Praha

     I traveled to Prague in a much smaller group than Berlin. It was just Alex and I at first and then Zach and Molly joined us a day later. The trip was also different in that I found myself taking far less pictures. I'm not totally sure if it was the city or the mood I was in.
     Our trip started with an afternoon train to London Gatwick on Wednesday. Our flight was fairly late and with the time difference we landed right around midnight local time. This meant that only the night bus/tram was running and the metro had stopped for the night. We took the night bus for about 45 minutes until we were thoroughly lost and hopped off at a random stop. We asked two different friendly hotel receptionist for directions but neither one panned out. We ended up just getting a taxi to the metro station a little ways down from our hostel. I had printed off a map of the area but in the dark/rain and without a compass it took us a good 45 minutes to find it. By this time it was almost 2:00 am and we both just crashed.
     The 10:00 tour came a little too early for us the next day so we walked around a bit after we got up and then took the 1:00 tour. At one point during our wandering we went through a small entrance behind a metro station looking for bathrooms and found ourselves suddenly in the courtyard of the Czech Senate. The courtyard had statues of men wrestling with various creatures and a drip stone wall with hidden faces and animals in it. It was really cool to just stumble upon something like it. The tour covered ton's of history but not many monuments and sites. I kinda of got the feeling that this was just the way Prague was, having lots of pretty architecture on random buildings but not too many monuments. The tour was getting really drawn out towards the end so we ditched and walked across the rivers to see the Lennon Wall before we headed home. It was kind of random but still pretty cool.
     After eating at the hostel we went out to try and get our bearings at night. We got off the tram one stop early on accident and ended up finding a really sweet overlook that we would have never found otherwise. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at the time so I wasn't able to capture the view. From there we walked around the Old Town for a while and then headed back in to try and catch up on some sleep.
     The next morning we went with Zach and Molly to meet her two friends at Bohemian Bagel, the oldest bagel franchise in Prague. For the rest of the morning we pretty much showed them all the places we had already seen. Later on we went up to the castle which was absolutely massive yet looks nothing like a castle. The long building there is actually the wall which continues all the way down to the stone tower and up past the cathedral. We went into the cathedral inside the walls for awhile but other than that we just walked down to the other end of the castle.
     We showed the rest of the group some more stuff we had already seen and then went and got some food. The girls went to some pastry shop and us manly men ended up in a Western themed steak house. I have to say that the burger I ordered might have been the best one I've ever eaten. After lunch we took a walk around the Jewish Quarter and then split up and went to our respective hostels. We met back up for dinner at what ended up being a complete tourist trap that tried to overcharge us every chance they got. This is something that definitely seemed pretty common in Prague.
     That night we decided to checkout the 5 story club right on the river that we had been told about. They played a different style of music on each floor and we ended up spending most of our time on the Disco level. It was pretty sweet except, like everywhere else in Prague, you were allowed to smoke. I don't just mean in certain areas either. Half the people on the dance floor were smoking while they danced.
      Feeling like we had seen enough of Prague, on the last day Alex and I went to Kutna Hora. It's mining exploits I had led to a massive cathedral being built there. Since then the town (small city) seems to have become a bit more run down yet there were definitely still pretty parts. Getting there took about an hour via train to the east of Prague.

     The main reason we wanted to come to was the Bone Ossuary. The Sedlec Cemetery was a desirable burial place and due to the Black Death and the Hussite Wars it became overcrowded. When a church was built in the center of the cemetery something had to be done with the graves under it and they decided to construct an ossuary. Legend says that this task was given over to a partially blind monk who incorporated an estimated 40,000-70,000 corpses. The outcome was kind of macabre but really cool.
     The walk from the Ossuary to the cathedral is when we realized how run down the place had come. It was pretty much nothing but low income housing until we got to the area right by St. Barbara's. This area was nice and had much more of a historic feel. The cathedral, set on a hill top, dominates the skyline as you approach it and gives views of the whole city from its courtyard.

   
          When we got back to Prague we met up with Zach and the girls to walk around New Town. On the way I attempted to get a couple night pictures, but with the fog and lack of a tripod they didn't come out so hot. We walked around for a little while and stopped by McDonald's for a Twix mcflurry (amazingly delicious). After this Alex and I decided to head in because of how early our flight time the next day was.
     We got up at 3:30 am to take a taxi to the airport which we ended up sharing with three other American study abroad students from Oxford. The flight and trains home were pretty much snooze fests and we made it back without a hitch. Overall Prague wasn't one of my favorite destinations but is definitely something worth seeing.