After our fabulous 3 days in Berlin, Erica and I continued on to Prague. Neither of us had done research on Prague, so we simply grabbed a map and started walking. We managed to walk most of Old Town in the couple hours of light on Wednesday. We really had no clue what we were looking at, but we liked it. We returned to the hostel to take a nap, but were quickly woken up by our hostel mates getting ready to go out for the night. We jumped out of bed and got ready so fast that I didn't ask questions or notice who we were going out with until we were on the tram heading for the bar. Once my sleep wore off, I realized we were going out with about 10 guys from Australia, one American guy and 2 Canadian girls - all between the ages of 18 and 22. Apparently all the post-university age people decided to go elsewhere. They were really funny and obviously younger, but still a good time. That night I learned that Australians have a very high minimum wage, making it really easy to save money for travel. This is why so many Aussies spend months or years traveling. This made Erica and me wish we worked in Australia.
Thursday, we spent many hours touring Prague castle and its surrounding area. Then, we walked across Charles Bridge as the sun went down and returned to our hostel for a free dinner made by the staff. Dinner was surprisingly delicious and the people were really fun. Our hostel mates from the night before were doing an organized pub crawl, which I had no interest in participating in because I knew it would just be a bunch of drunk, young tourists. Instead, Erica and I wanted to go to the hip hop club with the "old kids." Before going out, we had some drinks in the basement bar of our hostel and met a couple other American girls, a few more Aussie boys, and a group of about ten hilarious Irish girls. We all had a great night that ended with enough McDonalds to feed our entire hostel.
By Friday, Erica and I had seen most of the city, so we were in no rush to get out early. Our day started with a delicious and incredibly filling Czech lunch. Then we headed to Old Town for more aimless walking and found a market that popped up over night. Everything looked soooooo good, but we were way too full to think about eating. So, we headed to the only place Erica wanted to see in all of Prague, Clementinum. Unfortunately, Clementinum is closed for 3 months for repairs. Erica spent 6 years dreaming about her visit to Clementinum, so she was really bummed but managed to see the humor in the situation. Feeling somewhat defeated, we headed to Charles Bridge to get some photos in daylight, wandered the Jewish Quarter, and went back to Old Town Square for some comfort food. We returned to the hostel to get some homework done, decided we weren't feeling like going out, then were convinced by our hostel mates to go to an 80s/90s video dance club. Holy cow, I am soooooo happy we went out! The club was super fun and brought out all kinds of people. I can't wait to go to another 80s/90s club.
Saturday was our last day in Prague. We joined a Belgian guy from our hostel and saw the Dancing Building, John Lennon wall, walked the Charles Bridge again, stumbled upon the Astronomical Clock doing its thing at noon, ate more food at the market in the square, and headed back to the hostel for a nap before our overnight train.
Overall, Prague was very beautiful but incredibly touristy. It's quite small and you only need a day or two to see it. I think 3.5 days caused me major tourist-trap-souvenir-shit overload, which tainted my visit. I thought the best part of our trip was the hostel. The staff did a great job of taking us out and making us feel welcome. I don't think I'll need to go back to Prague, but I'm happy I saw it.
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