We arrived in Prague Friday afternoon and with Friday being Unofficial St. Patricks day (as they celebrate it at U of I), our fist stop was to buy tequila and vodka.
We stayed at The Little Quarter Hostel which was the nicest hostel yet. There was a common room with foosball and a sitting area, our own bathroom and tub with a common
bathroom and showers as well.
After settling in, we began our Unofficial in Prague, starting with tequila. We made
our roommate (who was traveling from Japan) take a shot before he left as well.
Before we went to meet up with friends, we went to Bohemia Bagels. I got a Sesame seed bagel
and cream cheese. It hit the spot since we had not eating all day.
On our way to
the city center, we stopped at the Lennon Wall, a famous wall dedicated to John
Lennon in the 1980’s. It was used for anyone to write lyrics or graffiti
anything related to John Lennon. Today its mostly just signatures and lots of
colorful graffiti but our favorite spot was where it said “peace.” There was
also a guy singing and playing Beatles songs with guitar. It was such a
tranquil place and the wall gave off a peaceful aura.
After meeting up with the rest of the group
we ended up getting a burrito as well, since they looked so delicious and
nothing say Prague like burrito’s and bagel’s…. not but hey, we’re just American’s
doing what we do best.
To be honest the rest of the night was blurry but we ended up
doing a Pub Crawl and from what I remember it was amazingly fun! Lots of absinth
shots, went to four different pubs, Mary Lisa and I took a nap at one of them…
and to finish we ended at a five story club that is the biggest in Europe.
Exciting right? It was a great first day in Prague and one of the best
Unofficial’s
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| Five story club |
The next morning we started by getting Starbucks. I know our
streak so far has been nothing but normal American food, but I promise we make
up for it later… and you have no idea how much you miss this stuff after a few
months.
Anyways, I was adventurous at Starbucks and got a toffeenut
latte – hands down the best latte EVER. Thank you Prague. Oh and did I mention
how I feel in love with this city once getting off the plane? It is hands down the
best city yet. Five gold stars and two thumbs up for this one.
So we started getting cultured as we headed toward the city center
for a tour. We passed a little shop called Old Traditional Goodies which sells Trdelnik, a Czech pastry. They make
it by wrapping the pastry dough around a huge metal rolling pin looking thing
and then remove so the middle is hollow. I unfortunately did not get one, but
the other girls has cinnamon trdelink with nutella inside. It looks better than
it sounds and probably tastes even better too.
We make it to our tour just in time and our tour guide was
Ashley, who was from Australia and moved to Prague after falling in love with a
Czechoslovakian woman. I know it’s a
beautiful love story, but most importantly he was the coolest tour guide ever.
We started at the astronomical clock, the famous tourist
attraction in Prague. Every hour there is a little show where the rooster bops
around, the characters around the edges move a bit and the blue doors and the
top open and close. According to Ashley it is overrated, but the clock itself
is a masterpiece. It was first installed in the early 1400’s making it the
oldest astronomical clock still working. It was pretty cool how much you can
figure out from the clock like the constellations, where the moon is in the sky
and its lunar phase, sunrise and sunset, etc.
Our next stop was old town square, just behind the
astronomical clock. Old Town Square is the coolest square! Better than any
piazza in Italy. It was surrounded by tons of famous, and incredible
architectural buildings. One of the most beautiful was the Týn
Church. It had these crazy spires on top of its towers (very gothic looking). I
think this design is what made Prague so unique because a lot of the buildings
had them and it really stood out from the normal rooftops. We ended up going
into the Týn
Church later that day. Although we could not take pictures, trust me when I say
it was the most beautiful church I have ever seen.
Next we went to The Rudolfinum, which is a music auditorium
that was right off the Vltava river. It is apart of the Charles University.
Near by was the Charles Bridge, which is this huge bridge, crossing the river
and used to be the only bridge over the river until the early 1900’s. Our
hostel was on the other side of the bridge from the old town part of Prague, so
we crossed it quite frequently throughout our stay.
We then saw a lot of other famous monuments such as the Prague Metronome, Franz Kafka monument, controversial statue by David Cerny, In Utero. You can actually enter the statue by the door underneath and it was made so adults can remember what it was like to be in the womb. Racquel struck a nice pose in front of it.
We then took a break and went to the Bake shop, it had so many sweets and breads! Since I gave up chocolate for lent (a tradition of mine) I had to settle for something chocolate-less so I got the next best thing… a peanut butter cookie.
Our next stop was to Church of St. James where there is a legend of a theft whose arm was cut off when trying to steal from the Virgin Mary statue. The theft was apparently grabbed by the statue and left there to hang until the priest came the next morning and had to cut off the theft's arm. Ashley made us act out the scene
before seeing the church. And I was nominated as acting as the theft which of
course was the main part. As an ameture actress in my first role, I think I
played it pretty well.
Went into this church later and it was very gorgeours…
although the thefts arm was still hanging and it was quite a site to see.
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| The Theft's arm! |
Next stop was to New Town. There was a lot of modern architecture. This is the tower that separates the New Town and Old Town
of Prague.
Right next to it is a restaurant that can be seen in the
movie “XXX” with Vin Disel. Ashley was telling us how Vin Disel is seen in the
window of this restaurant and then runs out the door and into a street in
Poland.. hmmm.
Then we went into a plaza, that was more like a boulevard. It was used for a lot of protests when Czech Republic was trying to become its own
country.
And I spotted Mcjagger walking around the boulevard.
Looks just like him right?
We ended at the place where Mozart played and conducted. Prague
people loved him there unlike any other
country he visited.. until after he died
and many year laster of course
Afterwards, we grab a quick lunch. Jordyn and I split a
Kielbasa sausage and also got hot wine. I was not a huge fan of the hot wine,
since it had a lemon-y taste to it, but it was good to have some traditional
Czech cuisine.
Then we went up into the astronomical clock to the top of
the tower, which over looked the city. The view was breath taking!
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| Live music in the Old Town Square - birds eye view |
From the clock tower, we did a little souvenir shopping and
found some really cool stuff. They had a ton of Marionettes and Russian nesting
dolls, Bohemian glass and lots of artwork. I bought a canvas from this kiosk on
the Charles Bridge of the Lennon wall when it was first created. And with my
love for The Beatles, I had to splurge a bit on this, obviously. Along the
bridge we stopped at a popular statue lining the bridge. Ashley told us about
it on the tour. One was of the Crucifix, which you can touch and will guarantee
a return to Prague. Guess ill be back again!
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| Walking across Charles Bridge |
There was even a man playing Didgeridoos!
Our next stop was to the Lennon wall and although we stopped
there on Friday afternoon we wanted to go back for more pictures with the rest
of our group. We spent over an hour hanging out with all 14 of us from the
Verona program that visited Prague that weekend. It was such a fun afternoon!
From the wall, we went to get dinner at a restaurant that
Ashley recommended to us earlier that day called Krcma. No idea how to pronounce
that, but we knew it had to have some delicious Czech food. I ordered the
smelly beer cheese appetizer to split with Mary and Lisa and it was amazing! So
amazing that I didn’t even have time to snap a picture of it before it was
gone. But it basically looked like mozzerlla sticks in a round shape, topped
with some cranberry jam. For an entrée I ordered the beef goulash, which is a
typical dish in Czech. It looks pretty nasty from the picture, but it was very
good. I’m not a huge beef-eater – well any red meat at that – but the potato
pancakes and sourdough bread were both very yummy. I also had some Pilsner beer
to wash down the grub and called it a day.
One of the most inconvenient parts of visiting the Czech
Republic was the money exchange. We had to get the crowns or “koruna” to pay
with and the conversion was very complicated. 1 euro was about 27 crowns, so
everything was priced with large numbers. Our dinner check came out to 2329 for
our group… with ended up being a pretty cheap dinner after the conversion. My half-liter
beer was only 2 euro, not too shabby.
The rest of the night was pretty relaxing. We stopped at a
British bar near Old Town Square that had live music. I had Aspall cider beer,
which was really good. I wanted to try “tank beer” or “tankovna” which
apparently very popular in Czech Republic. It is beer that comes straight from
tank and is unpasteurized and unfiltered so the second it hits your glass is
literally the first second it is exposed to air. It also wont make you bloat as
quickly as normal beer… definite plus. I guess I will just have to get it when
I go back.
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| Prague Castle at night |
The next day we headed home to Verona. An amazing weekend
sadly came to an end. I will always be such a huge fan of Prague and recommend
it to anyone looking for a unique city to visit. A weekend was almost too short
but we made the best of our stay. Until next time, Prauge!
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