Prague 09/29/13 - 10/02/13

Ah, Prague. This is Darryl's favorite city he's visited in Europe and it has a special place in my heart. I was excited to come back and see if I could maybe bump it up to number one on my list to align with Darryl. :)

Let me start off by saying that smiles are few and far between in the Czech Republic. The same can be said for Germany, but in Germany more people will proactively try to help you out or start up a conversation. There's simply a cultural gap between my cultural norm (American) to smile at people, and this doesn't mean that either is the "right" way.

Prague is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen and everything is ridiculously inexpensive. It is commonly known that beer is cheaper than (bottled) water in Prague: this was the case 2 years ago, and the prices haven't changed much since then.

Driving into the city was absolute insanity and I don't think it's something we would attempt again. Seriously, it's like something out of the Bourne Identity, where you expect a mini cooper at any moment to come barreling down a narrow set of stairs. Thankfully I was not behind the wheel, but I don't think any of us have ever feared more for our lives.

We finally got our car to our "hotel," which was booked on Airbnb, but there was a front desk with doorman and daily cleaning services. It was a nice enough place, but Dustin thought it had a "smell'" to it and privacy was a little lacking. :) We had to park our car about a 15 minute walk away in the closest paid secure lot we could find.

Praha is equally if not more stunning at night because of how the buildings and statues are illuminated. I admittedly cannot identify most of them due to the sheer volume of sights in the area.

Some.. important building we parked near?

Some..statue?

I've got this one - the Charles Bridge

The next day we walked to a few common Prague tourist spots - walking across and around the Charles Bridge, and then taking the steep climb up to the Prague Castle (hoping to make up for Dustin's lack of castle-ing). Some event was happening at the castle so we ended up walking around the moat while we waited for it to clear out, even going under the grounds through this tunnel:

We took in the regular Castle sights.. St.Vitus Cathedral is always impressive:

The castle guards/changing of the guards is also great. It's really hard to resist the temptation of poking the guard to try to make him smile.

We also went back to the area where our friends had their wedding reception (Strahov Monastic Brewery) and took a few pictures at the same place we were 2 years ago.

One of our college friends, Allen, has lived in Prague for over a year as he fell in love with the city after our last trip. You have to give him credit for wanting something and going after it, and he now teaches English while acting on the side. We met up with him that night and it was good to catch up and get his perspective on Prague and the Czech people as a whole - I was definitely not alone in my impression that it is a difficult group of people to try to get to open up to you.

The next day we headed to one of the most famous spots in Prague (and one of my favorites), the Astronomical Clock. It is the oldest astronomical clock in the world that is still working, though it has had to be restored many times, including after it was pretty much destroyed during the Prague Uprising. You can walk up to the top of the tower that contains the clock for amazing views of the city.

And then one of my favorite random spottings... later I saw this shark-person in a mini mart sans the shark top, but I recognized them by their blue fuzzy pants.

This night was a good night to introduce Dustin to the world of absinthe. We stopped at an Absinthery and had a drink to try to decide a small bottle to buy for home. They put on a show with one of the traditional preparations, which involves dipping a sugar cube in the absithine, lighting it on fire and letting the sugar drip over the shot to add a sweet, caramelized taste. Thinking we had mastered this, especially as I had previous experience from our last trip, we went home and thankfully did not burn the building down. We did, however, make the worst burnt absinthe shots known to man that were rendered undrinkable.

For months I had been bragging to Dustin about this club that we went to during a pub crawl on our last trip and their unique preparation of absinthe, so I dragged him and Darryl there around 9pm. On a Tuesday. This is probably not surprising to any Europeans out there, but we got there and we were literally the ONLY people there. I ordered 3 shots expecting a show, and the bartender simply poured 3 gross looking shots into disposable cups. We drank them and I sheepishly led them out of there, but right across the street was a real absinthe bar. 

We grabbed a table and the bartender proceeded to provide a detailed history and education of absinthe (also noting the guys at the Absinthery earlier had also prepared it wrong) - this was the real deal. I wasn't feeling much like drinking so I only tried one, but Dustin and Darryl got to try a few kinds as there are sweet or bitter varieties depending on their taste. 

We headed home and packed for the drive to Berlin, with no visions of green fairies or sugar plums in our heads.

-Erin