Ok so I don’t know how many of you have been to Prague, but
it is seriously like the kingdom straight out of Beauty and the Beast or
something. It is so beautiful. Let’s just recap this wonderful place.
We woke up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus. We were
fretting for a bit because we almost missed it even though we left like an hour
early. Sometimes in these cities the subways run less frequently in the wee
hours of the morning. We found that out the hard way. Luckily we made it, and
we made the beautiful drive through the beautiful German countryside and
through Dresden to Prague.
When we got there we found our way to the hostel in record
time. This was a good thing to because there was so much Prague waiting for us
to explore. The only hoop we had to jump through was the check in time. We
arrived to the hostel 30 minutes before check in. I used my mad powers of
persuasion (I begged the receptionist), to let us check in early, and finally
he obliged.
Once we were all checked in, we found out that we were just
in time to go on a free walking tour. We grabbed a sandwich to go and met in
the town square. When we found our tour guide, he told us to go watch the town
square’s clock. He said it would probably change our life. We waited until the
hour struck and the clock did it’s little performance. It was probably the
dumbest thing I have ever waited for. It hardly did anything, but the whole
square was full of tourists waiting for the clock. When we got back to the tour
guide, he sarcastically said, “I knew it would change your life!” What a funny
dude. Later in the tour he told us that the Prague clock is voted every year as
one of the most overrated tourist sights to see in Europe. When he actually
told us the history behind the clock, it became a lot cooler.
Apparently, the Prague clock was the first of its kind. It
had the time, but also the date. The coolest thing I think it did was show
where the earth is in relation to the sun and the moon. Well when it was built,
the king at the time didn’t want the inventor to sell his secrets to any other
kingdoms. So what did he do?.... Take a wild guess….. You were wrong! He didn’t
die. They just cut out his tongue and blinded him. That is a way worse punishment and was very
brutal in my opinion. If my life ever comes to that, I think I would rather
just go peacefully that have anyone ever take away some of my vital senses.
My other favorite part of the tour was when we went to the
old Jewish district. The only things that were original were the old cemetery
and the synagogue. The cemetery blew my mind. This was the only place the Jews
were allowed to bury their dead. They don’t believe in cremation, so they had
to have every single body in this extremely small area. The guide told us that
there are about 8-10 bodies stacked on top of each other, and that they
estimate 100,000 bodies are buried there. I have no idea if that is true, but
it blew my mind. Apparently, back in the day, the ghettos were so bad that they
had to tear them all up because the disease was so spreading so rampantly. Now
that it has been rebuilt, it is full of some of the most expensive shops in all
of Prague. Ironic huh?
For the rest of the tour I was so freezing that I couldn’t
concentrate super well. It was a four hour long tour, so all the girls started
feeling the same way as me. We tipped our tour guide generously, and went on
our way. Our next destination was food of course.
In the spirit of being in the Czech Republic, we decided to
try and find some traditional Czech cuisine. Rosie and I decided to share once
again. This time, we decided to get Pork knee and Goolash. It was interesting… The pork knee would have
been good but it tasted so slimy. The goolash was actually pretty good. Well
done Czech Republic.
After we ate, we went
back to the hostel because we were exhausted. We were all so excited about the
next day because it was so beautiful and we had just barely dipped our toes in
all that Prague had to offer. I had a
really great first day in Prague. I can really understand now why people drool
over Europe. Prague gave that to me and it only got better on Prague day two.
XO Mikele