Czech Me Out, Prague!

Hi everyone!
So I'm officially back and rested from my weekend trip to Prague, Czech Republic. I think it's safe to say that this weekend was the best time I've had since I've left the USA, it was an absolute blast! Even though I was only in Prague for a few days, I fell absolutely in love with the city and kinda wish I gave more consideration to studying there. But I'm home in Florence now and I still love Firenze!


So after my slew of weekday classes, we departed for Prague at 9 PM on Thursday night. It just so happened that a lot of people I knew were going on the trip! Rach and I had booked the trip together originally but Meg, Nat and their two roomies also decided to come. And a lot of other girls we knew (including Paige) were along as well. So we departed from Florence around 9 on the bus and drove all night until we reached Prague at 9 AM- yep, 12 wonderful hours. I did sleep but my back and neck were killlling me and I'm pretty sure I lost circulation in my butt for at least a day afterwards. 

 Old Town Square

Anyway we arrived in Prague and it was slightly drizzling, which I was a bit TO'ed about, but luckily after we "czech-ed" in (hahahaha) at the Czech Inn (probably the most luxurious hostel in the world), the sun started to come out. We had a short breakfast and then somehow managed to ignore our exhaustion and go on a 3 hour walking tour? I have to admit, I was dreading it but we had this hilarious, over-enthousiastic, Scottish tour guide who somehow managed to cheer us all about. We toured the Old Square, New Square and the Jewish Quarter and I fell in loveeeee with Prague. 


We had lunch at this little (ironically) Italian Panerie and exchanged some money next door. I didn't know this but the Czech Republic is not on the Euro currency. It still uses Czech crowns which was honestly extremely frustrating because I'm just getting used to the Euro and then I had to figure out another twisted currency. But luckily, my euro conversion skills came in handy- one euro is equal to 25 crowns. So when something cost 100 crowns (which was a common price), it was about 4 euros, which is about 6 dollars. 


The weather was colder than Florence, I'd say it was pretty equivalent to New England weather, so Rach, Nat, Meg and I decided to splurge 250 crowns and buy hilarious Czech hats. We found a random side shop and the Czech store tenders absolutely loved us. They were so excited that we were American (a nice change of pace from the snotty Italians hah) and when I was paying the guy asked me if I was from California. I said no, I was from New York (easier to say then.. no I'm from CT, about 2 hours by train outside of New York but I go to school in Rhode Island blah blah blah) and he said I looked like I was from California because I was so smiley? So random but he gave us all discounts so I was happy :)

We then toured the Jewish Quarter and were left on our own for late lunch/early dinner. Our marvelous tour guide recommended this place called "The Pub" where every table has its own beer tap, so you can pour your own beer at the table! We decided to check it out and ended up getting their famous garlic soup in bread bowls for dinner. 


After that we attempted to ride the trams home but the names of all the stops were literally IMPOSSIBLE to decipher. So, we spent an extra half-hour walking home because we were so clueless and let me tell you, the street names were not much better. We got back to the Czech Inn with just enough time to started getting ready to go out. Our trip was sponsoring a pub crawl that we decided to do (just like everyone else on the tour so there was roughly 7 MILLION of us, ugh so many people). So many people in fact that when we were going down the escalator to the subways, the escalator broke and we were forced to walk down. This sounds okay but this escalator is not like all the American ones we are used to. Imagine this, tall mall escalators take about 20 seconds to descend from top to bottom. This escalator, which is underground in a tight tunnel takes a full TWO AND A HALF MINUTES to descend. When it was running smoothly, it was terrifying but when it stopped it was awful. You know the scene from Titanic when the ship breaks in half as it's sinking and you hear that high-pitch shriek? Yep, that's the exact shriek that echoed through the tunnel when the escalator stopped. Ugh, literally terrifying.


Anyway, we arrived to the first bar pretty early. We found out later that this bar was underneath a church? and was completely made of white stone, only lit by christmas lights and candles. There was an open bar that we had to stand in line for and we all thought the night was going to be a bust. But then more and more people started showing up and the bar line started moving faster and it ended up turning into this huge dance party! We found this group of Czech guys (actually, Austrian.. we found out later) who looked like they were about 16 and one of them was Justin Beiber's twin.. so naturally, we started calling him Justin Beiber and then were loving it. After a good long time of dancing they announced that the pub crawl was moving on.. so we followed the lady with the green umbrella to the next venue.


This was an actual bar, which I was a little sad about because you can't dance as much but oh well. Since there was no open bar we made our way up to order our own drinks. We saw a group of Americans drinking from this HUGE cup with about a dozen neon tall straws and decided we should all go in and split that. So I went up to the bar and waited to get the bartenders attention (it was literally packed so it was taking a while) and this Czech dude started talking to me. For some reason I told him that we were ordering the huge bowl and he said he knew the bartender so he could find out the price for me. He called the bartender over, said something and Czech and the bartender went away. He looked at me and said it was 800 crowns.. which is roughly 32 euros.. about 50 dollars, so I turned to my girls and told them. I took out a hundred crowns and the Czech guy looked at me and was like "No, I already ordered it.. you don't have to pay." Literally, the best 10 words I heard all night. So the huge bowl came over to us, the Czech guy gave him money, I said thank you and I took the bowl over to our table. The best part was, even though Beiber and his crew were following us, this guy completely disappeared and we got a free gallon of long island ice tea. So hilarious. 


We moved on to the next bar which I didn't really enjoy, but they had a private room with bean bag chairs that we took over. We ended up at the last bar around 3 AM and literally exhausted (I hadn't slept since my sleep-from-hell on the bus) so we didn't stay for long. BUT one fun fact was this last club was the club from the movie Eurotrip when they take the absinthe shots and go wild on the dance floor? Yep, that's the club I was at for 20 minutes haha. Needless to say, we all went home and crashed until the next morning when we woke up for breakfast.

Nat, myself, Rachel and Meg at an overlook of Prague

The next day we spent walking around the city once again. We saw the huge medieval castle across the river and climbed up the mountain to see the fake Eiffel Tower. It was fun to get out and see the city even though the weather was a bit chilly. 


We then all went home and took a 3 hour nap, which was extremely over due and needed. When we woke up, we ate a quick dinner and once again got dressed to go out. We went to Lucerna, an 80s/90s dance club that was near New Town Square and since we were all still out of it and didn't want to take out more crowns, we decided to forgo dancing for the most part and just people watch. Let me tell you, Czech people are HILARIOUS to watch. They are all so odd and dress so strangely, it made my night. We ended up leaving the club early, almost got caught by the tram police because we didn't have validated tickets, got McDonald's and went home. We woke up Sunday morning for an 11 AM departure to Florence. We arrived in Florence at midnight and I've been sleeping ever since. This morning our landlord and his wife came in and cleaned our kitchen and our bathroom, they are the best! Now, I'm about to leave for a field trip to the Brancacci Chapel to observe paintings for my Chemistry class? More to come soon, Happy Valentine's Day!