Ahhh, Prague

So for the long 4 day weekend, our group decided to go to Prague. Unfortunately, Eric did not join us as he was looking for an apartment in Berlin where he will be studying this fall. But on Wednesday night Kim, Michelle, Doug, Mike, and I headed out from the Frankfurt train station to Prague. We actually had started out the evening watching the Germany game, which they won, and it made the ride interesting because there were some Germans that didn't cease celebrating the entire 9 hour trip to Prague (they even were celebrating once we got off the train in Prague). But at around 8 AM we got into Prague and found our hostel after thankfully not too much wandering. We then found some much needed food at a creperie close to our hostel in a beautiful courtyard.
We then got on our walking shoes and started seeing the city. It didn't take long for us to realize that wherever you go in Prague, it is amazingly beautiful as each of the buildings is a work of art (Mike commented that if just one of these buildings was in Pittsburg, where he's from, it would be one of the main attractions of the city, and here, they're lined up one right after another). It was really tragic to think that had it not been for the WWII bombing raids that literally demolished every city in Germany save a couple due to odd exceptions (I've heard of one so far that was too close to Switzerland to risk bombing it), then the major German cities would probably look close to the same. But we marveled around and came across a building where they were advertising an amazing line-up of classic music that was being played that evening, and Doug and I got tickets for the show. We then headed towards Prague's town square and chilled at an Italian restaurant and enjoyed the view. Probably my favorite part of Prague square was this gigantic, dark statue in the middle to it. It was interesting because in the middle of all of its beauty, the statues on each of the buildings and the large statues found in some places had a very dark and sinister feeling which gave a somewhat sureal feeling as it was juxtaposed with the bright building colors and the busy crowds of tourists.
Here's another example of a dark statue, which I though looked like a Nazgul :)After Prague square, we headed around and saw some Jewish cathedrals (didn't go in as that cost quite a bit). We then made it over to a Bohemian restaurant. It's pretty sweet because in the Czech Republic, they list the weight of the food on the menu, so we decided to go for the biggest bang for your buck and ended up with a couple mounds of meat and veggies to share. Ended up that most everyone got full quick, so I enjoyed cleaning up everyone's plates. Yumm.
After that, we then headed to the Charles bridge. We found a cool palace on the way.
With a cool statue.And here's a pic of the Prague castle (on the hill) from the bridge.Doug and I then headed back to the orchestra place while the others went out with Mike's friend Jan, who interns with Mike, is from Prague, and was there for the weekend. It was interesting, because after going to the orchestra, I found out that if you really want to make a living (probably a small one) from playing an orchestra instrument but aren't good enough to make it into one of the respectable city orchestras back in the US, then come to Prague! While we had been walking around I noticed that there were actually many of these orchestra concerts featuring all of the most well know classical songs, which meant that none of them were probably that special (I'm sure the actual Prague Symphony Orchestra is good) and that Prague is actually a city full of orchestra scams (which seems really odd). But yeah, the concert I went to basically sucked. They played all songs that anyone who listens to classical music knows, and since I recongnized them all, I was also able to recognize how off they had played each of them. But we hadn't waisted too much money, and Doug and I chilled on our hostel room's balcony for the remainder of the evening.
The next day, we started out heading to Prague castle which is up on a hill across the river from the "downtown" of Prague. It was extremely beautiful, and had a sweet cathedral in the middle of it. Here's the entrance to the castle.
And here's the cathedral.
We also saw this eerie wall from on top of the hill.
We then headed down a beautiful path on the hill right beside a city wall that was ornamented with huge yellow umbrellas (which ended up being little touristy stands, but were really pretty from above!). We made it over to a little cafe which was below the palace gardens.And found a sweet tree that had huge leaves!I saw one leaf that was the biggest, and unfortunately when I jumped to grab it, the entire branch came off, so we quickly walked off with everyone's eyes at our backs :-/
We then met up with Jan and his about 10 other friends that had all come to visit for the weekend (I guess he was part of some study program and everyone had met up for a reunion) and had lunch at a restaurant. That night, we went out with Jan and the troops to a couple of bars. The first one was pretty boring, and we started to realize that some of Jan's company was pretty lame. Jan himself is awesome! He's about 6'8", can fit most normal people's heads in his hand, and is really fun. However, we started refering to some of his companions as the manatees as they just kinda just floated around never really doing anything special, and then also due to physical similarities. But then at the second bar, the manatees stayed away, and we enjoyed some absinthe and a bucket of mojito. Then at about 1, the bartender dimmed the lights, cranked the techno (good ol' DJ Tiesto), and then juggled flaming bottles and did a bunch of other sweet fire tricks. After awhile we wandered home in the rain and called it a night.
The next morning, we found a good Italian place for our breakfast, and were amazed at our first actually good service (compared to the annoying, what-the-hell-do-you-want? attitude that most servers had at all other places. We actually found out from Jan that it was because anyone who can't get a job anywhere else becomes a server (its normal not to tip much, otherwise it might be more desirable of a job) and they can have that attitude because of the massive numbers of tourists who only need to eat there once)! So we left a good tip and then did some shopping. Latter that day, we got some wine and watched the Czech game on the big screen on Prague square. After their unfortunate loss, we watched some Czechs sing with a random bum who started dancing for them and then headed to a bar with Jan and the manatees. We soon left to watch the American game on the square and laughed again at how terribly we played.
That night was open-museum night, so we headed to the museum of natural history. It was a nice museum, and it was funny because they actually had a manatee there! Then, that night we found a 80's/90's disco, and had a great time! We found out that Doug was quite a dancer and all enjoyed some classic American music.
The next day was finally Sunday, so we spent the day doing some shopping that everyone had been meaning to do (all I bought was more food, but I did think about getting stuff). We then watched the couple WM games, had more of the cheap but good Czech beer and then headed off that evening back on the train after getting some Indian food.
So I was going to try and get up to the present with this post, but last week, Kieler Woche (Kiel week which we checked out this last weekend) and this week will have to wait.
Hope you enjoyed the reading!