Let's Explore: PRAGUE (Spring Break Part 2)

After training it back to Zurich, we hopped on our flight to Prague (with an hour layover in Germany).

We got to Prague and all had been going too surprising smooth, and that was about to change.

It was around 9:00PM and after finally finding our way to the hostel we began to check in. As Sara is filling out the check in form, the guy says, "Oh, wait." Now, I was not sure what was going to happen but it didn't sound promising. He told us the door to our room had just broken so he was going to move us to one of the sister hostels a few blocks away. Shit happens so with a smile we grabbed our bags and headed over to the other hostel. We get there and tell the reception that they just sent us here because the door broke and the guy looks so confused. He starts mumbling some swear words and then says that he is fully book and calls 2 different managers to figure out what's going on. As we're standing there just kind of hanging out and talking to him waiting for the manager to call back, we told him we were studying abroad in Spain and he was from Peru, so we talked to him in Spanish and he was really impress. Finally, he told us that we had to move to a different hostel another few blocks away. And at this point I was getting a little frustrated, so I requested a discount for dealing with all of this hassle. He gave us 10% off and if I wasn't so hungry and exhausted I would have argued for more, but I was just ready to eat and then crawl into a bed. So, we walk and walk and finally find our new hostel. The guy at reception at our third and final hostel destination was the most useless hostel person I have met. He looked like (and said) that he just woke up, as he was wearing pajamas, yawning and not being the least bit helpful as all we said we wanted was to find an open restaurant (as it was 10:30 PM now). He told us everything was closed, which we refused to believe. After we tried to quietly put our stuff in the lockers in our room (because in our 8 person room, everyone was asleep...) we then and headed out to find a Thai restaurant across the street that was open until 11PM, and it was soooo good. So we ate and then went straight to bed.

The next morning we tried out the free breakfast that our hostel offered--which was gross. So we went out to find something ourselves. Since it was Easter week, there were a bunch of Easter markets out selling all types of crafts and traditional Czech foods, which made it so easy to try just about everything by the end of our time there. There was also a small petting zoo! The first food we tried was a pastry called Tredlnik, which is a hollow bread/cinnamon type treat!

We then decided to go on a free walking tour, which I absolutely loved! Our tour guide's name was Diana and she was from born in the Czech Republic but moved to Australia when she was 3 years old. She then came back to Prague for a vacation when she was in her 20s and met a guy, married him and ended up staying!

On our tour I learned so much about Prague and Czech history! First, the Astronomical Clock. It's this huge broken looking clock in Old Town Square. It was the first and most amazing clock like this in its time many years ago. Someone from the government didn't want there to be another one created anywhere else in the world, so he gashed out the eyes and cut off the tongue of the man who built the clock. Well, the creator was still alive and wanted to get revenge. So, one night he went up the clock tower and threw himself into the gears of the clock-which stopped the clock from working. Many years later, someone was able to fix the clock so now on the hour it strikes and there is about a minute of noises that go off and statues that move. Diana said it's the second most over-rated tourist attraction in the world.

We went to a famous concert hall and Diana told us another interesting story. On top of the concert hall there are 12 statues of famous composers. One of the composers was Jewish and during the Nazi Reign one of the Nazis wanted the Jewish statue removed but he didn't know which one was the Jew. So, he did the typical racist thing to do and picked the one with the biggest nose and cut it down. However, after taking the statue down he learned that that was the wrong statue, and it was actually one of Hitler's favorite composers (Karma!) So, the Jewish composer still remains atop the building.

We also toured around the Jewish Quarter, which originally had walls built around it, but were torn down once someone new in power realized how ridiculous that wad. We saw a bunch of the Synagogues including the oldest in Europe. After seeing so many Cathedrals in my time in Europe, I wanted to take a tour of the Synagogues the next day, but since it was Passover all of the Synagogues were closed. We learned that the only reason that Hitler didn't burn down the Synagogues was because Prague was his favorite city and he wanted to use the Synagogues there as museums for the "extinct race." How terrible.

Another interesting fact I learned was that during the time of corruption and communism, when someone did something in the government that others didn't agree with, they would throw that person out the window. This act was called Defenestration. This term was started in Prague when 7 town officials were thrown out of the windows of the Prague Castle, which sparked the 30 Years War.

Last fun facts, the Czech Republic invented Sugar cubes! Which we definitely had lots of during our time there! For Easter, the Czech have a very strange tradition. The women all decorate eggs with extremely intricate designs-- like they carve eggs!! The men use small whips that are braided with twigs/branches and ribbons. The men go to their girlfriends/wives/ lovers place on Easter and whip them. Then the women present them with the egg they have decorated and give them shots of a traditional Czech alcohol. So the women get whipped, and the men get beautiful eggs and to get drunk the rest of the day... hmm. Doesn't seem like the fairest tradition, but wow were there a lot of eggs and whips being sold in the markets!

After our tour we went back to the Easter markets and tried out some more Czech foods. We tried this potato chips on a stick type thing and it was fantastic! We then headed over to the John Lennon Wall-- when I told my friend this he said "I thought John Lennon was a musician, not a construction builder!"
HAHA, well this is a wall with a lot of Graffiti on it, stencils of John Lennon's face and happy quotes, so I of course loved it! There was also a guy standing by the wall playing some Beatles music which definitely added to the experience.

We then went back to Old Town Square to climb the clock tower which gave us some great views of the city of Prague! After that quick excursion we went to a local restaurant which had tradition czech food. Unfortunately, Czech food is mostly meat...like every single type of meat you could imagine. but, their is a traditional Czech dish that just consists of fried cheese...so I of course got that, which Sara tried out some mystery meat which she really liked! We shared some apple strudel for dessert, which was great!

That night Sara would turn 21, so we decided to go on the city Pub Crawl which ended up being a blast! And we rung in Sara's birthday in true Prague party style!

The next day we went into the square to try out some more foods from the market. We tried a fried cheese thing which neither of us liked...so then I got a potato pancake, which was alright, and Sara had a potato and sausage and sour krout type thing which she liked.

We then did a walking tour of the castle district which is on the other side of the river. It was a good tour but we definitely enjoyed the one the day before a bit more. I learned that the reason the castle district is lit up so beautifully at night is because of McJagger. McJagger came to Prague for one of his concerts and when he was meeting with the President the next day he said something like, "You've got such beautiful castles, why don't you light them up at night?" The president said he didn't have enough money to finance the project, so McJagger paid for everything!!

We saw some of the buildings where a lot of Nazi planning took place and some building that looked completely normal but used to be torture chambers. We also went to St. Viators Cathedral, which was supposed to be closed because of Easter, but it was actually open so we got to peak inside, and it was beautiful!

We learned that there is very little security around the castle district. The president doesn't live in the castle, it's just his office and he drives to work everyday, like everyone else. We didn't actually go inside the castles and when we asked why we weren't going inside, he said it was because there is actually nothing inside the castles. The Swedish people store everything!

We then got a snack and took a little adventure down the river to see this random modern building that is designed to look warped. It was on a bunch of post cards so we figured we should probably go "czech" it out! ;)

We then went out for MEXICAN food for Sara's birthday dinner and met up with some of our friends from Sevilla that had just arrived to Prague. The Margaritas, guac and quesadillas really hit the spot!

We then chilled at our hostel for a bit and talked with some of roomies, a Canadian couple that was living in Vienna.

We then went out again for Sara's birthday but not too late because we had a 5:30 AM train to catch to go to Budapest!!

Overall, the trip was very educational! See, mom and dad, I am learning things!! Although it was a bit chilly during our time there, the beautiful castles and brightly colored buildings lit everything up for me! Now I get to CZECH Prague off my list! (You would not believe the amount of times I used that pun)

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Theeee Astronomical Clock!