Prague
I finally got my call up to the major leagues: Sam asked me to write my first blog post.
I hope everyone reading can tolerate my poor grammar and poorer organization as I recap our time in Prague. On the bright side, I will do you the pleasure of dishing out the truth on my travel buddy so you can fully grasp our safari across Europe. With that said we are now ready for take-off; sit back and enjoy reading this groovy adventure in Prague:
After our "lovely" 14 hour train ride and quick breakfast, we were off. We took the subway to our hostel about 15 minutes away. The subways in Prague are much simpler than previous cities. There are only 3 lines and much fewer stops than London or Paris. They also have much more relaxed security. You buy a ticket, you validate it by getting it time-stamped, and that's it. No passing through gates, no long lines waiting for people to enter/exit the station...you just walk on down. For anyone traveling to Prague, you could easily get away with riding for free (HOWEVER, one of our friends from London did not validate his ticket and was slapped with a 800 CZK fine, about $40 (divide by 20 to get $USD, for future reference). Anyway, we dropped off our bags at the hostel because it was 11:30 and checkin wasn't until1:30 and decided to go explore. We started with the Charles Bridge which was a 20 second walk from our hostel. This 1/4 mile pedestrian bridge was one of our favorite sites in Prague. Lined with 30 sculptures of saints, many street musicians, caricature artists, and slow-walking tourists spanning a large river which the name I do not know.
After walking across we stopped at a cafe for their special of the day: "free wifi." Although it was only free after we purchased a cup of their finest drip coffee. We looked up a place one of our friends, Gabe Gonzalez recommended for traditional Czech food and beverage called U Medvidku. I got pork tips with a "Budvar" to drink, Samantha got fried carp. We later learned that Budvar was the exact same recipe as Budweiser in the USA. My beer cost about 30 CZK for 0.5 L. Yes, you heard right...$1.50 for half a liter of beer. After living on a budget in London and Paris, we were finally ready to splurge in cost-friendly Prague.
After lunch, we met up with two UT friends, Sidney and Chelsea, studying abroad for the past 3 weeks in Prague. We walked for a bit and then left so they could study for a test the next day.
Exhausted, we decided to take a one hour nap (which turned into 2 hours) back at our hostel (Hostel Mango!) before walking up to Prague Castle and a vineyard right outside of it. The whole night, we pretty much stopped at every restaurant to look at menus, read prices, make conversions, and rejoice at how cheap everything was!
Later that night, we met up with Sidney, Chelsea, and one of their fellow classmates Nick, also from UT, for dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was great having some familiar faces so far from home and some variety in our "perfect and happy" couple conversation!
Since it is World Cup time all across the world, it's all anyone talks about. At dinner, our three friends from UT told us about their experience going to a bar to watch the England vs. Italy game. Rooting for neither team, they were surprised to find 3 guys from Liverpool (England), who were also rooting for neither team. Fascinated with Americans and "Greek" life, they quickly befriended them. Our UT friends went on and on about stories of these 3 guys (Tom, Jack, and Pat) from Liverpool and their thick accents and wild lingo. Sam and I couldn't wait to meet them the next day for the USA vs. Ghana match. After dinner, Sam and I picked up a Czech dessert that was like a cinnamon roll except it was grilled rotisserie style over an open flame and had a couple beers near our hostel. Once done, we went back to our 8-bed hostel to go to sleep. Luckily, there was only one other person in the room that night.
The next day, we tried to go to the train station to get a refund for our "experience" from Amsterdam to Prague. We fueled up with some coffees to give us some courage to be firm and demanding and we planned out our conversation. Sam was playing good cop first and I was gonna be bad cop, second if I needed to (I was advised to keep quiet until, then, though). Sam's good cop routine was to no avail. The lady spoke poor English and told us we needed to submit a complaint online. Time for me to step up to the plate: Sam made eye contact and I took that as my signal to raise hell. It didn't work and we walked away frustrated and hopeless. My built up frustration may or may not have runneth over the brim and caused me to take it out on Samantha. I am not sure if she has forgiven me for my less than chivalrous behavior and desperate apology, yet, but hopefully this blog post will make up for it.
(Update: Samantha has not been allowed to read this until I'm completely finished, but I just read her the last paragraph as a little "teaser." Her response was positive, and she says she forgives me! I'll take that as encouragement to keep writing!)
Next, we took the metro to the "Senate" in Prague. We walked around the peacock-infested gardens outside and viewed some funky looking natural rock formation that had hidden things (faces, animals, etc) carved into it.
Next, we decided to head up the mountain to Petrin tower: the pseudo-Eiffel Tower of Prague but with much prettier views than it's counterpart. We took a tram to save our little feetsies and quickly scaled the 299-step spiral staircase. Sam couldn't handle the "swaying" of the tower and I'll admit, even I had some sweaty hands after walking around the top. Though we managed to snap a few selfies before coming back down to Earth. We continued to stroll around the park before taking the tram back down to city-level and stopping for a nice lunch.
Afterward, we walked over to the Old Town Square, saw the Astronomical Clock, and enjoyed some ice cream. We soon realized that we were running out of things to do and there isn't too many lengthy tourist activities around the city. With limited options and sore feet...we decided to get a Thai foot massage. After shopping around, we settled for a nice place around the old town square and bartered for a 800 CZK ($40) 30 min massage for 2. 30 min later, our feet were recharged and our bodies restored and ready for a late night watching the USA vs Ghana soccer game (at midnight, Prague time).
We headed back to the hostel to hang out a little before dinner. Upon getting back, we noticed the bags of more people that had moved in to our room. About 30 min later, they showed up: 3 guys about our age. As they walked in, I thought to myself "Oh no, 3 rowdy college kids to handle" (We had been lucky so far in having some great roommates...friendly, polite, and mostly female). After they got settled, we introduced ourselves. Their names: Tom, Jack, and Pat. It only took Sam a minute to realize that these were the three English guys that our friends had been raving about, and not only were we sharing a hostel with them but we were sharing a ROOM with them!!!!!!! Prague felt a whole lot smaller.
Sam and I grabbed a quick dinner and came back to the room before heading out to meet up with our friends and all the Americans, and to "meet" their friends (our roommates) from Liverpool and to watch the USA soccer game. We devised a plan with our new friends from the UK to trick our UT friends. Sam and I would be sitting at the bar when our friends walked in, and we would tell them that we brought 3 of our cool new roommates that we just met, and then take them to the back of the bar where Tom, Jack, and Pat were sitting. They were as surprised as we were when they figured out we were all roommates.
We started the night at an Irish pub, but soon left because of the "American"-priced drinks. We next walked to a "Mexican" restaurant/bar nearby (the only one in Prague). For the Czech Republic it wasn't half bad. We introduced Tom, Jack, and Pat (here on out, known as "the guys") to some frozen margaritas (they were baffled that there was salt on the rim) and then ended up doing some tequila shots (lime and salt included) to really get us in the mood for the game which didnt start until midnight! After we finished, we walked to yet another sports bar to watch the game with our fellow Americans.
The guys were so excited to cheer on the USA. They loved how all the Americans couldn't stop singing and cheering and laughed at all of our patriotic songs. Pat even started a U-S-A chant that caught on quick. Before the game, they asked me to tell them the first few verses of the national anthem. I couldn't believe how "into it" they all were. Once we got to the sports bar, Tom ordered all 7 of us another round of tequila shots and graciously picked up the bill. By this point everyone was having a GREAT time and the bar was packed. The atmosphere was unbelievable. I never want to watch the World Cup inside the USA ever again. Absolutely insane. I have a video of the end of the game that shows how crazy it was. Although it's difficult to watch, the noise alone is entertaining. After a long, but incredible night of beer and tequila, we left the bar, got lost, bought a Czech rotisserie roll, found our way back and crashed.
The next "morning", and our last day in Prague, we woke up around 11:30 and reluctantly got out of bed. We took the day very easy by dropping our clothes off at the laundromat and grabbing a late lunch (very late breakfast) at a great cafe. Sam had eggs and "the best oatmeal of her life" and I had a chicken club sandwich that was much needed. We continued to walk around some more before going to the supermarket to see if we could scrounge up some supplies to make some guacamole. Luckily they had everything we needed and we went back to our hostel to whip up a quick snack.
On our way back, right outside our hostel at the bar next door, we ran in to our friends from Australia who we befriended on our half day train extravaganza from Amsterdam. This further proved my point of how "small" Prague seemed to be!
After eating some delicious guacamole made by Sam, we went downstairs to watch the World Cup (and nap) with the guys. A little later, Sidney and Chelsea came over and we went and got pizza to go from "the best pizza in Prague." It was alright.
We took it back and watched some more of the World Cup sans beer this time around (Definitely took a rain check that whole day). We decided to call it an early night and packed up our bags for our flight to Croatia the next morning.
This morning we woke up early around 8, checked out of our hostel, and took a train/bus to the airport. After checking in, we proceeded to the line to present our passports.
(Side story: upon arriving to London, our very first welcome of our trip was a woman who checked our passports in customs when we landed. And although Sam was AMAZING in booking our accommodations for each city, we really had no plan in what we were going to do as soon as we got to each city. So anyway, the woman at the customs counter asked us why we were traveling to London, a pretty standard question to be asked for anyone traveling abroad. Possibly a little jet-lagged, Samantha joyfully answered "we're gonna go to Paris! and Brussels! and Amsterdam! and--" The whole time I was thinking "Oh God, Samantha, what are you doing?!" while the woman interrupted her and reminded her that she was in London. Sam was blindsided and started blushing as I blurted out that we were gonna check out Westminster, Big Ben and Parliament, and walk along the Thames to start the day (thankfully I had just finished Rick Steve's guide to London on the plane. This was our first lovely welcome on our Europe trip! So I have been joking with Sam to have something prepared every time we show our passports.)
Well...we just checked in to our hostel in Croatia after an hour and a half flight and 30 min shuttle to Split.
I hope you enjoyed my eloquent blog post. But it is time for me to sign off. Samantha is nagging now about how much time I've spent writing...after begging me to write my first blog post. Oh how quickly she forgets.
From Europe, With love...
Connor
Sent from iPhone
I hope everyone reading can tolerate my poor grammar and poorer organization as I recap our time in Prague. On the bright side, I will do you the pleasure of dishing out the truth on my travel buddy so you can fully grasp our safari across Europe. With that said we are now ready for take-off; sit back and enjoy reading this groovy adventure in Prague:
After our "lovely" 14 hour train ride and quick breakfast, we were off. We took the subway to our hostel about 15 minutes away. The subways in Prague are much simpler than previous cities. There are only 3 lines and much fewer stops than London or Paris. They also have much more relaxed security. You buy a ticket, you validate it by getting it time-stamped, and that's it. No passing through gates, no long lines waiting for people to enter/exit the station...you just walk on down. For anyone traveling to Prague, you could easily get away with riding for free (HOWEVER, one of our friends from London did not validate his ticket and was slapped with a 800 CZK fine, about $40 (divide by 20 to get $USD, for future reference). Anyway, we dropped off our bags at the hostel because it was 11:30 and checkin wasn't until1:30 and decided to go explore. We started with the Charles Bridge which was a 20 second walk from our hostel. This 1/4 mile pedestrian bridge was one of our favorite sites in Prague. Lined with 30 sculptures of saints, many street musicians, caricature artists, and slow-walking tourists spanning a large river which the name I do not know.
After walking across we stopped at a cafe for their special of the day: "free wifi." Although it was only free after we purchased a cup of their finest drip coffee. We looked up a place one of our friends, Gabe Gonzalez recommended for traditional Czech food and beverage called U Medvidku. I got pork tips with a "Budvar" to drink, Samantha got fried carp. We later learned that Budvar was the exact same recipe as Budweiser in the USA. My beer cost about 30 CZK for 0.5 L. Yes, you heard right...$1.50 for half a liter of beer. After living on a budget in London and Paris, we were finally ready to splurge in cost-friendly Prague.
After lunch, we met up with two UT friends, Sidney and Chelsea, studying abroad for the past 3 weeks in Prague. We walked for a bit and then left so they could study for a test the next day.
Exhausted, we decided to take a one hour nap (which turned into 2 hours) back at our hostel (Hostel Mango!) before walking up to Prague Castle and a vineyard right outside of it. The whole night, we pretty much stopped at every restaurant to look at menus, read prices, make conversions, and rejoice at how cheap everything was!
Later that night, we met up with Sidney, Chelsea, and one of their fellow classmates Nick, also from UT, for dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was great having some familiar faces so far from home and some variety in our "perfect and happy" couple conversation!
Since it is World Cup time all across the world, it's all anyone talks about. At dinner, our three friends from UT told us about their experience going to a bar to watch the England vs. Italy game. Rooting for neither team, they were surprised to find 3 guys from Liverpool (England), who were also rooting for neither team. Fascinated with Americans and "Greek" life, they quickly befriended them. Our UT friends went on and on about stories of these 3 guys (Tom, Jack, and Pat) from Liverpool and their thick accents and wild lingo. Sam and I couldn't wait to meet them the next day for the USA vs. Ghana match. After dinner, Sam and I picked up a Czech dessert that was like a cinnamon roll except it was grilled rotisserie style over an open flame and had a couple beers near our hostel. Once done, we went back to our 8-bed hostel to go to sleep. Luckily, there was only one other person in the room that night.
The next day, we tried to go to the train station to get a refund for our "experience" from Amsterdam to Prague. We fueled up with some coffees to give us some courage to be firm and demanding and we planned out our conversation. Sam was playing good cop first and I was gonna be bad cop, second if I needed to (I was advised to keep quiet until, then, though). Sam's good cop routine was to no avail. The lady spoke poor English and told us we needed to submit a complaint online. Time for me to step up to the plate: Sam made eye contact and I took that as my signal to raise hell. It didn't work and we walked away frustrated and hopeless. My built up frustration may or may not have runneth over the brim and caused me to take it out on Samantha. I am not sure if she has forgiven me for my less than chivalrous behavior and desperate apology, yet, but hopefully this blog post will make up for it.
(Update: Samantha has not been allowed to read this until I'm completely finished, but I just read her the last paragraph as a little "teaser." Her response was positive, and she says she forgives me! I'll take that as encouragement to keep writing!)
Next, we took the metro to the "Senate" in Prague. We walked around the peacock-infested gardens outside and viewed some funky looking natural rock formation that had hidden things (faces, animals, etc) carved into it.
Next, we decided to head up the mountain to Petrin tower: the pseudo-Eiffel Tower of Prague but with much prettier views than it's counterpart. We took a tram to save our little feetsies and quickly scaled the 299-step spiral staircase. Sam couldn't handle the "swaying" of the tower and I'll admit, even I had some sweaty hands after walking around the top. Though we managed to snap a few selfies before coming back down to Earth. We continued to stroll around the park before taking the tram back down to city-level and stopping for a nice lunch.
Afterward, we walked over to the Old Town Square, saw the Astronomical Clock, and enjoyed some ice cream. We soon realized that we were running out of things to do and there isn't too many lengthy tourist activities around the city. With limited options and sore feet...we decided to get a Thai foot massage. After shopping around, we settled for a nice place around the old town square and bartered for a 800 CZK ($40) 30 min massage for 2. 30 min later, our feet were recharged and our bodies restored and ready for a late night watching the USA vs Ghana soccer game (at midnight, Prague time).
We headed back to the hostel to hang out a little before dinner. Upon getting back, we noticed the bags of more people that had moved in to our room. About 30 min later, they showed up: 3 guys about our age. As they walked in, I thought to myself "Oh no, 3 rowdy college kids to handle" (We had been lucky so far in having some great roommates...friendly, polite, and mostly female). After they got settled, we introduced ourselves. Their names: Tom, Jack, and Pat. It only took Sam a minute to realize that these were the three English guys that our friends had been raving about, and not only were we sharing a hostel with them but we were sharing a ROOM with them!!!!!!! Prague felt a whole lot smaller.
Sam and I grabbed a quick dinner and came back to the room before heading out to meet up with our friends and all the Americans, and to "meet" their friends (our roommates) from Liverpool and to watch the USA soccer game. We devised a plan with our new friends from the UK to trick our UT friends. Sam and I would be sitting at the bar when our friends walked in, and we would tell them that we brought 3 of our cool new roommates that we just met, and then take them to the back of the bar where Tom, Jack, and Pat were sitting. They were as surprised as we were when they figured out we were all roommates.
We started the night at an Irish pub, but soon left because of the "American"-priced drinks. We next walked to a "Mexican" restaurant/bar nearby (the only one in Prague). For the Czech Republic it wasn't half bad. We introduced Tom, Jack, and Pat (here on out, known as "the guys") to some frozen margaritas (they were baffled that there was salt on the rim) and then ended up doing some tequila shots (lime and salt included) to really get us in the mood for the game which didnt start until midnight! After we finished, we walked to yet another sports bar to watch the game with our fellow Americans.
The guys were so excited to cheer on the USA. They loved how all the Americans couldn't stop singing and cheering and laughed at all of our patriotic songs. Pat even started a U-S-A chant that caught on quick. Before the game, they asked me to tell them the first few verses of the national anthem. I couldn't believe how "into it" they all were. Once we got to the sports bar, Tom ordered all 7 of us another round of tequila shots and graciously picked up the bill. By this point everyone was having a GREAT time and the bar was packed. The atmosphere was unbelievable. I never want to watch the World Cup inside the USA ever again. Absolutely insane. I have a video of the end of the game that shows how crazy it was. Although it's difficult to watch, the noise alone is entertaining. After a long, but incredible night of beer and tequila, we left the bar, got lost, bought a Czech rotisserie roll, found our way back and crashed.
The next "morning", and our last day in Prague, we woke up around 11:30 and reluctantly got out of bed. We took the day very easy by dropping our clothes off at the laundromat and grabbing a late lunch (very late breakfast) at a great cafe. Sam had eggs and "the best oatmeal of her life" and I had a chicken club sandwich that was much needed. We continued to walk around some more before going to the supermarket to see if we could scrounge up some supplies to make some guacamole. Luckily they had everything we needed and we went back to our hostel to whip up a quick snack.
On our way back, right outside our hostel at the bar next door, we ran in to our friends from Australia who we befriended on our half day train extravaganza from Amsterdam. This further proved my point of how "small" Prague seemed to be!
After eating some delicious guacamole made by Sam, we went downstairs to watch the World Cup (and nap) with the guys. A little later, Sidney and Chelsea came over and we went and got pizza to go from "the best pizza in Prague." It was alright.
We took it back and watched some more of the World Cup sans beer this time around (Definitely took a rain check that whole day). We decided to call it an early night and packed up our bags for our flight to Croatia the next morning.
This morning we woke up early around 8, checked out of our hostel, and took a train/bus to the airport. After checking in, we proceeded to the line to present our passports.
(Side story: upon arriving to London, our very first welcome of our trip was a woman who checked our passports in customs when we landed. And although Sam was AMAZING in booking our accommodations for each city, we really had no plan in what we were going to do as soon as we got to each city. So anyway, the woman at the customs counter asked us why we were traveling to London, a pretty standard question to be asked for anyone traveling abroad. Possibly a little jet-lagged, Samantha joyfully answered "we're gonna go to Paris! and Brussels! and Amsterdam! and--" The whole time I was thinking "Oh God, Samantha, what are you doing?!" while the woman interrupted her and reminded her that she was in London. Sam was blindsided and started blushing as I blurted out that we were gonna check out Westminster, Big Ben and Parliament, and walk along the Thames to start the day (thankfully I had just finished Rick Steve's guide to London on the plane. This was our first lovely welcome on our Europe trip! So I have been joking with Sam to have something prepared every time we show our passports.)
Well...we just checked in to our hostel in Croatia after an hour and a half flight and 30 min shuttle to Split.
I hope you enjoyed my eloquent blog post. But it is time for me to sign off. Samantha is nagging now about how much time I've spent writing...after begging me to write my first blog post. Oh how quickly she forgets.
From Europe, With love...
Connor
Sent from iPhone
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