It's how much? That's it?!

Charles Bridge
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We arrived in Prague at 11:00 at night and I am not going to lie, Prague is pretty sketchy at night. We had no czech krones and all of the exchanges were closed and there was not an ATM to be seen inside the train station. I had directions on how to get to the hostel but first we had to find the tram stop. We found it and were looking at all the different trams that stop there and looking at my directions and we find that the tram route we are supposed to take is under construction and has been rerouted. Just what we needed. Luckily for Rachael and I a Czech man stopped to help us. He pointed us to an ATM, and helped us get a cab. We were told straight off to never just get into a cab without first asking the price, because apparently Czech cabbies have been known to rip tourists off (the brit boys we met payed 1000 Kc for a taxi from the airport, I payed around 400 Kc). The cab driver assured the man that the ride would be no more than 120 Kc. ($1=22Kc) because it was so cheap we figured our hostel must be extremely close. 10 minutes and only 100 Kc later we found ourselves right in front of our hostel. Nice.

The view
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The next day we decided to go and explore Charles Bridge and Prague Castle. Walking along the river was amazing. All of the buildings were beautiful and on a hill on the other side of the river you could see the top spires of St Vitus' Cathedral, which is in the Prague Castle "compound".  There were painters along the river walk, and the closer we got to Charles Bridge the more there were of them. Charles Bridge was neat with all the statues. We noticed on particular statue with a bronze plate depicting a dog on it. Everyone was petting the dog, so we did too. I really have no idea what it meant, but I am figuring it was for good luck.

St Vitus Cathedral
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We finally made it up to Prague Castle after walking up a big hill. It had a guardsman out from who was not allowed to react and it was fun to watch people trying to get him to do something. Inside Prague Castle, we went through a few museums depicting the history and use of the Caste, St Vitus Cathedral, St George Basilica. We walked down Golden Alley, which is name for all of the alchemists who used to live there. We went to the Tower/Dudgeon and saw all of the torture devices.  It was great. After all of that we wandered back down to the old city and wandered around just taking it all in. We went to the Old Jewish Cemetery and looked around. That night we went out with a few Brits we met from our hostel, they were really fun. We went to the biggest night club in Europe. It was huge! It was 5 stories and each floor was differently themed. Rachael and I found the hip-hop room and stayed there dancing all night. (you have no idea how sick we are of eurotrash techno)

Beautiful stained glass
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The next day we went to the Old Town Square. There we looked at the Old City Hall and Astronomical Clock (we watched it chime) and we walked through the outdoor market that was set up. We went to St. Nicholas's Cathedral. It was the most beautiful church I have ever been in. There is a gorgeous chandelier. We went to Tyn Church. After going through the square and doing a little bit of shopping we decided we had earned a traditional czech lunch. Let me just say right now that of everywhere I went over the trip czech food was my favorite. Rachael and I had a few glasses of wine, an appetizer of crispy bread with czech blue cheese, it was amazing! and hearty portions of dumplings, sauerkraut, and pork loin for our meals. All of this was around $10 each, tip included! Gotta love that they are not on the Euro till 2009.  We didn't really see anything specific for the rest of the the time and the next day Rachael and I went our separate ways, she got back on a train to Prague to meet our friend Allysha. I took a plane to Geneva to meet three friends from Iowa State who I finished out the trip with.