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Went to Praha for a couple days. The night before we went to Stammtisch and went back to the apartments kinda late. We took a cab but the driver was really cool and liked how we knew German and was living there so he didnt charge us the full price and refused to take tip. He was awesome. I did a quick pack and went to bed.

Woke up 3 1/2hrs later to make it to the train station. We got on the train and made our way to Prague. We had our own compartment for most of the ride, except for the beginning there was only other guy but he was sleeping and got off at the next stop. We got into Prague and found the hostel and everything. We went out and saw the Kafka museum but it was "closed" although the guidebook and sign said it was open for another hour... We then walked down the Charles bridge and met a Bulgarian at the tourist shop. I got a patch for my bag and he told us that Bulgaria is really safe and how great it is there. He then quizzed Joelle over US history saying only dates. Such as, "1943" and we were all confused... he said that was when Pearl Harbor happened.... yeah.... anyway we walked to the castle which has an amazing huge church (St. Vitus Cathedral). We then later went to the museum of communism. It was interesting but I was a little let down. We ended the night by going to the Pivovarsky Dum where they have a sampler of beers you can taste. They bring out 10 tiny glasses of different beers and we all shared a sampler and got food. I got a tradition dinner with Bavarian dumplings. There wasn't much room in the place so we sat next to a couple. We ended getting to talking to them and found out they are from Sweeden and later after the meal, asked if we wanted to go to a bar. We walked down and found a bar that actually was close to the hostel. We shared some drinks and said we should go to Stockholm and they would take us around, they even ended up paying for our drinks! They were amazing people.

The next day we did a 4hr walking tour of the city. We met at the national museum in front of the horsemen statue and we walked all around Prague, alot of the places we saw the previous day but the tour guide explained alot of interesting things. We saw where a scene of Mission Impossible took place, where the first president of Czech Rep. made a speech (after the cold war), talked about the Velvet Revolution (the revolution that kicked out the Soviets). We saw Kafka's birthplace, Astronomical Clock , Old town, Charles Bridge (had some czech sausage here and amazing cake at a cafe), Metronome (giant metronome at the sight where the largest statue of Stalin once stood (until he was found out to be a criminal)), the old new Jewish synagogue, Jewish cemetery, Jewish sector, dancing house, and walked down the "Golden Lane" and the changing of the gaurd. There was soem good people on the tour and a couple from Amsterdam said we could stay at their place if we were in town, however, there was a couple fake n' bakes from California there and I wanted to strangle them. We proceeded to make fun of how they talked and how they let out in a burst of overjoy and had the reaction of someone who found an oasis in the middle of the desert when they found a Starbucks.

We went back to the hostel and got ready to go back to Wenceslas Square for a pub crawl. We met some other Americans (a group from Michigan teaching english at Heidleberg) and some Brits. We went to a couple bars and was served a tradition Czech dinner. I chose the Gulash and dumplings. We then went to abar where some of us had our first shots of absinth. It wasnt as bad as I thought it might be and it was interesting seeing the waitress light it on fire. The tour guide was alot of fun and really funny, making alot of innuendo's to one of the British girls (she happened to be "that" girl, ie the really drunk one because her friend didnt drink so she drank twice as much). We then later went to an Irish pub with a group of people, A canadian, 3 brits, and a russian. The Canadian had trouble staying up and passed out and the russian bought us all drinks. The McDonalds is open "non-stop" and we got some food and I ordered in German and they understood perfectly well. When we walked out we ran into our tour guide again, which was strange but cool. Some of us were tired so they went back but the British girl and I weren't tired so we went to a bar and talked and such and she invited me to come up to England and she'd show me around her city and that so I might have a place to go/stay in England. I walked her back to her hotel and then I made my way back to the hostel.

We met some great people in this city and it was a great time. The architecture was amazing and the streets and sidewalks were all cobble stone which was nice, maybe not practical or comfortable with walking all day but nice.

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