Prague!!

This weekend, I went to Prague to see Meghan!! It was a very last minute trip, but I had such an amazing time!! Just getting to see her again made my soul smile. =)

On Thursday, I packed in the morning (no surprise) and headed to the airport. I had picked up "The Magus" (John Fowles) from the QM library to read on the train. It's one of my favorite books and one that you have to read multiple times to really appreciate, so I've finally got the chance to read it again. Anyway, I landed in Prague at around 4:30pm and gave Meghan the biggest hug ever. From there we took the metro and a few trams to her homestay where her Czech mom made an incredible dinner and taught us how to make apple strudel. I think I'm going to try to replicate it later this semester... yum! =)

The next day I went with Meghan to her university and spent the morning walking around near her campus while she was in class. The campus is high up on a hill with a great view of Prague. I also wandered around a park, cemetery, and Vysehrad church.


One of the many statues in the park next to her campus. Prague is really big on epic statues. Notice the falcon on her shoulder... ridiculous.

This is Vysehrad Church. The building itself was impressive, but the doors were what really fascinated me. You can't tell in this picture, but they were colorful and gilded.

After her class, I joined her on a scavenger hunt and realized that if I thought I was horrible with directions in the US, I'm hopeless when they're given in Czech. I originally thought I could help with the scavenger hunt, but eventually settled on just appreciating Prague while Meghan and her friends tried to navigate ("Prominte... Kde je ___?" This was followed by babbling in Czech, which was met by our blank stares until they used hand motions).

After the scavenger hunt, we spent some time in Wenceslas Square. We found a place to eat lunch where I ordered traditional Czech food (goulash and bread dumplings -- yum!) and both of us got mulled wine, a warm red wine with all sorts of spices.

This is Wenceslas Square. In front is a statue to King Wenceslas (one of many... they love him) and behind that is the national museum.

From the market, we looked around a street market, where I bought a painting (which is now hanging in my room -- hooray!) and then spent some time in Old Town Square. We watied a few minutes by the Astronomical Clock so that we could see the "Walk of the Apostles," (Every hour, the medieval clock opens some of the windows at the top and you can see all of the Apostles circle through the tower).


A closeup of the Astronomical Clock. I used my advanced sign language skills to get directions ("Prominte... Kde je..." then I would point to my watch and then use my hands to indicate something really big).

That night, Meghan and I hurriedly got ready (think of getting ready to go out on the Row in 10 minutes flat -- that's the kind of teamwork we showed. It was a beautiful sight), because we had tickets to the Opera!! We went to the Statsi Opera to see "Tosca." The Opera itself was amazing and my jaw dropped when I saw the inside of the Opera house.


On our way to the Opera... this is one of my favorites of the two of us. =)


The stage... absolutely gorgeous!!


Here's the chandelier and a bit of the gilded and painted ceiling. I spotted a couple of lyres! =)

To end the evening, Meghan and I went out to meet a bunch of her friends at a club. Clubbing in Prague is pretty popular, but you wouldn't really know it from walking down the streets. It actually seems pretty quiet. But when you go into a bar, you have to head down about two flights of stairs to their basement (or second basement) to find another bar with tons of room to dance, lots of smoke, plenty of people, and disco lights. Their basements seem to go on forever. It was fantastic!

The next day, we toured Prague Castle. It isn't really a castle so much as a complex full of amazing buildings.


This is the main entryway to Prague Castle. Those gates are huge when you get close to them and the statues on either side of the main gate are of battling Titans. Epic? Yes.

The St. Vitus Cathedral, just inside the second courtyard of the castle complex. It was so big (and so close to other buildings) that I couldn't get a shot of the entire cathedral, so this is a side shot. There was also another church (St. George Basilica) and a monastery there.


The building that houses international dignitaries. My kind of building.


Golden Lane. People used to live in these houses (including Franz Kafka), but now they hold shops for tourists. It was so colorful and the houses were teeny! I could nearly bump my head on the top of their doorways.


When we finished looking around Prague Castle, we walked back down the huge hill and found our way to the other side of the Vtlava via Charles Bridge. As the sun was setting, I took this picture -- beautiful!

After that, we stopped by the Medieval Torture Museum, which was a bit unnerving... so we decided to head to the Chocolate Museum and buy a chocolate covered banana to make it all better!! Yum. This is a blurb from my favorite exhibit in the museum:

"Spanish women who had emigrated to Mexico loved chocolate so much that they couldn't stop drinking it. They even had their servants pour it for them during religious ceremonies. The constant coming and going of the servants became so annoying that the Bishop of Chiapas, Don Bernaurdus de Salazar, decided to prohibit it. Drining cocoa was banned during mass, and as a result people stayed away from church. Finally the Bishop was murdered. Poison had been added to his cup of cocoa."

The moral of the story: don't mess with a woman's chocolate!!

That night, Meghan's Czech mom made us Czech comfort food: fried cheese and potatoes. I think that if I had stayed there for a week or more all of the starch would start clogging all my arteries. But it was definitely worth it -- everything was so delicious! I'm a bit jealous that Meghan has someone that cooks so well in charge of the kitchen. I found peanut butter at the store the other day and have now graduated to pb&j.

On Sunday, we visited the Jewish Quarter. What's really interesting about this is that it escaped the destruction that normally befell Jewish ghettos during WWII. While the Jewish population was decimated, Hitler decided to leave the buildings standing to serve as a sort of museum. It's sick, but interesting. On top of that, Prague is actually the only major city in Europe that was not bombed during WWII.

The Maisel Synagoge. It was originally built in the 1500s, but remade in the gothic style in the late 1800s after a fire. Again, it survived WWII.

After visiting the Jewish Quarter, Meghan and I decided to wander around a bit. It was fun just walking down whatever road looked interesting. We found a few fun shops to poke around in and took some great pictures by the river Vtlava.


Inside the window of one of the shops in the Jewish Quarter.


Yours truly in front of the Charles Bridge. If you look carefully, you can see the statues on the bridge -- there are 30 total.


Meghan and I with Prague Castle and the Vtlava in the background... definitely one of my favorites from the trip.

That afternoon, we returned to her homestay and had an amazing lunch, followed by a tram ride to the airport where I returned to London! So that's it, folks. A recap of my first international trip while abroad! It was incredible to see Meghan and to be introduced to such an amazing city.

No updates for a while, I think. I leave Thursday afternoon for a week and a half trip to Italy and Switzerland!! =)

Toodles!