Prague, Praha, Praga

It was a fairly late night the night before our trip and Pete had the bright idea to get home from the discotec when I was going to wake up at 6 A.M. So I had three hours of sleep and he had none, so he planned on sleeping on all forms of public transport. To catch our mid-afternoon flight out of Madrid we had to take the first bus of the day out of Granada. So we started our trip with a five hour bus ride. It’s amazing how dark it is here at 7 A.M. – Still dark as it is at midnight. I’ve seen 7 A.M. only a couple of other times but that’s because we have stayed up all night and just getting home about that time. The sun did not rise until 8:30 so I got some decent sleep of the first hour or so on the bus. The bus ride went smoothly and then got a taxi to the airport and then waited for about two hours. The weather in Granada as of late was sunny and in the 70’s, when we landed in Prague at sunset and it is a balmy 8 degrees Celsius so roughly 45 degrees. While waiting for the bus at the airport we saw Air Force One so that was something pretty cool and completely unexpected. Pete was only awake for maybe an hour both the bus ride and the flight, so he accomplished his goal of catching up on his sleep.

Prague Castle

Muzeum

It was a fairly late night the night before our trip and Pete had the bright idea to get home from the discotec when I was going to wake up at 6 A.M. So I had three hours of sleep and he had none, so he planned on sleeping on all forms of public transport. To catch our mid-afternoon flight out of Madrid we had to take the first bus of the day out of Granada. So we started our trip with a five hour bus ride. It’s amazing how dark it is here at 7 A.M. – Still dark as it is at midnight. I’ve seen 7 A.M. only a couple of other times but that’s because we have stayed up all night and just getting home about that time. The sun did not rise until 8:30 so I got some decent sleep of the first hour or so on the bus. The bus ride went smoothly and then got a taxi to the airport and then waited for about two hours. The weather in Granada as of late was sunny and in the 70’s, when we landed in Prague at sunset and it is a balmy 8 degrees Celsius so roughly 45 degrees. While waiting for the bus at the airport we saw Air Force One so that was something pretty cool and completely unexpected. Pete was only awake for maybe an hour both the bus ride and the flight, so he accomplished his goal of catching up on his sleep.

Charles Bridge

When we got to Prague we got a three day public bus and metro pass because if you get caught without a pass the fines can be really expensive. We also exchanged currency… You’ve got to love the exchange rate when its 1€ = roughly 23ck. The prices aren’t equivalent of one to another, so seeing 30ck for a beer sounded ridiculous but was actually quite reasonable, around a 1,15€ for a pint of Pilsner Urquell – probably the best beer that I have had, and its labeled “The Best Beer In Prague”. We did not make any hostel plans but Pete’s friend Justin who has been to Prague on several occasions suggested the Czech Inn, and it ended up being full so they sent us to the next best place Miss Sophie’s and it ended up being cheaper than the Czech Inn. So the four of us, Pete, Melissa, Chris and myself split a room that had two bunk beds. The hostel had free internet and was really close to a metro station.


Once we got settled into our room we went out for the night and first walked to Charles Bridge where we planned to meet Pete and Melissa’s friend Hallie from Bradley who is studying in Rome this semester. We walked around and looked for a bar to eat at and a place to warm up. We found this small corner bar and it said capacity of 350 people and for what we could see it didn’t seem that full but it was busy. We couldn’t find a table and they pointed us to go down stairs and went down the stairs and took the hallway to the right. It opened up into a huge room, similar to a scene in the movie Beerfest, where it’s just a huge room full of people and the waitresses are carrying around 8 pint glasses of beer or more at once and crazy bar food like “Pork Knee”. The thing that sucks about Prague is that they put food on your table like giant pretzels and chips and mixed nuts. Good thing we were previously warmed about this, because it turns out to be very expensive to eat the bar munchies that are put on your table.

Statues on Charles Bridge - Kind of looks like the Heisman pose

It wasn’t an incredibly late night, we got back shortly after midnight and our hostel’s bathroom had two feet of glass at the top so it illuminated the entire room when being used and also was triggered by a motion light, which was somewhat inconvenient. Apparently I was snoring…or Melissa described it as, “I was making the bed rumble” so she yelled at me to stop snoring and I replied “Ok” to her and just rolled over.

Day 2: October 25

We got up around 9ish and we all showered and left for the day around 11. Our first stop of the day was Prague Castle but saw many of the sights on the way – Old Town Square, Tyn Church, St. James, National Theatre and then walked across the entire Charles Bridge to cross the river. We spent about three hours at the Castle, but two of the exhibits were closed – The Powder Tower and the Main Cathedral. It wasn’t that big of a deal the entrance to the Castle and other touristy things in Prague are fairly cheap, so we didn’t feel completely ripped off, but they could have put up a sign saying that some things were closed. We got lunch near the Castle and I got the least expensive thing on the menu, spaghetti. On the way back we got some great views of Prague and stopped in a park as the sun was setting. We went back to the hostel and took a siesta since I apparently kept Melissa up with my snoring from the night before and then walking around all day made us all pretty tired. That night we went to the Museum stop which is the center of the city and had cheap food there. We found a Chinese restaurant that was pretty cheap and very filling. Once again we walked around town and found a couple of bars and watched a few football (soccer) games.

Day 3: October 26

We had a daylight savings time change so we got some extra sleep and we had to be up earlier to catch a train to Karljstein which is about 45 minutes outside of the city and had a huge castle there. The train was really cheap, about 200 ck for the four of us roundtrip since we traveled in a group of four. We weren’t really sure where to go when we got off the train but we kind of just followed the crowd until we actually saw signs for the castle. The countryside was beautiful and so green along with the trees changing colors. We don’t have that many trees in Granada in the city and wasn’t quite cold enough for fall weather yet. It was also kind of foggy as well especially near the river which made the sunlight all day feel like an early morning fall sun. I found this weird but interesting because it always felt like morning by just looking at the type of light that was emitted by the sun. I got a brat for 30ck, a painting for 300ck and some other souvenirs and looked around in Bohemia Crystal stores.

Karljstein Castle was very cool, while we were walking up the hill through town and it ‘just popped up out of nowhere’. The tour was cool and interesting but it’s not as impacting since we did not have any previous knowledge about the king and his family that lived there. On the way back to the train station the fog has cleared off and I got some good pictures of the river and some reflections of the countryside in the water.

Karljstein Castle

Pete, Melissa, Chris and I

We got back before sunset and walked around near the river down to the Fred and Ginger Dancing Building. Once sun set we took another siesta, Pete and Chris were both snoring and at one point Melissa yelled, “Who ever is snoring…shut up now!” and it was complete dead silence. The chineese was so good and cheap we had that again for dinner and after that we met up with Hallie and her friends at a restaurant that had live music. While walking to meet Hallie at Old town square, Pete got whistled at by a guy sitting on a back pack on the street, and it was Petes friend Justin who was supposed to meet us the day before but got delayed out of Barcelona. At the restaurant, Margaritas were 2 for 1 for 140ck, so that’s what Chris and I picked and Pete got a couple pints of beer while we were there and he paid over 180ck for two beers, so he was not happy about that. Justin snuck into our hostel and slept on our floor – he brought camping gear for when he was coming to Spain the following week to visit Pete.

Fred and Ginger Dancing Building

Day 3: October 27

For some odd reason I had set my alarm to wake up from our siesta and accidentally set it on A.M. and I woke up and could hear some faint kind of music. This went on for about 15 minutes until I realized it was my alarm going off in the dresser underneath my bed. Thankfully no one else heard it. I had a few emails and messages and thought the email from Teahen was pretty funny which included the website www.chasehennessey.com, and him asking who the kid was, I got a pretty big kick out of that. We had an afternoon flight so we had time to walk around and get souvenirs before we left. We wanted to see the Jewish Cemetery but it turned out costing 160ck more than expected so that was off our list of places to see. The flight went smoothly and I got caught up on my journal from the trip while everyone slept. When we got to Madrid it was a pain getting metro passes because all of the payment forms were electronic. We took the metro to the bus station and caught the 7:30 bus so we got back to Granada at 12:30. I had one day of review for class then a final, since I missed a Friday and a Monday for this trip.

Despite the cold temperatures, I really liked Prague and would love to return again someday. I would have to say it is a MUST SEE city in Europe. I am thankful for Pete asking me if I was interested in going even though it was not on my list of places to visit or even see in Europe, I am so happy that I went. The sites were amazing, the weather during the day and in the sun was not bad – perfect fall days – but the nights were pretty cold. The weather in Spain also took a turn for the worse, we always seem to bring some aspect of it back and this time it was cold temperatures. So that has been the end of our 20 degree Celsius days (Roughly 70 degrees Fahrenheit) since we have been back in Spain for the past 6 weeks.

Sorry that this post took so long but I have traveled a lot lately and have had two finals at the end of each month. I will try to post soon about my three weekend trips to the Sierra Nevada’s, Sevilla & Cordoba and then this past weekends trip to London. And if I don’t get any of those done before Thursday…Ojala… I will be going to Rome this weekend for four days and will be my last trip for my abroad experience. I have loved it all so far and hope this last trip is everything and more than what I have heard about Rome, its my number one place that I wanted to visit on my list before coming abroad. So my days here are slim but I will see you in a matter of weeks, so good luck to everyone on the weeks from hell coming up – AKA Finals, and see you for Christmas break.