Prague: A Bohemian Rhapsody

This past weekend I experienced my first weekend trip that I completely planned myself! I decided to meet some friends who are studying abroad in London in Prague. Of course I had to get myself to the airport for my flight at 10:30 AM on Thursday morning, and it was relatively easy. Once I arrived to the airport in Prague I had to kill about 3 hours until my friends' flight was arriving, so I decided to get lunch in one of those airport restaurants. The first thing about Prague that took getting used to was the different currency. $1= 17 Czech korunas. For some reason though, in my mind I had the conversion set at $1=50 korunas. So when I look at the menu and see how "cheap" everything was, I start to wave the waiter over to bring me some sparkling water, some wine, and what the hell-I even topped off my meal with some delicious Bohemian honey cake. When the bill came, and it listed the conversion to dollars, I was shocked to see that I just spent $40 on lunch! It was an excellent meal at least.

When I meet my friends Jasmine and Erin in the airport we were hesitant to take public transportation so we split a cab to our hostel. This was my first ever experience in a hostel and I was fully expecting the worst-and so were my friends. When we walked into our room and discovered it was basically a palace, we were ECSTATIC beyond belief!

This doesn't even show the other couch and beds, or the foyer or marble bathroom. We were STOKED.

That night we walked over the charming Charles Bridge (adorned with statues and built in the 14th century) to grab a bite to eat. The restaurant we were in was exactly what I had hoped for. It had this old feel to it, and we soon found out that it has been around since 1499! That's even older than Boston Latin.  There were quaint men playing the accordion and at the wave of a hand we had a round of delicious home-brewed beers delivered to our table. I then had Goulash for dinner which great and the beer was the tastiest I've ever tried. It'll be hard to go back to Bud Light after that!

Charles Bridge

The people sitting next to us, after finding out that we were American, commissioned the accordion player to play some "American" music. Here I was expecting maybe a Journey song, but instead he played such hits as "When the Saints go Marching In," "Home on the Range," and "Glory Glory Hallelujah." 

The next day we went out to lunch and I had Chicken Schnitzel and a delicious cappuccino. went on a free tour of Prague which was 3 hours long. I was glad to say that I was able to get some history in there and learned a bunch of interesting facts and explored parts of the city like the Jewish Quarter that I otherwise would have never known existed. By the end of this tour and learning about the occupations, etc. that the Czechs had been through, I knew I was in love with the city. We saw the oldest running synagogue in Europe and a concert hall that Mozart himself played in. Here are some other cool things we saw on the tour:

Is this Disneyland? Nope, it's Prague.

600 year old astrological clock. The Czechs were so proud of this creation that they murdered the creator so that he wouldn't sell the secret anywhere else.

Can you find the medieval bicep that is slapping a prostitute? 

Cubism in building form. There are only 6 in the world and they're all in Prague!

That night we went out to dinner at a cheap local place where we all ordered literally the same thing: Goulash and beer. That evening we were heading into town to explore when we asked a local on the street where a club was-he told us not to go there and instead pointed us in the direction of an awesome Jazz Bar. This is one example of how well Czech people speak English (although claiming initially that they only speak "a little bit") and why I think they are the nicest people in Europe. The Jazz Bar was perfectly Bohemian in my eyes, from the writing all over the walls and ceilings to the candles that were the only source of light in the bar. My girlfriends and I grabbed a table and just soaked it all in. 

at the Jazz Bar

The next day we walked up to the pinnacle of Prague and went all the way to the top of St. Vitus cathedral. We had a great view of the city from up there! After that we wandered around looking for the John Lennon wall, and it was well worth it once we found it. That night we went on the famous Prague Pub Crawl which was the most fun I've had since I've been in Europe. The next morning we had to check out and we were so exhausted that we literally sat in a Bohemian Bagel shop for hours killing time until we had to leave for the airport. We took the public transportation to the airport was actually incredibly easy even though all the signs were weird Czech words. I was lucky enough to have a whole row of seats to myself on the plane but I still couldn't sleep for some reason! 

Rooftops of Praha

St. Vitus Cathedral

St. Vitus Cathedral on the inside

John Lennon Wall!  photo credit: Erin Chack

Our final destination of the Pub Crawl. The floor changed colors and I felt like I was in Saturday Night Fever

Crazy lasers!

This was the theme for one of the floors in the club, no joke.

Prague's antiquity and interesting mix of Russian and German culture totally won me over and I can only hope that my other eurotrips will be half as fun!