Praha, Czech Republic
Our first full day in Eastern Europe!
This morning I woke up around 8:30. After a shower and packing up my stuff, we all (still accompanied by our new friend Angelic) headed for our new hostel (which we researched on hostelworld.com). To get there we had to go back to the main station and get metro passes (which we later found to be entirely unnecessary as people just hop on and off of the metro and no one ever checks tickets).
Our new hostel is located a little bit closer to the city center. To get to our room we had to climb over 6 floors of stairs. Which, with a large pack, is very tiring. We were all settled into our new room by about 11:30. After saying hi to our roommates, (some girls from California) our little foursome decided to do some sightseeing.
Our first stop was old town. We checked out the Tyn Church and the Astronomical Clock. The church was super cool. It looks like an old Disney castle. I kept waiting for a dragon to fly by. In fact, all of the buildings in this city are quite old (I guess none of it was damaged during WWII) and it makes it extremely cool to walk around. The Astronomical Clock was enormous and every hour religious figures cruise by the windows. Every time it draws a large crowd.
From there, we walked the cobblestone streets to Praha Castle. As you enter the castle gates, there are soldiers that don’t really do anything but look cool. The castle was neat but the best part was the attached cathedral and its huge spires. We paid a small entry fee and got to go to the top of the spires. We had to climb more than 300 stairs! It was exhausting but, in the end, it was well worth it. We got an amazing view of the entire city.
After trekking back down the stairs, we headed toward the river (the city is divided in half by the Vltava river) and made our way to Charles Bridge. It is a very old bridge with a tower on each end. The entire bridge was filled with people and musicians playing instruments. We tried to go up one of the towers but turned away when we learned we had to pay a fee.
From there we wondered back toward our hostel. We got lost several times and got off at the wrong metro stop twice. Still, it was fun and we got to see parts of the city we usually wouldn’t.
After resting for a while we decided to drink a few beers and then check (or should I say Czech – hehehe – just one of my many corny jokes involving the country name) out the Czech bars. We rounded up a crew consisting of our Californian roommates (Alison and Kenna) and some German girls (no idea of their names) and headed to a small place near our hostel. Once they kicked us out, we headed to another spot close by. While there, I had a shot of absinth and it was the worst thing I have ever tasted. As soon as B tried his, he puked it back up. On the way home, we stopped at McDonalds for a late night snack. For all those who were wondering, McDonalds in the Czech Republic sell beer!
PS – For all you Borat (from the Ali-G show) fans, I learned the coolest thing ever today: Jen Qui (no idea how you spell it) means thank you here!
1 comment:
Jen qui for the blog Sean! Sounds like you are having a good time.
Hey, force your new friends, Angelic, Alison, and Kenna to buy Stupendous on iTunes. I would say that would really enhance their travels/life.
I LOVE that McDonalds has beer. What I want to know is, can you just order a large drink and then go to the soda fountain? Then you are like, "Hmmm, Coke?, Sprite? Diet Coke?, ah yes...BEER! Supersize me bitches!"
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