Prague

May 31-June1

No, I'm not going to make any lame jokes like "Czech yourself". It always really bugs me for some reason when people do that. Summary of Prague: the most beautiful city I have been to so far! Oddest thing about Prague: it really really reminded me of Budapest--not in the stuff in the city, but in the physical layout of it. It's divided into two parts by a river, just like Budapest. The left side has two big hills, just like Budapest. The southern hill (mountain?) is larger than the northern one, just like Budapest. The northern hill has a large castle, just like Budapest. I didn't realize the similarities until I was on the top of the southern hill looking down at the castle on the northern one. I felt like I'd seen it all before....I guess that's kind of what happens traveling around Europe for a year, though.

I was only in Prague for two days, so there's not too much to say. I took a bus Friday night from Ulm and arrived into Prague on Saturday morning. At 5 AM. It was already light out. Needless to say, not much was going on. I walked to my hostel (Prague is a very walkable city, by the way), and no one answered when I rang the buzzer. I had to call them from my cell phone and ask them to let me in. Their response? "Someone will be there at 9 AM." AKA in 3.5 hours. Uh, no thanks. Luckily, getting angry gets results in every country, and they told me someone was coming at 7 AM to take people to the airport and he would let me in (why didn't they just say this the first time?). So I sat in the Old Town Square for an hour and a half and read a book. One great thing about being out so early is that there are NO other tourists. I never saw the Old Town Square that empty again. It was pretty nice actually.

Old Town Square at 7 AM on a Saturday

After I dropped off my stuff at my hostel, I walked across the Charles Bridge, also pleasantly tourist-free, and up to Prague Castle. There wasn't too much to see there since it was so early, but I walked around a little bit until it was 9, and then I went to a musem about the history of Prague Castle. It was incredibly boring. I do not recommend it if you're there. Luckily it was cheap, so I only wasted about $3. There was some kind of military band playing up there as I was leaving. That was pretty neat. I was gonna go into St. Vitus Cathedral, but the line was insanely long, so I vetoed that. Instead I walked back down, swung by St. Nicholas Church (one of the two St. Nicholas Churches in Prague), decided against that because it cost 50 Kr (what kind of church costs money to get in???), and instead walked to Wallenstein Palace, which had really nice gardens and some loud peacocks. Then after lunch I went on a river cruise which I 95% decided to go on because it was so hot out. It was pretty expensive, but whatever. I was so tired from the bus and walking around that I could barely keep my eyes open on the boat. Then afterwards I rode the funicular (no way was I walking) to the top of Petrin Hill, then climbed Petrin Tower, supposedly a mini-version of the Eiffel Tower (although still a good 90 m high).

View from Petrin Tower

Then I exhaustedly walked back down the hill. Mistake. That sucker is STEEP. I also inadvertantly walked more to the right, making it a lot longer. For some reason after that (maybe I was feeling like torturing myself) I walked across one of the bridges to see the National Theater, and then down to the Fred and Ginger Dancing Building, which is SO COOL. I didn't go in or anything, but you don't need to. It's just awesome-looking. Afterwards I walked to Wenceslas Square, which was a big disappointment, since it's not so much a square as a strip in the middle of the road with some benches. After walking about 18,975 miles, I ate dinner, went back to my (burning hot because it's Europe and they don't have air conditioning anywhere) hostel room. Oh well, at least I had my own room and a nice view.

The next day I woke up semi early, because there was a sign that said that check out was by 10 AM. At 9:30 I went to check out.....and no one was there. I waited for a few minutes, checked the common areas, and then had to call the hostel. Again. They told me someone would be there at 10:30. 10:30! FYI: If you ever go to Prague, do NOT stay at the Condor 1, because they have HORRIBLE service! Actually, it's non-existent, since no one is ever there! They also said I couldn't leave my bag, because my bus left late at night, and naturally no one would be there. Great. So I had to walk to the bus station and leave it in the luggage place there (luckily really cheap) and then walk back. I wanted to go on a free tour at 10:30, and with having to walk there and back, I just made it. The free tour was pretty good. I learned a decent amount about Prague. We also saw a lot of stuff that I had seen already, which means I could have saved myself all that walking. We saw a bunch of the synagogues in the Jewish Quarter, the Charles Bridge, the National Theater, and the theater where Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered, plus assorted stuff in the Old Town Square, including the astronomical clock, which is really cool. After the tour I ate lunch then went into the other St. Nicholas Church, which luckily was free to get into. Then I couldn't hold out in the hot weather anymore and went to one of the parks on the Lesser Side and read for a while, and afterwards was finally able to find the Lennon Wall! Which wasn't that exciting. I'm still not sure what it's about. Something about John Lennon, obviously. Then the Municipal Hall, which I got stuck inside for a little bit while it rained, then the mall since I decided that would be more interesting, and then dinner, since it was still raining. After dinner I walked up to the metronome (what's it keeping time for?) on another hill above the city, where there were a bunch of slightly sketchy people hanging. I walked back through the Jewish Quarter again, which is actually pretty nice, and since I wasn't on a tour I could stop and look at stuff.

The Spanish Synagogue

Then, back to the Old Town Square where I whiled away some time before heading to the bus station to while away some more time. Then I came home. The worst part--the train I took from Ulm to Heidenheim got into Heidenheim at 6:58, the exact same time as the bus to Heuchlingen was supposed to leave. I got out of the train the second it stopped, ran as fast as I could while carrying my bags to the bus station, and got there just in time to see the bus pull out. I was too far away to flag it down. I even tried running to the next stop, but since no one was waiting there, I had no shot. Instead, I had to wait 3.5 hours until the next bus left. Luckily in that time I was able to take a 15-minute power nap in the mall.

Prague overall: really cool and a beautiful city. Two days was enough though. If I wasn't museum-ed out, I probably would have wanted more time, but as it was I thought one weekend was perfect. Europe has GOT to get air conditioning though. Or at least fans.