Prague

Hiya! time has been flying by way too fast and I have once again found myself to be quite behind on my blog updates. my apologies. So to jump right into things- Prague or Praha as they say, was very a interesting city. Our first day we went to the Charles Bridge. The bridge was about a mile long stretch of painters, street vendors, jazz players, biblical statues, and fabulous views of the city. It was very unique and one of my favorite parts of the city. After crossing the bridge and climbing a hill that rivals the one at Eau Claire, we made it to the Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral area. We saw a lot of dogs, a movie or maybe it was a commercial?- well something being filmed, a lot of puppets which kind of creeped me out, and an absolutely incredible view overlooking the entire city (which until then i hadn't realized what a populated and large city it is)! The city had a lot of fascinating architecture, as well as a lot of natural/nature aspects, so it was really cool to see all of it from one spot. At night we made our own dinner at the hostel- not to brag, but we made some damn good pesto- and then we went to an absinthe bar. Absinthe is apparently "the drink" of Prague and happens to be illegal in the US, so naturally we had to have a shot. It was absolutely great watching the guy prepare it- which involved fire, a sugar cube, an absinthe spoon, and a very intricate mixing process- but taking the shot was absolutely disgusting. It tasted like I was drinking burning hot black licorice- yummy right?! haha ya im glad i tried it but I think I'll be ok if i never have it again. Finally we went to Lucerna to dance the night away. The next day we went to the "old town" part of Prague. First stop was a huge market, where I was tempted to buy a lot more than I actually did, simply because you feel like you're using Monopoly money (1,000 crowner= about $50). Then we went to the Jewish Ghetto (during WWII they made all the Jews live in this part of town which purposely was the lowest part of town and often flooded). I've never seen anything like it- the tombstones were literally stacked one on top of the other- very sad. Afterwards we wandered around some more and went back to the hostel by sundown. We were so impressed with out pesto making skills, and it was extremely cheap to make, that we decided to make it again for dinner. Then some of us went out with some boys from Holland that we met at our hostel. At the bar we ended up meeting some boys from France which I was excited about thinking they would be impress with french speaking skills, but once I actually had to recall my francais I found it to be much more limited than I had anticipated so we resulted to a lot of hand gesturing. it was great fun.