Welcome to Prague!!!

The trip to Prague was probably about the most ridiculous adventure I have been on!  Where to begin?.... I woke up at 3:45 am because our train was at 5:02 and was getting us to Linz around 8:06.  Well we had an unexpected stop, of course, that put us back by 10 minutes.  This 10 minutes put a lot of stress on the 5 of us traveling because our bus to Prague from Linz was leaving at 8:20am, about 4 minutes after we got off the train.  We all sprinted to the bus area, which ended up being the incorrect place and we missed out bus.  So we then talked to the westbus girl, WHO WAS NO WHERE TO BE SEEN WHEN WE NEEDED HER, and the next bus was not until 4pm.  There was NO WAY I was waiting to leave Linz for 8 hours, not happening.  So we looked into alternative ways to get to Prague and there was a train leaving at 11 am that was 32 euro.  We decided to pay for this train ticket and waited two hours until the train was leaving.

We then got onto this train and were less stressed (well I was the only one really stressed) and it was pretty smooth.  There were some odd stops, though, in the middle of no where and people were getting off to walk across tracks--very odd.  Then, all of a sudden, a guy comes down the hall saying, "move to bus" and waving his arms.  So, everyone had to get off the train and onto buses.  I was now in complete shock mode and just laughing because it was so crazy!  There were about 4 buses that took us to another train station (which we had no idea where we were going until we arrived) and we got onto another train hoping it was to Prague.  A few hours later we did arrive in Prague and the rest was just AMAZING!

When we got to Prague we had about a 15 minute walk to our hostel, Prague Square Hostel.  The hostel was great because it was in the city center and very nice inside.  We got there and I did not realize we had to pay with Czech cash, so I had to go exchange the cash I had with me in euro (which wasn't enough for our stay) and go to the ATM to get out even more cash for the rest of the stay and spending money.  After that glitch we got settled into our room and went to dinner.  Brittany's friend from South Carolina happened to be in Prague and one of his professors lived there for a bit and recommend us a really good Italian/Pasta restaurant.  We got so lucky going there because you usually  need a reservation (which we did not know), but someone had cancelled so we were able to sit down!!!  I got an amazing lasagna dish and some wine!  After dinner we went to this belgian chocolate place we had seen on the way to dinner to get some goodies for dessert!  It was some of the best chocolate I've had.  The rest of the evening we spent walking around the city and it was BEAUTIFUL!  Prague is more gorgeous at night than during the day!  We went to see the The Charles Bridge and on the way we saw the St. Vitus Cathedral, the Prague Astronomical Clock and the Prague Castle (from afar).  Walking around the first night was the best time I've had in awhile.  We then went to find a bar called Hemingway Bar, but it seemed a bit too classy for us and a lot of us were extremely tired, so we went back to the hostel to go to sleep.

The next day we woke up around 8:30 am and started getting ready for the day! It was awesome that the hostel had free breakfast and coffee for us because that saved us some money.  Since we were so close to everything, we knew we could get a good amount of site seeing in that day!  We walked to the Old Town Square and saw a few of the things we had seen a night time the day before and also climbed the tower in the center to see all of Prague.  It was worth paying to walk up the tower because it was a beautiful view.  We then walked by the Jewish area of town, which was worth going to see.  We saw a group of people on segways and one girl busted her butt, that was exciting lol.  We then walked to see the Charles Bridge again, which was so different during the day.  There were so many artists out, musicians playing and street performers.  We stopped to listen to a guy playing music on crystal glasses and also to hear some men playing some old time music ;).  We then went to find the Lennon Wall, which was incredible to see! There was so much graffiti on it from people all over the world.  There was an American flag painted o there, so of course us Americans posed in front of it!  After that we had the best Czech food and it was all because of a sign saying, "Real Czech food 20km" lol.  I got the stroganoff, which was different from what I'm used to, but delicious.

After the Lennon Wall we walked to see the Dancing House, which is also called Fred and Ginger.  It is the Nationale-Nederlanden building in Prague.  It was a great site to see, but nothing more to it than looking.  We then started walking back to the city center to meet up with Brittany and her friend.  The rest of the day we spent looking around and we got a coffee at a local restaurant.  We sat outside under blankets and heaters because it was incredibly cold outside.  We ended up eating dinner at a restaurant in a hotel called U Prince.  It was decently good food for a good price and then we went back to the belgian chocolate place and I got a waffle dessert that was the best dessert I have ever had! NO JOKE! It was miniature waffles with melted dark and milk chocolate poured on top!  SO AMAZING!  We ended up going back to the hostel because we were tired after that and relaxed for a bit.  A few people went out that night and it made the lag the next day, but I chose to wake up early the next day to see as much I could prior to leaving.

Then comes our last day and of course it would be raining the entire day!  We woke up and got breakfast and stalked up on the free sandwiches for lunch or for the train ride home and then headed out.  We went in a different direction than we usually did and we stumbled upon a great market!  I bought some amazing souvenirs there at a great price!  We then headed back to the same place we had coffee the day before to warm ourselves because it was freezing outside.  I got a hot chocolate because it looked amazing from the day prior.  This hot chocolate was thick instead of watered down and it tasted great!  Alex and I also shared a pizza because we were getting hungry again.  We then split off into three groups and did our own thing.  Sam, Alex, Jess and I went to see some other things and then we got lunch.  We found a nice place hidden on one of the streets that had some good prices.  Jess and Sam got their own meal and Alex and I shared again and we all got the club sandwich because it looked so good.  Jess and I also got 2 glasses of wine and had a grand ole time talking!  We then killed time at the hostel by watching a movie prior to leaving for the train station.  The weather was horrible, so I did not feel so bad for staying inside.

Prague was by far one of my favorite cities in Europe!  I will for sure go back and I recommend anyone traveling through Europe to visit Prague!

Now it's time to buckle down on school work and then we go to ROME AND GREECE!! :)