Czech me out

Sunday I caught a bus from Cesky Krumlov to Prague. It was a long day of traveling and the hostel isn’t right in the city center so I decided to relax in the hostel for the remainder of the day. A quick grocery trip and shower later and I was feeling pretty good, although I was a little sad because I was put into an 8 bed girlie room but there is no one else in here, a little lonely although kind of nice to not have to make small talk and can relax however I’d like, which includes watching a movie without headphones, luxury J

Monday I went on a couple hour bike tour to see the sites of Prague and figure out what I wanted to go back and see. After the tour I walked back around the city a bit, up through the castle complex. I finally had to head to the shopping district to see if I could find a dress or skirt because the heat was way way too much, up in the 90s the past two days. Luckily our hostel has a swimming pool so I used that to cool down before dinner and getting ready to go on a pub-crawl.

Part of the main square in Old Town Prague

Astrological clock tower

Statues of two guys peeing on the Czech Republic, don't ask me, I don't get it either

Creepy baby art

The cathedral

random street art I thought was cool

I bumped into a guy, Owen, at the front desk while I was getting ready to go to the pub-crawl and he and his friend were thinking about going but since I still left the hostel along I didn’t have too high of expectations but Owen and his friend Pete joined me at the tram stop and we formed a little group for the evening. They’re both from Birmingham England in university right now, very nice kids.

The pub-crawl is what I kind of expected, a loud American tour guide who told everyone their job for the night was to drink and get messed up. The first bar they gave us free beer for the first hour and a half and shoved shots at us every chance they got. I tried one of the shots, vodka mixed with fanta, and realized it tasted horrible so I stuck to the beer. The three of us formed a pretty powerful little group as we kept pulling people in and make friends left and right. However about the 3^rd bar I was exhausted and Owen was drunk so we decided to call it quits for the night and head back to get some sleep.

Owen, me and Pete

Owen and Guy

Me and Pete

Tuesday was my final day in Prague and I spent it mostly wandering aimlessly. I started with a side trip to a market down the street from my hostel, a black market it turns out. It was a very strange experience, they sell everything there from underwear to brass knuckles. I wasn't the biggest fan, there were tons of people around but the stall owners kept bothering you and trying to touch you or whatever to get you into their stall and buy there stuff so I didn't stay there very long. After that I went up to the top of the park where they had replaced a giant statue of Stalin first with one of Michael Jackson for his “History” tour back in 1996 and then a giant metronome, which is up there to this day. Around that is a skatepark, it was fairly easy to get distracted by the view from up there and all the chaos of the park. I slowly moved towards the castle to visit the cathedral, which is beautiful inside. I love European cathedrals because they are so light and generally very white inside; it just makes for an amazing contrast to the grit and dirt outside.

part of the old platform for the Stalin statue

The cathedral

Birds of prey in the castle complex

I wandered from the castle in to the park next door to get a nice view of the city including the castle. Along the way hidden in the woods were these little caves with seating. I'm not entirely sure what they were for but they are pretty old, one of them had graffiti carving on it from 1916.

One of the weird little carved out areas I found, so random

From there I wandered down through a few parks, to Lennon’s Wall, called that because people could write what they want down there during communism and Lennon was seen as a beacon of the west and freedom. I also crossed over this bridge covered in locks. It is a tradition that when a couple gets married in Prague that they attach a lock to this bridge and throw the key in the river. Most of the locks were from this year besides some significantly old ones so I think they must cut most down at the end of the year to allow people to continue this tradition.

After wandering for a while longer I headed to a beer garden in the park to meet an aussie couple from my bike tour. After a nice meal and great conversation we part ways agreeing we should meet up when they move to Melbourne in a few months, it’s nice that I can make friends for my time in Australia now.