I know I'm horrible at updating these kind of things...I always have been. But there's really not too much going on in good ol' Konstanz. A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to take a 6 day trip to Prague with my friend Jenni which was the best week of my life!

I have never fell in love with a city before. I've been to San Fransisco and Milan and always thought 'ok, this is a city, and it's beautiful.' But for some reason I instantly fell in love with Prague! It had everything - culture, amazing architecture everywhere you look, a beautiful river that flows right through it, and of course it didn't hurt that it was much cheaper than Germany! We had the time of our lives...

We took the train which was an experience in itself. I traveled on a train to Milan with my mom, but it wasn't a 12 hour ride like this was. Our train was set to leave Konstanz at 5 in the morning. The day before we realized that the bus doesn't run that early in the morning and started to wonder how we would get to the bahnhof (it is about a 30 minute walk and taxi's are ridiculously expensive). Since we are both poor little girls we opted for walking...which Konstanz is a really safe town but it was still pretty funny - 2 girls walking down the streets of Konstanz at 4 in the morning carrying all their luggage. We made it to the Bahnhof and got on our train...but we couldn't relax. We had to switch trains around 6 or 7 times throughout the day. At about the 2nd train switch...we thought we had enough time to get to our other train without running so we strolled to the gate we were supposed to be at and watched our train take off. Wonderful!! An eventful 13 hours of train riding ended with the site of Prague - we ended up getting into town around 6 in the evening.

A guy named Petr that lives in Prague is best friends with Jenni's ex boyfriend so he came to the banhof to pick us up and we were able to stay at his and his mom's apartment which was amazing! They had a loft in the center of town and him and his mom couldn't have been more hospitable. The first night we were there Petr took us to this park that overlooks all of Prague...it was a site to see! We went to a pub to get a quick beer (which Petr talked about how good Czech beer is and it's absolutely not - it's good don't get me wrong - just nothing on German beer) and then we called it a night.

Petr either had work or school in the mornings so Jenni and I were on our own until early afternoon so the next morning we got up early and decided to go to the Prague castle. First we went up to the park to see the view during the day and it was even more breath taking. Then we attempted to get to the castle. It was only a 20 minute walk but somehow it took us an hour to find it. Normally when it's in one direction you can simply walk in that direction and get there...not with Prague. One road would take you up a hill into the park and then not let you out. Another road would lead you down to a bridge. Nevertheless, we finally found it! We didn't have much time there but it was gorgeous. It's on a hill higher than the rest of the city so walking up to it you see an amazing view of Prague. Then there is almost a little town of itself you walk into...the castle itself we never went into because it was mostly museums but we made it into the church by the castle. No matter how many churches I go into, they never stop taking my breath away!

After meeting up with Petr we got our own personal tour through Prague. There was so much to see we could have stayed there for weeks! Throughout the next 4 days all we did was site see. Everyday we did anywhere from 5-10 hours of walking! We thought it was great but then justified our daily stops at the bakery with how much walking we had done the previous day. We went into multiple churches - all mind blowing! We spent hours in the inner city going into shops and buying souvenirs. We also visited the Charles bridge and different sites on that side of town. It was amazing you would go to one part of town and then walk 20 minutes and be in a different part and it would have a completely different feel to it!

On the 3rd day we were there we woke up at 5 in the morning again to get to the Prague castle by 7. We had no idea of this before we arrived, but when we got to Prague Petr asked if we wanted to go see President Obama speak at Prague castle because he was coming into town for a speech. We picked a nice week to be there, I guess! After a couple hours of waiting and going through security, we made it inside and Obama spoke at about 10:30. I'm not one of those die hard Obama fans that thinks he's going to save the world, but I must say it was really cool to be in Prague...at the Prague freaking castle...watching our President speak. I definitely would never have that kind of opportunity back home.

After that we got a traditional Czech lunch and it was awesome!! I'm not a huge fan of their beer, but man they have good food. We got beef in a sauce that was dark but Petr said it was mostly skim milk (sounds weird - but TASTY!) And then of course it came with dumplings! Yum yum.

Things I didn't like about Prague:
NOTHING!
Well that's a lie...I hate Czech trains. But that's not really a hit on Prague as much as a hit on Czech as a whole. Czech trains are horrible....they are old and nasty and they stink. It was amazing how we knew we crossed the border from Czech to Germany simply by switching trains and getting off of a piece of crap Czech train onto a nice German one.

Things I love about Prague:
EVERYTHING!
Their bakeries
Their food
The culture and buildings
The shopping
The big city but small town feel (Prague is huge but you always feel like you are in a smaller town - it just has that nice feel to it...not to mention you can pretty much walk everywhere.)
The bridges, river, churches, castles, tunnels, towers, history!!!

I am a little biased, though. If we wouldn't have had Petr to walk us around and show us everything and the history behind it all, we wouldn't have had nearly as amazing of a time! It seriously made our trip to have a nice (free!) place to stay, someone that spoke Czech, and someone that knew where everything was and the story behind it. Thanks Petr!!

It's trips like these that make being away from home almost worth it ;)

Now that I'm back in Konstanz, things are back to normal. School starts in 2 days which feels unreal! But that also means that Kenny gets here in a week which is EVEN MORE UNREAL! I think seeing him will be even better than Prague! :)

We are going to Paris for a couple days, then we'll be back in Konstanz, and then we're going to another town in Germany called Karlsruhe. YEY! I'm really excited, too, because the weather in Konstanz has been really nice. We've actually had a few sunny, warm, beautiful days since I've been back from Prague! And within a couple of days everything pretty much exploded and there are flowers everywhere and the trees have blossomed. It's gorgeous and now I know what people were talking about with Konstanz in the summer!

Ciao!

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Part of the trip: Study Abroad Germany

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