Paradise in PRAGUE

Tuesday, March 1, 2011:

Today I woke up and packed my bag for Prague. On our airline we're allowed only one bag that's rather small...so I packed a backpack. I fit a lot in that little backpack! I don't know how actual backpacking is going to be though! We'll see! Went to class, which was shortened and extremely nice, and ate lunch. We jumped on the tube, got in the train to Gatwick, and got on our EasyJet flight to Prague! Mine and Elise's tickets were somehow different than everyone else's so we got to wait in the line to get our actual tickets printed out. It wasn't that big of a deal though. We arrived in Prague around 9:30 pm and our shuttle bus driver was waiting for us outside the airport (thanks Elise!). Even though it was dark outside, I could tell that Prague is beautiful!! I can't wait to explore tomorrow!

Wednesday, March 2, 2011:

Oh my gosh, I LOVE PRAGUE!!!! Now I know why it's my mother's favorite city. It is definitely my favorite city I've been to so far. Today was such a great day because we knew what we wanted to do and just went with it. We weren't stressed or in a hurry at all! It was so nice. I woke up from the best nights sleep in a really long time and went down to take advantage of the awesome gym we have here at the hotel. I forgot how much I love gyms...Even if I really don't, it was nice to use anyways. After that, I came up and woke the peeps in my room, we got ready and were on our way outside to explore the city of Prague! We started by finding some breakfast. I have been craving eggs, so I got an omelet with some orange juice. Yummy! We wandered through the city and passed the Municipal House (theater).

We kept wandering and just happened to walk up to the Astronomical Clock five minutes before it went off! It reminded me of my Grandpa's cuckoo clock...Except 100 times bigger. At the end of it's chiming, a trumpeter plays a tune from the top of the tower! I loved it.

We paid to climb to the top of Old Town Hall and the view was unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it in my life. We took loads of pictures.

Old Town Square

After that we walked into some shops, wandered alongside the river, took more pictures, and headed to Charles Bridge...this bridge is amazing! It sits between Prague Castle and the Stare Meston (the Old Town) and crosses the Vltava River.

It has the most amazing view of the castle! There are lots of statues along the sides of the bridge and one of the more famous ones is of St. John. There's a legend that if you rub the bronze plaque beneath him you will return to Prague someday...you better believe I rubbed it! (At least we thought it did...We didn't really know which one it was haha.)

As we were approaching the other side of the bridge, we saw 3 Elders and 1 Sister missionary! What are the chances of that?! We talked to them for a minute and found out they were actually on their way home and got the opportunity to pass through Prague. We asked them if they knew Spencer Stansfield and one of the elders did! He said that he's serving in Slovakia right now but he was going to call Stansy and tell him hello for us. Haha it really is a small world we live in.

We got lunch at 'Bohemia Bagel' and then got Czech churro-type things on our way up to the Castle.

Okay so this is the BIGGEST castle in the world...It's huge!! It's bigger than 7 football fields and is a very important national symbol here in Prague. The view from this castle was absolutely breathtaking as well!

We went inside St. Vitus Cathedral and saw the beautiful stain glass windows and very tall ceilings. Then we bought a ticket to go inside the castle which we did and loved. It was founded by Czech princes in the 9th century and is still the official presidential residence. Coming out of the castle it got really cold. So we snapped, of course, some more pics of the view and headed down the hill.

We had made dinner reservations earlier in the day so we slowly made our way to the restaurant while winding in and out of shops. I haven't quite decided what I want to by yet, but I'm going to get something great! The restaurant we ate at is called 'Marina Grosseto Ristorante'. It's a little boat restaurant on the river and it has a brilliant view of the castle and the bridge. It was way nicer than we were expecting, but it was definitely worth it! Carly and I split a pizza and pasta and it was very good! We had a very good time. It was a fabulous first day in Prague and I am so excited to see what tomorrow brings!

Thursday, March 3, 2011:

We woke up this morning, ate our fruit and yoghurt we bought last night, and headed toward the Jewish Quarter. In the Middle Ages, Prague's Jewish community was confined in this enclosed area. For centuries the Jews suffered from discrimination. In 1850 the area officially became a part of Prague. We bought our tickets and visited the museum and the Pinkas Synagogue - which is now a Holocaust memorial with the names of 80,000 murdered Bohemian Jews on the walls. The feelings I had here are indescribable.

We then went into the Old Jewish Cemetery. This cemetery has 12,000 gravestones and around 100,000 bodies packed into this tiny space about the size of my backyard. I can't describe the feelings I had in the Jewish Quarter, but it definitely had a special spirit about it that made it very emotional. I will never forget this experience.

We shopped around the Quarter for a bit and Julie and I bought traditional little Czech mugs and we all bought shirts that say "Czech me out!" We thought they were pretty clever. :) For lunch we got Czech ham and rye bread from a little stand inside Old Town Square. It was really good! We called it our 'barbarian meal' because the pieces they gave us were gigantic and messy!

We came back to the hotel for a minute to put our souvenirs in the rooms and ended up taking an hour nap which was really nice. This has been a relaxing trip and I think we all needed it. After the community nap, we checked out the Communist Museum but decided we didn't really need to do that and would rather do something else instead. I did snap a few photos though...

We walked to Wenceslas Square, to the top of the square and went into the National Museum. All I can say is it was very interesting inside. The art and the different rooms were just so random it was confusing to me. We took pics by the statue of St. Wenceslas and then went to a traditional Czech restaurant called 'Cellnice' and had Czech food!

We each ordered something different and then we swapped plates about ever 2 or 3 minutes so we could try everything. We had goulash, fried cheese, dumplings, gnocchi, farmer's chicken with some weird sauce, and then a pork roast with a different weird sauce. It was actually a lot better than I was expecting it to be and I think I would eat it again! After dinner we went back to the hotel, played cards, and laughed until midnight for Carly's birthday! We ordered ice cream from room service for her. It was really fun and she was totally surprised!

Friday, March 4, 2011:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARLY!!! Carly decided that for her birthday she wanted to get out in the countryside of the Czech Republic. And boy am I glad she decided to do that! Our shuttle bus driver that picked us up from the airport told us about a town called Karlstejn that's about 45 minutes outside of Prague. So we found the train station and, after missing 2 trains, finally got on a train out the Karlstejn.

When we first got off the train in Karlstejn, we were like "This is it?" It felt like we were in the middle of no where in the middle of the Czech Republic. I loved it! My lungs were loving the clean air I was breathing! Probably the cleanest I've had in months. haha. We walked along the train tracks for a while and came upon a bridge with a beautiful view of the river and the mountains.

I promised I'm not being possessed....I just loved the sun and the air.

We walked across this bridge (holding hands, of course.) and up the ravine/canyon thing a little ways, stopped at some shops, and headed up to the castle.

The view was AMAZING!!!

On the way down, I accidentally bought 2 Czech churros because we were in a hurry to get to back to the train station. I'm not complaining though...Those things are dang good. Turns out we didn't need to hurry as much as we needed to because we waited for a good 30 minutes until our train came. That's okay though! It was still fun and Karlstejn was definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole trip! I absolutely loved it there and could probably spend a whole week or longer there.

We get on the train, head back to Prague, and head back to the hotel. When we get there, Marriott has left a cake, strawberries, and champagne for Carly's birthday! How nice...We ate the cake and the strawberries and gave the champagne away. Elise's "Czech me out" shirt was too small so we went back to the Jewish Quarter to exchange it. The man working at the store happened to overhear that it was Carly's 20th birthday and so he gave her 20 kisses on the cheek for her birthday..It was hilarious! I'm pretty sure she hated every minute of it. ;) We wanted to finish our last night in Prague by walking over Charles Bridge at sunset! We crossed the bridge next to Charles Bridge so we could get some good pictures of it and then we walked around to the actual entrance of the Bridge. Afterwards, we got dinner and virgin cocktails and Belgian Waffles, upon Carly's, request and just sort of roamed the city or a while. We went back to the Marriott and soaked up the last night of our hotel. It was great end to the BEST spring break EVER in Prague!!!!!

Sorry this was such a long post! I just couldn't decide which pictures to put on out of the 1,200 we took!! Have a great week!!

Love,

Liz

This week:

Monday: Museums / Movie

Tuesday: Mosque visit

Wednesday: Madame Butterfly

Thursday - Saturday: Wales!