Prague

This last weekend Kathleen, Erin, and myself ventured to Prague. Tenessa went to Amsterdam to meet her mom. Her mom is going to Africa for two weeks and just happened to be in Amsterdam for the weekend so it worked out perfect for her to go and see her and get a computer!!!

We left Barcelona on Friday afternoon and our flight was delayed an hour which sucked, but once we landed in Prague we caught a taxi and headed to our hostel. This was our first real hostel experience and it was actually really good. The hostel was very clean, super safe, and the staff was real nice. They gave us breakfast and a sandwhich to go for lunch. After we checked into out hostel we went to go meet the guy named Matt. He is Sean Shoemakers friends cousin and he works at at bike tour/ beer tasting / pub crawl place. We met him at his shop, he got us all sorts of maps and helped us plan out our trip while we were there. It was already like 5 on friday and our flight home was pretty early on Sunday so we really only had saturday. He recommended that Friday we go out to a nice dinner and then go to a few of his favorite bars and check out this crazy wild club. After meeting with him we walked into the old town square. It is so cute. It has all these little shops selling souvenirs and food. We got this thing that is kinda like a crepe but its made out of like donut stuff. So its a giant flat donut then covered in Nutella. SOOO GOOD! After that we went back to the hostel to freshen up for dinner and then headed out. He recommended this restaurant called Cafe Louvre. It was super nice and served Czech cuisine and the best part of all is that it was super cheap. I think my meal came to 150 something crowns which equals about 10 euro. 25 crowns equal 1 euro and 18 crowns eual 1 american dollar so it was super cheap there. After dinner we headed to this bar he recommended. You walk in and it seems super small but as you head back there are all these little rooms and then you can keep heading down and you just wind through this bar. Its all underground and kinda looks like you are in a cave, it was really cool. After staying there for alittle bit we headed out to the club called Cross Club. He told us that it will be a crazy experience, that this building wouldnt be legal in the US and just to go and sit and take everything in. So that is exactly what we did. We had some trouble finding it, but once we got there it was crazy. The outside it made out of all these metal parts. It looks like something that Edward Scissor hands would live in. Then you get inside and it has all these metal parts all over the walls, and like what looks like the inside of a computer or tv or something. That is how the decorated the walls and they would light up and stuff. It was crazy. Everyone in Prague are hippies who love techno and dance like crazy people. So we just kinda sat around and watched everyone. It was rather entertaining hah.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed out to the Prague Castle. Jen´s friend Meagan studied abroad in Prague and I emailed her before we left and she recommended some places to go. Once place was this bagel shop called Bohemium Bagels and it was so good. I have really been missing bagels and cream cheese and it was a refreshing tast of home. We walked across the Charles Bridge which was really cool and then wounded our way up the hill to the castle. From up there, there is the greatest views of the city. It was crazy! In the middle of the castle they built a cathedral so we went into that since it was free and that was also really neat. Most of the Gothic cathedrals we go into are very dark on the inside, but this one was super bright and really inviting. We walked around up there for a little bit and then started to head back because we were going on a bike tour at 2:30 with Matts company. On our way back we stopped at Old Prague Square again and I got my first hot dog while abroad. And it was inside a baguette which made it even better. After gettng some food we went to the bike shop. We were suppose to do a bike tour in Barcelona at the beginning of our program but we had some troubles getting out of bed so we didnt really know what to expect, but it was awesome. They took us all over the city and would stop and talk about places, so instead of just seeing these places we were actually learning something. My favorite place was probably the John Lennon wall. It was awesome. Its a huge wall in the middle of the all the embassys just covered in graffetti. Our tour guide brought a pen so we got to write on the wall! There is also this little bridge that is covered in locks and you are suppose to come with your love and lock your love to the bridge and then through the key into the river to show that you will always be locked to them. After the bike tour, we got mexican food, another first timer here abroad. It was definatly not like mexican food back home. After that we got ready to go out for the night. Saturday we decided to give his pub crawl a chance and it was actually really fun and we met some great people on it.

Sunday morning out cab was coming to get us at 11:30 and check out time was 10 so just walked around for a bit, got some more food from Old Prague Square (this time we got potatoes that were kinda mashed but kinda not, and mine had like ham and cabbage aka sourkraut my fav!! it was sooo good also everything there was great ha) and then got some postcrds and such. We headed back to the hostel got our cab and went to the airport. We werent completly sure what time our flight was at we just knew it was at 2 sometime. Well it wasnt til 2:45 and we got there at 11:45 so we were a little early, but its better to be safe than sorry! It was a long time to wait but thats okay

All in all I had an amazing weekend in Prague. I had no idea what to expect. I was told that it was cheap and fun and it was that and so much more. This weekend we are heading off to Seville, Spain with our program. It says its suppose to rain everyday but i´m really hoping that is wrong! Pray for good weather!