Czech This Out

This past weekend, I took a trip to Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. After leaving on Friday morning, we were able to arrive to the city by 5pm. Madison and I met up with Ryan, who was flying in from his week in Dublin.

Upon arrival, we were astonished to see how little worth the currency had there. One Euro is approximately equal to 28 Czech Koruna, so we were dealing in thousands. On the bright side, things were very cheap.

Our first purchase was pizza at a place nearby our hostel. Each slice was 30 Koruna, so about a Euro.This may not sound out-of-the-ordinary, but compared to European prices, that pizza was dirt cheap. After the pizza, we tried to explore a bit, but it was too dark to really see anything, so we gave up. Next, Ryan, Madison, and I headed to a small pub to sit down and talk because we hadn't seen Ryan in a while due to his weekly travel.

We decided that we should go sit by the river to talk, because it wasn't extremely cold, and there were many cool places to sit by bridges. On the way, we passed up a 5-story night club, which is supposedly the biggest in central Europe. Later in the night, we headed to the club to see what the levels offered.

There were ice bar, hip-hop, oldies, chill, and dance music levels to this club. It was a fun time because there was so much variety in style. We didn't go in the ice bar, but we had fun on the other levels! We headed home, and got Subway on the way. Both times I've had Subway in Europe, I've loved it: partially because it tastes so good, and partially because it reminds me of home.

We woke up the next morning ready to go to a shooting range, an excursion we had booked earlier in the week. The range was 45 minutes out of the city, but they provided a driver both ways. Madison was the first to shoot, which was pretty funny to watch, but she wasn't bad! She came in first place for marksmanship in her group! (She was the only one in her group). Ryan and I got to shoot an AK47, a pump-action shotgun, an M16, and a sniper rifle. Ryan beat me, because he basically perfected shooting an M16, but it was still a blast! Totally worth it.

Next, we headed to see the city square. We hadn't seen much of the Prague that I was expecting yet, just tons of normal-looking buildings. But once we got to the city center, it was just like how I expected Prague. The architecture and layout was really cool, and very different from a lot of what I had seen up until that point of the semester.

We stumbled upon a promotor for a pub crawl, and he asked if we were tourists. He pointed us in the direction of a vantage point with a stunning view of Prague, where we could take some pictures.

So we walked up many stairs on our way to this secluded and elevated park area. We sat down on a ledge for a little bit, but since sunset was 4:15, we had to hurry up to see other things before dark. We headed to see the castle district and the John Lennon wall.

Trying to navigate from the park area to the main castle district was very difficult, and we may or may not have accidentally trespassed on the royal property while doing so. But we eventually found our way to the district. It was full of small shops and cool views of the city, since it was elevated as well. We walked around, walked into "Prague's best christmas shop" (I didn't even have to see another to know it's not the best), and we took pictures from the new great view. Ryan grabbed a random corn on the cob from a stand, and we headed to see the Lennon wall before it got dark.

Since it's only a wall, it is hard to come by unless you know exactly where you're going. But the receptionist at the hostel showed me earlier that day. We got there in time to take pictures while it was still bright, and we took a bunch of pictures again. I was a little bummed, because I had a poster in my room last year of the wall, and it had a famous "Imagine" encompassed by a peace symbol painted onto it. But it must have been painted over, because it was no longer visible. The wall was still astonishing and exciting to see, though.

We got Starbucks (well, I just got WiFi) before we headed to dinner. Dinner was amazing. It was pretty cheap, and ridiculously filling. We took a couple hours to eat, and then headed to an Irish Pub for one drink. We were all exhausted from our long day, so we decided to go back to the hostel.

We left Prague at 8:30 Sunday morning, getting home at like 9pm. The travel did not seem too long though, so it wasn't bad at all. It was such a relaxing weekend; I really enjoyed both Prague and the people I traveled with. I'm so happy I went, and hope to return one day. 88/117.