Colorful Buildings, Synagogues & Bridges-- Prague!

I think I just had the best weekend since I've been abroad. I spent it in Prague, Czech Republic, and it was way too short.

I went with one of my roommates, and met up with a few friends from Pitt. We left very early on Friday morning. It seems like we are always leaving for weekend trips early on Friday mornings, but this one took the cake. We began our travels to the airport at 3:30 am. When we looked up the weather in Prague ahead of time, we were shown a daunting image- an icon of a black cloud with what looked like a mixture of rain, snow, and a tornado. It was humorous at first, and then suddenly not funny at when we arrived to Prague in a hail-ish rain.

With losing an hour due to the time difference, we arrived at our hostel in Prague around 11:30. Our room in the hostel was unbelievable. When we first walked in, we dropped our bags and stared. For two people, we had a big beautiful room with a double bed, 2 big chairs, a table, and a chandelier! We had a big modern looking bathroom. It was all black, white, and green, and cannot even really be called a hostel room. They gave us towels, shampoos, shower gels, soaps, and free coffee. If you are ever visiting Prague, be sure to go to the Czech Inn! We couldn't stop laughing at our situation- for the price of a hostel, we had landed a beautiful hotel room!

Despite being in an awesome hostel, we struggled with what to do given the weather. Normally we would go find a tour or wander ourselves, but anything outside was bound to be made miserable. So we found out about a museum to go to and how to get there. And so began our first adventure on the tram. We took the tram at least 7 times in the weekend, and successfully got on the right tram going the right direction...1 time. In our defense, it was hard to see the stop names through foggy/rainy windows, and all of the names look and sounded like such jibberish to us at first. But mainly, I may have the world's worst sense of direction.

After standing in the pouring rain, switching trams, standing in the rain again, trying to read a wet map, more tram, more rain- we got some warm coffee and found the Museum of Communism. This may sound odd to you, since it sounded odd to me at first, too. And walking into the museum (which shared a building with a casino) we saw posters like this:

The museum had a history of Communism and how the Czech Republic fell to the hands of Communists. It talked about life under Communist rule and how individuals fought it. And finally it detailed the end of Communism in the Czech Republic. The most shocking to me was how recently that happened! The Velvet revolution- the peaceful overthrowing of the Communist government- began in November 1989. I was already born! I had no idea that Communism was going on in Europe so recently!

Once we left the museum the rain had stopped! So the day was saved. We walked around looking at the map, and managed to find some sights! We found the Municipal Hall, the Synagogue of Jersalem, Wenceslas Square, and amazing architecture throughout the city.

Municipal Hall

Jerusalem Synagogue

One of my friends' bag of clothing managed to get completely soaked, and so I had the chance to visit a laundromat in Prague! This was actually a sort of glorified laundromat- with free internet, and little lounge, with couches, coffee, and a puppy dog! So of course we played with the puppy until all of her clothes were dried, and then we had a late dinner at the restaurant in the hostel. Then began our pub crawl. We went on a pub crawl with a huge group of Americans to four different bars. The first bar a little odd. There was a sculpture of a huge head in the middle of the dance floor, and hooka everywhere. Drinks were free though, and it turned out to be a great time. We went to three bars after that, and they were mostly all darker and had lots of dancing. It felt so good to be with friends from Pitt again, and even being in a foreign city, it felt a bit more like home. It was one of the best nights I've had in a while, and it was late before we made our way back to our hostel/hotel.

The next morning we made our way to Prague Castle (again adventuring on the tram, and again getting a bit lost). Prague Castle was big, old, and...castle-like. It was the home to the monarch in the Middle Ages and the head Nazi's when the Nazis controlled the Czech Republic. The best part about visiting here was the view! On the walk down the Old Castle Steps we were met with a spectacular view of the city. Even though the sun wasn't shining, the city looked colorful somehow.

View from Prague Castle Stairs

After this we met up with a tour group in Old Town Square. Old Town Square is a big open square with lots of food vendors and intricately designed buildings. The tour took us through the square to the clock tower- the oldest astronomical clock in Europe. We also went back to Wenceslas Square, where we had been the day before, and learned some history about the Czech Republic. We made our way to the Jewish quarter, where we saw the Old-New Synangogue, the Spanish synagogue, and the Pinkas synagogue. The Pinkas synagogue is no longer active, but instead serves as a memorial for the 70,000 Czech Jews that died in the Holocaust. Here there was also the Old Jewish cemetery, which holds remains of over 12,000 Jews from the 15th to the 18th centuries.

Astrological Clock Tower

Old Town Square

Old-New Synagogue

Spanish Synagogue

The final stop of the tour was to Charles Bridge, my favorite place in Prague! There are many bridges over the Vltava river, but this one is beautifully decorated with statues and filled with vendors selling pictures and jewelry. The sun came out at this point, and the view of the water, bridge, and city was wonderful. I could feel a soft spot for Prague growing.

Statues on Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge

That night we went to dinner and had Czech food- and so much of it! We shared a cheese platter and a cheesy potato casserole thingy to start. Then I had pork ribs with sour cream and bbq sauce with a side of spinach and garlic. For dessert I had a huge plate of ice cream with hot raspberries. Everything was SO good, and so cheap! Everything in Prague was really cheap, but especially food.

When we first tried to make our way around the city, the Czech language looked insane! But after being there for 2 days, words started to look familiar and we found some cognates buried within. But many many Czech people spoke English to us, and we extremely friendly (which you don't find everywhere...). Another challenege was the Czech currency- the crowns. I felt ridiculous taking out 2,000 crowns at an ATM, but the exchange is about 17 crowns to 1 US dollar. Throughout the weekend I bought a sandwich for 350 crowns, or a postcard for 20 crowns. But when doing the conversion, Prague was the cheapest place that I've visited in Europe.

If I had to pick any city in Europe to live in, aside from London, I would pick Prague!