Prague, Czech Republic
Our first true day in Prague was quite the experience. The morning has gotten to be fairly standard--waking up at 6:30 for breakfast at 7, though in Prague the setting is much less formal, so we were done in 15 minutes and went back to the room. I ended up falling asleep until class…foreboding quite difficult lectures. There might be a few reasons for this--Kuo and I have been getting to bed fairly late--by the time we are both done with dinner and blogging/journaling about the day, it's gotten fairly late the past few nights--around 12:30ish. I can only imagine those individuals who are practically pulling all nighters in bars. Speaking of drinking--lecture this morning was quite entertaining due to this very fact. I'll leave it at that.
Post lecture, I attempted to help B navigate the group through the subway across town to get to Prague Castle--luckily, there were quite a few people who had been to Prague before and knew there way around. Besides, the castle is located on one of the highest if not the highest hills in Prague, affording the panorama I had been unable to get yesterday:
After waiting for a while until tickets were arranged to go into the castle then waiting in line, we entered the main complex. After passing through an opening in an inner wall, we came upon our destination: St. Vitus Cathedral. The immensity of the sight…so incredibly enormous. My 10-20 couldn't even capture the entire front face of it!
Another ten minutes of waiting in line and we entered the interior. (Late) Gothic architecture is amazing. You really have to experience it. However, hopefully these will help you out until then:
St. Wenceslas Chapel -- this place was gold and jewels!
This was an adjacent building on the complex--I believe it was the King's Throne room--very awesome architecture!
Lunch was a fun affair. Due to getting ripped off last night in a tourist part of town (a 230 crown dinner becoming 520 crowns, or roughly $26), we were very wary about where we ate. From our early experiences, we have learned that hole in the wall restaurants generally don't add in lots of extras without you asking, so we traveled pretty far down the mountain/hill and off to side streets and ran into a very decent meal for 190 crowns. In comparison to the previous evening, it was delicious, especially due to its relatively inexpensive nature!
One problem still exists. Time. Even with an hour for lunch, once you add in travel time and waiting for food to be cooked, it's always a rush. Technically we were allotted an hour and a half, but I wasn't about to leave the castle a minute earlier than I was finished--we even debated skipping lunch. Then, there's the fact that fast service at a quality, cheap restaurant is non-existent when 8+ people show up. Even more so when the person that takes your order, makes and delivers your food, and brings the receipt are one and the same. She probably lived on the second floor of the restaurant/house!
Needless to say, we were cutting it close. However, there was a huge dilemma--Andrew and I had gotten the daily special, which included desert. Everyone else headed on while we waited, ate, and dashed out, though not before Andrew left the tip on the nose of a smiley face drawn on a napkin. The disadvantage to walking down the hill to eat was that we had to run up it. We went back a different way--a way that had more stairs than I'd wish to count, stretching out as far as the eye could see. As we gasped for air at the top (5 minutes late), we met roving bands of Oxfordians letting us know that the museum was closed on Mondays. We're going tomorrow, though!
Being free for the rest of the day, we hung out with our professors overlooking Prague, then trekked across the city instead of taking the subway. One of our band wished to visit an old, famous Jewish synagogue--when we discovered that it cost $7 to get in, the rest of us walked around while he went in, then we all headed back through the city to home. Camera bags get incredibly heavy after walking for nearly 6 hours!
After some rest, we headed out for dinner. After wandering around the city for quite some time and by accident going to the red light district, we finally found a cheap chinese restaurant. I'm not quite keen on going out at night--it's honestly pretty sketchy. We had people following us around, asking us to go into their businesses, as well as getting offers for illegal drugs. Food is food though. On another note--the lack of water in Europe is truly disturbing. Czech tap water is apparently not safe for us Americans, so we can't drink that--there are no water fountains, and buying water at restaurants is extremely expensive and very limited in quantity. I guess I need to stop by a store tomorrow and pick some up.
That's all for today--here are the leftovers:
The cobblestone streets up to the castle--notice the slant of the buildings in relation to the road to see how steep they are!
A cloudy sky over Prague:
Until tomorrow folks,
Joshua Longenecker
No comments:
Post a Comment