Other than the language barrier that caused me to get lost for 3 hours yesterday, Prague so far is amazing!!!! The food is all pork, potatoes, and brown gravy, so naturally I am in HEAVEN!!!! Everything is super cheap as well. I just back from dinner where I had a huge main dish plus a big beer (in a stein and everything) for $6!!!
So yesterday I got into Prague around 10am, learned the hard way that though everything else in Prague is cheap, taxis are not (well, I guess it is not that bad, $30 to get me from the airport to my hostel, about 45 minutes in bumper to bumper traffic!) and then started my grand exploration!
I just started wandering around, ate a 50 cent pastry in this really beautiful park, ended up in Vashrad (sp) which was the fortress/royal residence in the 10th and 11th centuries, got hugely lost, sat in the botanical gardens, got lost again, and then met some friends from DIS for dinner! After dinner (pork sparrow (no, I don't know what a "sparrow" is in pork terms) potato dumplings, bread dumplings, 2 kinds of cabbage (red=delicious, the sauerkraut I left), and delicious beer) we went on a pub crawl which was lots of fun! We ended up at this really famous club in Prague that is 5 floors with a different theme on each floor. I of course was partial to the 80's themed floor, but that's just me!
Today we woke up, got pastries and cappuccino (about $3.50), and headed towards Charles Bridge. This is a really famous pedestrian/touristy bridge over the river. Tons of statues (including one of a woman and a dog - you rub the woman for good luck and the dog for bad luck), lots of street vendors, and a KICK ASS view of the city! After the bridge we walked through the Old Town (as you can imagine, completely beautiful) on our way up to Prague Castle. At the Castle we watched the changing of the guards, took a tour of the Castle and St. George Basilica, and walked down Golden Lane which was a street that has been maintained since back in the day so it is tiny with all these cute little houses (i.e. like any Danish town). This street was where Kafka lived so we got a pic of that too! After the Castle we had lunch and went to see...THE INFANT JESUS OF PRAGUE!! Very beautiful, kind of creepy, and super interesting. Apparently they dress this thing in different little outfits so they have all of these dresses which they had on display at the museum.
After IJP, we went to the Jewish Quarter where we walked around and saw the oldest Synagogue. After that we went back to the hostel, took naps, and then went to a Witch Burning Ceremony. Apparently this is a celebration of the end of winter/Czech's version of Halloween. We went with some people from our hostel out to this random park where the set up actually reminded me a lot of Lolapalooza. There was a big concert (Czech music, very strange...I mean, really out there...) a bonfire, lots of food vendors, people dressed up like witches, and kids running around everywhere! Very weird experience, but kind of cool.
After the fest we went to dinner and then went back to the hostel. Tomorrow my friends leave and I have my schedule all set!
Food log (for today):
Breakfast: nut swirl and cappuccino (nut swirl is kind of like a cinnamon roll with a nutty butter type thing instead of cinnamon, it was off the charts good!)
Lunch: get this, fried cheese (in steak form, as in, this was probably like a 100g slab of cheese, breaded and fried) served with boiled potatoes and tartar sauce (apparently a Czech specialty...)
Dinner: at the fest we had sausages which were delicious and then we went to dinner and I had a pancake/crepe thing stuffed with spinach, potato, mushroom, and cheese
Prague sounds AMAZING!!!!! And oh my god, that food! yum. it sound like you've been able to see some wacky cultural stuff, which is so great!! hooray!!! send me a post card and i'll put it on my fridge next to the one from berlin!!
ReplyDeletep.s. you enjoy your meat and potatoes and gravy- i'm making a quesadilla for dinner and washing it down with a corona!! USA! USA!
ReplyDelete...mexico?