Prague? Czech!

So…. Prague is amazing. The million and one people who’ve gone on and on about what a great city it is were 110% right. It’s very different from Budapest, I found, but incredible nonetheless. It has a very traditional European feel to it, at least I think so (what do I know about traditional Europe) and we had such a fun time exploring!  Before I get into the good stuff, let me tell you about a rather terrifying situation we found ourselves in on the train ride. Apparently, we hadn’t filled in our eurail passes correctly, which was news to us since we’ve been doing this for 2 months now and no one else has ever mentioned this. We were informed that if you didn’t fill in all your information and have the route for each trip written down, you would be fined 200 Euros. WHAT. We were in shock. None of us had 200 euros to lose, especially as we are nearing the end of this trip…. It’s safe to say the bank account is hurting.  Thankfully, he said that since we are students it would only be 20 euros. That’s more like it, although I still don’t know how not a single other train officer person (?) has given us any difficulty about this before and then suddenly it became a big 200 euro ordeal. Weird. It was a very stressful time in our lives but luckily it ended on a not so bad note.  Anyway, back to Prague. We took the metro to the Charleston Bridge and walked to the castle, which itself is quite the sight, but what’s almost better is the breathtaking view of the city from up there! There’s just something about those cute orange rooftops and the old fashioned buildings… It’s a very beautiful city, that’s for dang sure. It started to pour while we were up there so we decided to stay dry and cozy in a cute coffee shop… Okay, it was a Starbucks. What can I say, white girls always find their way back to the Bucks, even in a foreign country… I don’t even like Starbucks that much but it was the first cafe we saw up there and it had a lovely view of the rain falling on the lush hills surrounding the city, so I think our choice was justified.  On our way up, we noticed an interesting cave-like restaurant and decided to come back to it for lunch once the rain stopped and we were ready to head back out into the world. This was quite the experience… It was a medieval themed restaurant and as soon as we sat down our server insisted we ordered some homemade beer. Honestly, we were kind of scared so we just said yes. A few minutes later, 2 giant glasses of beer were literally slammed down in front of us. Slammed. I’m not sure what the traditions behind this are but we were a little startled and also felt very out of place in the dimly lit hole in the wall that resembled a dungeon more than anything.  To make things even more.. Uh, interesting I guess… One of the workers walked around with a flogger and would yell and whip people as he walked by… What?! I was sitting on the outside of the table, go figure, so I got the worst of it. I was living in fear the whole time, wondering when he would make his next unwelcome appearance. Obviously it didn’t hurt, just a light hit on the back, but it was the anticipation and not knowing when it was coming that was frightening. Plus it was just straight up odd. It was a very different experience, to say the least. On the bright side, the food was really good and I got a tasty sausage.  After our unique dining adventure, we headed back down into Old Town Square and wandered through the dreamy streets of Prague. There was so much going on and so many things to see, so just being there in the midst of the action was enough to keep us busy.  For dinner, we went to a burger restaurant, so traditional, I know, which was one of our greatest regrets actually, because it was way too expensive and we weren’t even hungry… We just felt like eating. But seriously, 14€ for a single burger PLUS 3€ for a stupid bottle of water is a rip off if I ever did see one. We left with empty pockets feeling disgustingly full for no real reason. Not the best way to end off our night in Prague.  By this point, I’m quite proud of myself that I haven’t made a terrible pun yet, other than that title of course… I figure you can’t overuse the Czech puns because we all know there are just so many opportunities for those bad boys and it probably wouldn’t be funny anymore if I used them in every sentence… Although I very well could.  That’s all for Prague, my friends, thanks for Czechin’ in! (I’m sorry I had to. It’s not old yet, right?!)  Tal