroyed by Hitler during WWII because he wanted it to remain as a sort of museum after all the Jewish people were killed; The Czech president's office is at the Prague Castle and they have a flag up to show when he's there; Prague used to be surrounded by fortification walls (which I think is like most European cities).

Wencelas Square
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That night we had dinner at a random Chinese restaurant we found.  One thing that was interesting about it was the English menu items were more expensive than the Czech menu.  So we figured out what the stuff was on the Czech menu and ordered from there...haha.  After dinner and a stop by our hotel to get warmer jackets, we went back into the city for a ghost tour, which happened to be by Evan again (since it was Easter weekend, we had taken over most of the tours).  The ghost tour was entertaining but not as good as the city tour. (We got it free though because you can buy 2 tours and get one free..our other tour..pub tour..)

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Third Day in Prague!

After breakfast, we went into town and went to the Mucha Museum.  Mucha was a famous art nouveau artist in the late 1800s/early 1900s.  His work was beautiful.  It reminds me a lot of stuff we looked at in graphic design.

Then, we went into a couple buildings our tour guide had pointed out to us.  He also told us about this little park that's tucked away behind some buildings.  After that and some shopping, we ate lunch from vendors..Prague has some tasty food!  Dianna and I split a bratwurst.  Then, I got this yummy thing which was dough wrapped around a rolling pin thing, rolled in sugar, and then roasted (yes, roasted).  It was soo good!  Soon after we found another place on the street with all different kinds of fruit dipped in chocolate.  I got an apple dipped in chocolate..yum.  For dinner that night we ate at an Italian restaurant, had pasta and beer!

Jewish cemetery
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Fourth Day in Prague!

Easter in Prague!  We got up early and went to take pictures on the Charles bridge so there wouldn't be people all over it.  We saw a lot of people walking around with Easter baskets on their way to church.  It was fun watching all the people and we were trying to guess what they do with the baskets.  We went to one of the churches that had a lot of people outside so we watched their little service.  They had their baskets out in front of them, some with a candle lit inside, as the Priest walked through and splashed people with water and sang.  Then he went to the gate and as people left painted a cross on their forehead with holy water.

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Easter night we spent at a pub crawl, with Evan again!  It was fun because he took us to three pubs where we had a beer at each, and dinner at the second one.  We met some really cool people on the pub crawl.  We were the youngest ones, most were probably upper 20s-30s, and then there were two people from England that were 60ish.

Fifth Day in Prague!

We woke up and decided to get on an earlier train back to Krakow.  So after breakfast and some time hanging out at the hotel (we had tv..so we watched a little cnn and soccer), we went into town.  We hung out, had more chocolate fruit, and then went to the train station.  The train ride was a lot of fun, and we were ready to get back to Krakow after a long trip!