Prague

Ah, Prague.  My favorite city so far.  Thomas and I decided that how much we like each city is largely determined by the weather and the hostel we stay in.  We got lucky on both in Prague.  We got our first real days of sunshine.  The hostel was nice, super central, served a good breakfast, and we shared an 8 person bunk room with only one other Aussie. He was crazy.  It was also nice because Prague was super cheap.  Beer is less expensive than water, which is awesome.  

Well start with the food and drinks.  In the states, when you go to a bar, you have choices for what kind of beer you want on draught.  Here, the bars are sponsored by beer companies and they usually only serve one or two kinds of beer.  In Prague, it's Pilsner Urquell.  Not bad, not great, just a solid lighter beer.  We also had Absinthe again because we were informed that we drank it incorrectly in Berlin.  Appearantly, the correct way to drink it involves a water dropper.  You are served a glass with a shot of absinthe, and a case of water drips over a sugar cube suspended over your glass by a spoon.  Then you sip the drink rather than shoot it.  Quite intricate.  But, I have to say I enjoyed this method better. Still no green fairy, but it was an enjoyable buzz.

The food was also very good.  I would almost compare it to american comfort food or like southern home style cooking.  The class meal has a piece of pork, dumplins, sour kraut, and bread all smothered in gravy.  I also had some potato pancakes.

The sights.  We did a free walking tour of the city which was super convenient.  We got a good history lesson of the city and saw most of the major attractions.  In summary, Prague used to be full of Jews up until the war.  But Hitler wanted Prague to be the arts capital of Europe because of the beautiful architecture, so he spared the city.  Then it was occupied by the Austrians, and now it's the Czech Republic. Enough of that.

Metronome symbolizing the clockwork of communism or something like that.

Astronomical clock that does a big production every hour.

Statue of Franz Kafka.  I didn't realize I knew who this was until our guide said he wrote the metamorphosis, which we read in school.  That book was so weird. It's about a guy who turns into a cockroach.  But I guess being weird is the essence of being Kafkaesk. 

  

The cathedral of the Prague Castle.  Super beautiful and impressive architecture in this city.

 

The Charles bridge, which is full of performers, artists, venders, gothic and religious statues, homeless people, tourists, etc.

I don't know what it's called but it's the Prague version of the eiffle tower.  299 steps, we counted. 

And a nice view of the city from the top of the tower.

  

The nightlife: we did another pub crawl which was fun.  The only problem is that as we get further east, the pub crawls are getting a little more clubby/ravey which isn't exactly what Thomas and I like.  But it was still fun.  We hung out with a group of Chilean guys and german girls.  I had no idea I would be speaking Spanish in Prague...

Also, we met up with our old friend, Chris who now studies architecture in Prague.  The program he's in is super hands on and they do a lot of projects which involve proposals and actually building structures in the city.  He's doing really well.  It was nice to see him after five years.

We also made some new friends...

We're are the train to Innsbruck, Austria now where we're going to attempt to ski.  Ttfn.

-RO