Praha je jen vlakem... (Prague's only a train ride away...)

I'd like to call attention to the fact that this post title is in Czech. A language that I have no hope of ever learning. I was hoping the translation would have more of the accents in it, but disappointingly enough, no dice. Just take my word for it, the language is on crack.

Prague. I was told two things about it before coming; just walk around the city and take in your surroundings. And, go on a pub crawl.

Prague seems to be one of the party capital cities of the world. The Czechs love their beer, their absinthe and they certainly love their clubs, given that Central Europe's biggest club is located right in the centre of it all. 

More about that later though. We arrived to our hostel in Prague at around 4pm after getting lost numerous times. Wandering around a strange city is just becoming funny now. However, with all the cobblestones here, dragging around our duffel bags certainly got old fast.

We finally found our hostel in the middle of Old Town. This was my favourite one so far. It was located at the top of a massive staircase in what was probably a large loft flat before they made it int a hostel. It was the smallest one I've been in, but it had this cozy/homey feel, plus my dorm room was massive, so I liked it. 

We decided before leaving the train station that day that we wanted to do a day trip to Vienna on Thursday. The train to Vienna would leave at 6:30am and so there was going to be no drinking on Wednesday night. Which left us with only one choice; do the pub crawl on our first night.

After a day of travelling, I didn't really feel up to getting wasted, but it was one of the things that I said I was going to do and so, I had no choice.

Sarah and I got ready to go, bought our tickets at the hostel front desk and off we went. The pub crawl company owns its own bar and so we went there first and were lead to the first bar on the tour. It was a pub that was offering us one hour of unlimited drinking. We had a few beer and shots and met some guys from the US and a couple of girls from Canada before heading off to the next bar.

The next "bar" was actually a club. And it was the clubbiest club I've ever been in. Literally everything had black lights, there were TVs everywhere (they were showing the Victoria's Secret fashion show in the women's washroom, which seemed odd) and even the bathroom faucets glowed when you turned them on. Not to mention the only light shining into the ONE stall in the washroom was a black light... Like really?

But besides that, it wasn't bad. The beer was relatively cheap and we did get to dance a little bit. In Prague you're still allowed to smoke in the bars and it kind of seemed weird to me every time someone lit up indoors. I could never get used to that, just seems so weird.

The next bar we went to, Sarah and I pretty much ignored everyone and had a heart-to-heart, in typical drunk girl fashion. However at one point, some guy tried to come in a start a conversation with us and drunk lying Jessie, took over. I told him we were from Napa (is that how you spell it?) Valley, California and that Sarah went to Cornell. (Couldn't even let her lie for herself, good one.)

From there, we headed out to the nights main event. The five floor club that everyone was talking about. Each floor is a different theme and each one plays different music. 

It must cost a fortune to power this place because the amount of lights in there was unreal. We walked inside and the entire entrance way was just these flat blue squares of light from floor to ceiling. Let me just say that that kind of light is the most unflattering thing ever.

We then proceeded thought the maze of stars and hallways to check out the different floors. One was Oldies, one was Rock and Roll and one was the Hit List, just to name a few. You get the idea. 

We ended up on one floor that had a bar and then the dance floor was down in a pit basically. You could look down from the balcony into the pit and it was basically a mosh. Really cool.

I was a little bit disappointed though because the club itself seemed kind of dead. The only people there were really only the pub crawlers. It would've been cool to be there on a Friday or Saturday night when it was really going.

Overall though, I thought it was really cool and I know I'll be coming back when I travel here again next Fall. Sarah and I finished the night off at KFC where I drunk ate a Zinger burger and regretted it immensely the next morning. 

The next day, we began our touring of the city. The night before, the buildings had been all lit up and the Old Town Square looked absolutely beautiful. Little did I know, it would look just as amazing in the daytime.

Prague is one of the most well-preserved cities in Europe. Apparently this is because Hitler had wanted to retire to the city after he was done taking over the world, so he ensured that it wasn't bombed to bits during WW2. Really.

Regardless, it's beautiful. The streets are winding cobblestone pathways lined by towering colourful buildings with stunning trim and gold accents. Many of the buildings are even left over from medieval times. I finally understood why everyone said just to walk around Prague.

We grabbed some breakfast and headed into Old Town Square where we were supposed to meet our tour group for another free tour. On the way there, we were stopped by a guy trying to sell tickets to a pub crawl. We, unfortunately, were not interested because we were supposed to be heading to Vienna the next morning at 6:30am. I say unfortunately because this guy was a total smokeshow. Turns out he was from New York and he'd been living in Prague for the past year and a half. We got to talking about what it's like living in Europe, beer, travel visas and life back home. Pretty cool guy actually and he almost had us convinced to go out for a few beers that night. But I was still recovering from the night before and he wore Oakley sunglasses so I had to judge and say no. No, no I'm kidding (about the judging, not the Oakley's) I've travelled that early, hungover before. It's pure hell. Not even pretty Americans could make me endure that.

We proceeded from our new friend to our tour just as the rain started. Julie and I quickly ran got umbrellas and we were on our way.

And naturally, as soon as we bought the umbrellas, the rain stopped.

The tour itself had its ups and downs. It was great to see the city through the eyes of someone who knew all the hotspots, although I wasn't as interested in the history as I had been Berlin's. But it was interesting and our tour guide was really funny. He had a tiny speaker with him and would add sound effects to the stories he told. I think the most horrifying one was the one about a man who tried to steal from one of the famous churches in Prague. His hand was subsequently cut off when he was caught and then hung from the church ceiling as a reminder to not steal. The hand still hangs in the church, mummified. Super creepy.

I also liked the story about the Jewish sector if Prague. The Jews were imprisonned there for 600 years and it was a slum. Poorest of the poor. These days however, it's the richest area of the city, hosting the site of a five star hotel and numerous high-end stores such as, my favourite, Dolce & Gabbana. Someday I'm going to go in one of those stores and act like I have a lot money and I can afford that kind of stuff. 

The tour ended off at the river and the sun was just going down. I wish the pictures did it justice, because the whole scene just looked beautiful.

From there, we were frozen so we went off to dinner. We found this neat little patio restaurant that had heat lamps and blankets. It was great because it was super cozy, but we were still outside and got to people watch. Kind of reminded me of Whistler in a way, some of the bars there do the same thing. It made me a little homesick for my favourite place in the world.

It occurred to me that night that my adventure was quickly coming to an end and I was going to have to go back to normal life in Sonderborg. I say normal, even thought I know it's not, but it is quickly becoming my normal. I know that these next few weeks are going to be the time that I become the most homesick and I could start to feel that in the pit of my stomach that Wednesday night in Prague. I think I'm just going to have to keep myself busy with school and working out and just keep looking forward to the next adventure. 

I also still had one more day in Prague which I think I'm going to put in a separate blog post because this one is getting a bit long. Which means I'm going to have to use a second Czech title translation. Gah, the things I do.

PS. Had crepes again in Prague. I'm not really sure how I'm going to get by without those things back in Canada.

PPS. I just noticed that a lot of my PS's have to do with food. Hash tag fatty probs.