July 22-23, 2009
After a very short stay in Berlin, Aubz and I were so excited to leave for Prague. The train to Prague was only 6 hours long, but it seemed like it was 15 hours. Somehow we managed to pick the one car on the train whose air conditioning didn’t work. Oh, and the windows also didn’t open on this train so it pretty much felt like a smelly boys locker room! We were more than relieved when we finally reached Prague. The walk to our hostel gave us our workout for the day, maybe even for the week. Apparently the station we got off at wasn’t the closest to our hostel. After about 20-30 minutes of huffing and puffing up streets resembling the steep streets in San Francisco, we were at our hostel at last!
Clown and Bard is probably the nicest hostel we have stayed at so far, with clean sheets and big bathrooms. Unfortunately, the first night we got stuck with some older women who were more than grumpy that we weren’t in bed at 9 with them. By the way, people don’t usually go to bed before at least, and that’s even considered an early night. I took a shower and found out that the bathroom didn’t lock- luckily I never got walked in on. Aubz and I walked down the street for an authentic Czech dinner that was soooo good and ridiculously cheap. After relaxing a bit, we were ready for bed. At the time we had no idea that this was not going to be easy. I think the older women planned it, but they decided to have a snoring orchestra. The one lady snored like a normal person, which was bearable because at least it was constant. On the other hand, the other lady sounded like a horn that went off just as we dozed off, EVERY SINGLE TIME! We couldn’t hold it in any longer and just bust out laughing at our situation. My earplugs finally came in handy for both of us.
First thing the next morning, we changed rooms and ended up with a nicer room, bathroom, and roommates. We didn’t do any sight seeing today because we had to do so much needed laundry. On our way back from laundry we stopped at a restaurant that was down a very long and spiraled staircase with animal skins or fur lining the walls. It was a very manly restaurant, but the food was good and cheap. There was so much food leftover that we were able to spend 7 dollars for both our lunch and dinner. Two of our roommates ended up being these nice guys from Michigan. The other two girls didn’t show up till at least after 5 in the morning so we never really met them. That night we went on a pub crawl with the hostel. One of the guys who worked at the hostel has a boxer named Tyson that he brought along for the party. He reminded me of Presley except that he licked twice as much…I know, very hard to believe but it’s true. There were so many dogs all over Prague; which made me really miss Pres and Aubz miss Martini (Rob‘s dog). The weirdest part of the night was when we came to the last club. I was sitting down and turned around to see a guy I had gone to Cal Poly with named Nick, who was accompanied by a guy I knew from Bellarmine. What are the odds of that happening?
After a very short stay in Berlin, Aubz and I were so excited to leave for Prague. The train to Prague was only 6 hours long, but it seemed like it was 15 hours. Somehow we managed to pick the one car on the train whose air conditioning didn’t work. Oh, and the windows also didn’t open on this train so it pretty much felt like a smelly boys locker room! We were more than relieved when we finally reached Prague. The walk to our hostel gave us our workout for the day, maybe even for the week. Apparently the station we got off at wasn’t the closest to our hostel. After about 20-30 minutes of huffing and puffing up streets resembling the steep streets in San Francisco, we were at our hostel at last!
Clown and Bard is probably the nicest hostel we have stayed at so far, with clean sheets and big bathrooms. Unfortunately, the first night we got stuck with some older women who were more than grumpy that we weren’t in bed at 9 with them. By the way, people don’t usually go to bed before at least, and that’s even considered an early night. I took a shower and found out that the bathroom didn’t lock- luckily I never got walked in on. Aubz and I walked down the street for an authentic Czech dinner that was soooo good and ridiculously cheap. After relaxing a bit, we were ready for bed. At the time we had no idea that this was not going to be easy. I think the older women planned it, but they decided to have a snoring orchestra. The one lady snored like a normal person, which was bearable because at least it was constant. On the other hand, the other lady sounded like a horn that went off just as we dozed off, EVERY SINGLE TIME! We couldn’t hold it in any longer and just bust out laughing at our situation. My earplugs finally came in handy for both of us.
First thing the next morning, we changed rooms and ended up with a nicer room, bathroom, and roommates. We didn’t do any sight seeing today because we had to do so much needed laundry. On our way back from laundry we stopped at a restaurant that was down a very long and spiraled staircase with animal skins or fur lining the walls. It was a very manly restaurant, but the food was good and cheap. There was so much food leftover that we were able to spend 7 dollars for both our lunch and dinner. Two of our roommates ended up being these nice guys from Michigan. The other two girls didn’t show up till at least after 5 in the morning so we never really met them. That night we went on a pub crawl with the hostel. One of the guys who worked at the hostel has a boxer named Tyson that he brought along for the party. He reminded me of Presley except that he licked twice as much…I know, very hard to believe but it’s true. There were so many dogs all over Prague; which made me really miss Pres and Aubz miss Martini (Rob‘s dog). The weirdest part of the night was when we came to the last club. I was sitting down and turned around to see a guy I had gone to Cal Poly with named Nick, who was accompanied by a guy I knew from Bellarmine. What are the odds of that happening?
Since we got home so late the night before, we slept in till almost noon. After realizing what time it was we scrambled to get ready as quick as possible. We then headed for Old Town Prague by foot. The architecture in old town was so pretty! We paid to go to the top of the cathedral that held the Astronomical Clock to see a gorgeous view of all of Prague. We could see the castle in the distance that we would later walk to. We stopped for lunch after the church to get a break from the heat. (It was so hot out that there were these big trucks that would come back and mist the people…everyone just stood behind the truck and cooled off). We ate a cute outdoor place called Staromestska Restaurace. The food was amazing, but wayyyy overpriced! We were given bread that we not only didn’t order, but were also charged for it! When we asked about the charge, the waiter said everyone is charged that…we were not so happy. Then the waiter had the audacity to tell us how much to tip him…multiple times!
We then headed in the direction of the castle. As we walked over the bridge to the castle, the weather quickly began to change. Luckily, we reached the castle just before it started to absolutely pour. Then we found out the bad news- the castle was already closed and we couldn’t buy tickets. It was disappointing to not be able to go inside, but we were still able to take pictures of the outside and thus save some money. We left the castle around 6:30, and took a tram that dropped us near the hostel. All in all, we walked for about 6.5 hours and were exhausted by the end of the night. We tried to save some money on dinner for the night by stopping at a grocery store to pick up food. We both got instant soup that had little flavor, but only cost about 40 cents. We both tried to get to bed early since we had to wake up early this morning to catch our train. Oh and I forgot to mention…sharing a room with all these people finally caught up with me ;(. I got a cold and have been sneezing and blowing my nose all day. Aubz is crossing her fingers that she doesn’t get sick. We left this morning at 9 am from Prague and will arrive in Zurich around 9 pm; which is in about an hour. We miss you all and can’t wait to share all our pictures and more funny stories when we get home!
No comments:
Post a Comment