Prague, Czech Republic

After a seven hour bus ride on the Orangeways bus(made bearable by their showing of Save the Last Dance, one of Brett's favorite films) we arrived in the Czech Republic. On the first day we did basically nothing, outside of eating dinner at a ridiculously cheap pizzeria and exploring the area around our hostel. Our hostel was the massive basically a cheap hotel Czech Inn. It was nothing like the small, friendly hostel iwe stayed at in Budapest. It was much harder to meet people, but we did end up getting to know the skinny English bloke across the room from us and also managed to share a few dangerous words with the very moody Australian who slept in the lower bunk of Brett's bed.

On the second day we walked into the old town, a beautiful section of the city seemingly populated entirely by tourists. We saw the Lennon wall (John not Vladimir, a mistake I made of course) which is a wall that has been frequently repainted with Beatle's related graffiti since the 1980s. We made our way to the Prague Castle, but it was far too expensive (an outlandish nine dollars with the student discount), so we walked down into the nearby parks. Sitting in a beautiful park for twenty minutes made us really tired, and we decided to head back to the hostel for an early night, via the cheap pizzeria of course. The route we took went right over one of Prague's best known landmarks, the Charles Bridge. Prague is really a very small city compared to Budapest, as we discovered while avoiding contact with the moody Australian as he went in the opposite direction across the Vltava River.

The next morning we finally got a chance to sleep in, and were the last ones out of our eight bed room. We left the hostel and walked aimlessly at a relaxing pace, with the ultimate goal of reaching Mozart's former house before the end of the day. We went up to the top of a hill, where we found splendid views and a very pretty old church. If you ever go to Prague I definitely reccommend it as the place to go, but I don't remember what it's called. If we have learned anything over the last ten days, it is that if you walk in the same direction for long enough, you will eventually find something interesting. It is definitely worth it. Speaking of worth it, the two hour search for Mozart's house probably wasn't. The museum inside had been cleared out when the Communists left in 1990, so it was basically one room with a few pictures. It was, however, in an attractive residential part of town that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. As Brett reminded me afterwards "every cloud has a silver lining." I then reminded him that he is an idiot, but probably correct. We then walked the two or so miles back to the hostel. And got plenty of rest before our flight to Zurich the next day.

Prague is certainly a lovely city. We give it the Adam & Brett Go European stamp of approval. Just don't go for more than three nights.

Next post will feature Switzerland, a land of tall mountain men, their bovine wives, and twelve dollar Mcdonald's meals.