While going to school in London, as I have mentioned in previous posts I did not really attend class. ever. (oops!) Well about a month into the semester students are given a week off from class to study or read their textbooks.. You know what I am not actually even sure due to the fact I did not even bother to borrow said textbooks from the library. ANYWAY – A few close friends of mine, Megan, who was from Alabama, Sally who was from Georgia, Jamie, who was from Virginia, Hannah who was from Iowa were all going to Prague in the Czech Republic during this week and invited me to go along, I did not know much about Prague so at first I was a little iffy but it turned out to be such a beautiful experience and so much fun! My friend Hannah loved it so much she is actually back in Prague right as we speak! Prague is becoming a very popular tourist attraction, and it is SO beautiful.
We booked a flight through skyskanner, a great website to find cheap flights from budget airlines. We flew on wizzair which we were all convinced must not be an actual airline since NOT one of us had ever even heard of it.. luckily it was an actual airline. We had booked a taxi cab ahead of time because we had heard that a lot of taxi cabs in the Czech Republic try to rip off tourists, and who would be a better target than 5 American girls? We arrived in Prague pretty late at night then found out taxi, a few other tourists were dropped off before we were finally dropped off at our hostel, Arpacay Backpackers. It was very cheap, we only payed what was close to eight bucks a night and the room was adorable and cozy, it was like we had rented our own private cottage! To get into the rooms, however, they use old keys and doors so we had a bit of trouble, it was probably hilarious to watch. We went to bed so we could all wake up early and see the city!
The Hostel had breakfast which we all payed for in the morning, but we had some problems when the hostel staff decided to accuse us of not all paying. They eventually realized they were wrong, but they still did not apologize.. We then walked to the center of the city to find a free walking tour – they all meet near the big astronomical clock. It was February and quite cold, but the city was by far the most beautiful I have ever seen a city look in the “Winter” months. The architecture of the tops of buildings includes a lot of tiffany blue-ish color and what I believe was terra-cotta. The walking tour started at the clock and took us all over, to the opera house, the old town square, the Jewish quarter, and some house which was believed to have a “monster?” living in the upstairs. When the tour ended we asked the guide for a good place to go eat and have some “czech” type cuisine. The guide sent us to Pivovar u Fleku, where we all ordered beer, which was very thick (Not to my enjoyment) and we also had pork, potato and bread dumplings, and cabbage. It was really delicious!
Afterwards, we walked back towards our hostel, then continued to walk up the hill it was on and take a look at Prague Castle. It was getting pretty warm so I made the mistake of taking off my sweater as we were taking pictures at the top of the city – and when I turned around my sweater had blown off! Oh well. We tried these treats my cousin had mentioned he had when he was in Prague called, trdelnik, a type of cinnamon pastry. Sally, Megan and Hannah all went to see an opera at the opera house while me and Jamie took a nap in the hostel. We then all met for an interesting dinner which consisted of an extremely rude waitress, and non-memorable food. After this incident we then went for a bar crawl, where I tried Absinthe for the first time! YUCK. It took us to several bars, ending at the infamous 5 story bar, with five different, interesting floors. This night was hilarious. It consisted of many, many, many, absinthe shots, me losing ANOTHER sweater somehow, one of the girls ending up giving pole dancing a try, and all of us ending up at McDonalds – WHY.
The Next morning we headed to a Starbucks at the top of the hill that gave us an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. We then checked out a few of the souvenir shops near our hostel, including a really cool Absinthe shop. Sadly, our trip was coming to an end though and we had to take our taxi back to the airport and fly back to England.
We visited Prague during what was more of the “off season” so the bars/clubs were not as busy as I imagine they must get in the warmer seasons.
I was a bit worried to visit the Czech Republic because it has not always had the best reputation (and while we were there is during the beginning of the whole Ukraine/Russia ordeal – which was not too far from us)
If you visit Prague make sure to try out some great Czech cuisine
Try and visit the 5 story club – it’s a site to see
Free walking tours are the best thing to happen
Try and get some friends to go with that are as fun as the ones I went with 😉
OH – and if any of the girls I went with happen to read this.. I really wanted to call this post; YOLO Prague.
love always, demetra
Runaway Blond 