Our week ended in the beautiful Czech Republic with a three day stay in Prague. We met Sara's two roommates out there and had a hostel that was right near the central square and got to hear the trumpet from the clock tower every hour, it was wonderful. The city seemed like a mix of Florence and Paris, beautiful old buildings on twisty windy streets that were dotted with historical landmarks and high end stores. Surprisingly though Prague was my least favorite of everywhere we went simply because it was so overrun by tourist. Especially drunk British men.
We started out a trip with a visit to a bar called Propaganda which was filled with old posters and pins of the Communist. We got our first taste of Czech Pilsner here, which was good, but not nearly as great as they seem to think. The next day we walked up to the castle which was spectacle. It was huge and the church was filled with stained glass by one of my favorite artist Mucha. We hung out on the Charles Bridge, taking pictures, admiring the view and drinking warm wine. We had goulash for dinner which despite its name is surprisingly filling and sampled some of the local apple strudel.
The next day Bonnie and Colleen flew home and Sara and I did another free walking tour! We saw the Jewish district (every town must have one apparently) key churches, statues, the old town, new town, and Frank Gehry house. We went to the Mucha museum and saw a bunch of his orginal work and sketches. That night we searched for about four different restaurant's that our book suggested, all of which were full for some reason! After walking all over town in the cold we settled at a intimatee brew pub where we got to taste some home made beer and I had my fifth serving of Goulash, I really like it!
The next day we wondered about, saw a church that has a mummified human arm hanging from the ceiling (apparently the statue of Mary grabbed it when a thief tried to steal her necklace), saw the Jewish cemetery, and hung around some kind of festival in the main square. We then took the subway to the Prague airport with about 30 Czech crowns left between us...or a dollar and a half. At the airport we found our Easy Jet flight was delayed two hour due to weather, leaving us stuck at an airport at 6pm with no money to buy food. This was the only time in the trip Sara and my relationship became at all strained as we slowly ate the one granola bar we had and debated on which cracker to buy out of the vending machine. Finally our flight took off and we landed in Milan around 9pm. We then had to take a bus for an hour to the train station, where we searched for our hostel in the pouring rain and devoured a donner kebab that our lovely euros bought us. Our hostel room that night was the honeymoon suite. One bed for us to share surrounded by sensual paintings. The room did have a glass shower in it though , literally in the room, to be exact at the foot of the bed. We slept for about five hours before getting up and catching the 6am train back to Florence just in time for our 9am classes. A rude welcome back into Florence life but we were exhausted from the trip and ready to be back in our own beds.
The trip was amazing though and I could of kept going for a few more weeks; just exploring, trying new foods, discovering random streets, Florence life seems so mundane compared to our Eastern European adventures!
Was it at all awkward that during the end of the trip, hungry and cold, relationship strained...that you had the honeymoon suite? Bunk bed might have been better!! Did you get a chance to shower or did your rush off dirty to the train and school? Never mind, I don't need to know.
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