Prague! The Fairytale City!

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Getting there...
Welp the bus ride took a total of 12 hours. We drove through Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic. We left the Santa Novella bus station around 9 pm. We met the Bus2Alps leaders between platforms 8 and 9... I felt as though I was going to Hogwarts or something, especially on the bus! I stayed awake for the first half... the only way I can really put into words what I saw out the window was it was like driving through a fairytale or movie... not real life. I'd be sitting there and all of a sudden I look out to a huge mountain, curvy roads and castles lit up in the mountain tops. There were little villages along the way of the mountain pass. I fell asleep after our first stop around 5 hours into the ride. When I woke up I woke up to lots of open land and trees. We finally got in to our hostel the Czech Inn around 9 am Friday morning then met for a walking tour at 10:45 am.

The first tour...
We walked around the city for about 3 hours. We took the tram and metro, their main ways of transportation. We saw many WWII sites, including the Jewish ghettos where people were taken from and a memorial site. We got a good view of the Charles bridge from the water front and the castle. We ended up eating lunch in Old Town, one of their centers with Bohemian architecture. The big clock is located in this center and every hour there is a little puppet show (kinda like a coco clock) and a guy who plays the trumpet at the top. At lunch figuring out their money system was nearly impossible! The Czech use crowns so taking our money from the ATM I got 2 bills that said "1000" woooo I was rich! but not really because its only around 80-100 USD. So with that said splitting up the bill with 1000 and 2000 paper crowns was a bit interesting to say the least. I had onion soup and a ham appetizer as my meal.. I made it into a ham sandwich. The girls and I got Radlers for beer which is Sprite and beer... worse "beer" I've ever had. Make a mental note to never order it! Leah started to get tired and claimed she saw a "giraffe" our the window and on that note we took the subway back to the Inn which was really clean... you go down an escalator that seems like a million feet down into the ground... its like that huge subway underground in DC.

The Pub Crawl...
We left at 8pm, the first stop was the basement of a church. It was lit by candle light and christmas lights. There were several different rooms with pews. There was people playing beer pong and flip cup. Only 1 bar and it was all the way in the back, we got open bar for 2 hours. The next bar I got a pina colada and started to get really hungary because I didn't eat dinner (rookie mistake). So about an hour into it my guide, Austin, found me a pizza place and took me to it. There Katie, Kristin and I mowed 2 slices one of spinach the 2nd of cheese. It was greattttt. The third bar had a ton of stairs...Katie, Kristin and I didn't end up staying too long there we were pretty tired and went back before going to the last site, Roxy which was where Euro trip was filmed. Overall it was a fantastic night!

The Castle and Eiffel Tower looking structure tour....(Day 2)
The first site we saw was the Charles Bridge. It was a wide bridge with tons of statues down the entire walk. The second site was the John Lennon wall. I didn't really know what to expect... I thought there was going to be a massive picture of John but there wasn't just a bunch of graffiti and Beatles quotes. There was also a wall of locks which symbolize people who "lock up their love." We then moved on down near the river where I climbed a tree and when I got down found a dead bird. EW! Then we went on a hike. We climbed to the top of the Cathedral in the Castle and thought we had the best view.... until we hiked our way up a mountain near the Eiffle Tower Structure and had a view of the entire city. It was breath taking (litearlly, by the end of the climb) and was sooo worth it! I worked up such an appetite I got a hotdog at the top!

The Beer Hall
Best decision EVER! We followed our guides and ate lunch with them. The hostess took us to a huge room with tons of seats and a little stage where a guy played the accordion. It was an authenic Czech experience. We got the group lunch which consisted of a stout beer was I actually like considering I don't like dark beer, potato soup which they served in a goblet like bowl in the center of the table, I got the golash with dumplings (actually soft bread like slices) which I was skeptical but it was the best lunch I had there, and to top it all off was an apple strudel.

80/90s Dance Club
Best club everrrr. They had a huge screen which played the music video to the song that was playing and other smaller tvs around the entire club. It was so much fun to dance and even sit up on the balcony people watch or sing along! My favorites were MJ songs, the Spice girls, and Tina Turner. Grease was also fun to dance along too! On the way home we got Czech sausage as our late night snack. It was HUGE!

The way home was more like a winter wonderland... it was snowing when we left. I was hoping to see the castles in the day light but it was dark by the time we go through them. It was still amazing to relax and just look up at the stars and the sites along the way. I even spotted Orian's belt in the sky on the way home! The trip to Prague was actually the first time I remember seeing the moon since I've been over here. I haven't really noticed it being in Florence. This really sums up my trip, Prague was awesome! So pretty, so much architecture and life to the city. The language is extremely hard... I developed a strong love for my home in Florence.

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