The next morning I finally commited to my 3rd run during my travels.. I thought I'd just run around the block and grab some milk for breakfast.. Well the blocks were kinda angled.. And so I tried to compensate.. And then I got lost.. So I kept tring to head back towards the train station/hostel realizing that I was somehow way northwest when I headed out goin southeast... Hmm how did I do that? I kept running so it looked like I knew what I was doing.. Well I guess I knew I was running, but ya.. I stopped and asked for directions a few times, sometimes gettig good help, sometimes the little shop ladies would take a wild point and so I'd head exactly the opposite of what they suggested. My 10/15 minute run turned into an hour adventure.. But I made it and I got the milk! I felt pretty dumb considering I've been able to fully navigate most cities mapless on the first go by now, and I haven't been lost in a very long while. So we ate and got ready, and took lots of suggestions on what to see in the city and headed out. Mere and I did a little shoppng along the way.. Your only cool if you carry around an H&M bag in Europe.. And we noticed the large number of people staring at us in our rainbow flip flops.. It wasn't like it was cold or anything... We just were clearly not European.. Some people almost look insulted when they stare at our feet. Crazy huligans. They don't care about anything else you wear, or if you even wear anything at all. We saw the hofburg palace and the old cathedral in the town center.. Walking around we agreed that Vienna was just another big European city.. And almost exactly like munich except munich was cooler for whatever reason.. There isn't anything that really sets it apart from all the other big bustling capitals. We wandered to the other end of town where we saw these cool buildings designed by hundertwassen.. kinda a little like goudi but not as completely crazy. Those were really neat though... And apparently they are all over the world.
Then we headed back the center of town to meet up with Andrew again.. He pounced on me and pretended to be the most aggressive pickpocketer of life.. Luckily my karate reflexes weren't too quick or he'd have a black eye! Ha. No one messes with my bag anymore. So we all walked around for a bit.. Hit up the free computers at maccas.. Saw the statue that we agreed was the most important Vienna statue infront of the waterfall, and also passed by the opera house and the music museum I was too cheap to pay for. Nothing over the top exciting.. but we got in plenty of walking for the day. Some more spaghetti and then said goodbye to andrew as mere and i went to catch the overnight train Prague... We just can't get enough of those trains! Our lovely little eurail book decided to lie to us though, and so instead of arriving at 6:30 in the morning, the conductor told us we got to Prague at freaking 3:30.. O crap. So after many considerations of what the heck to do in Prague at 3 am.. We decided to sleep on the train until Dresden where we arrived at 5:45 or so.. And so we hung out in the train stAtion eating a funny large pastry for an hour.. And then we caught the next train back to Prague at 7 and finished our sleep until we arrived :) we rode the train with this funny litle Austrian lady who told us we were going to get gased in our little train box.. So we should really tie the door close with her scarf. Great security really. Luckily we were on a German train so the seats were way nice.. They fold down so yours and the one across lay flat and make a nice little bed! Why we were the only box on the entire train that took advantage of that was beyond me.
So, Prague! Prague is a bit confusing.. You always feel like your heading the wrong direction to get places.. The tiny little cobblestone roads than wind all over the place are a much better excuse to get lost in than Vienna. We found our lovely chili hostel.. Lovely might not be he best word.. More of decent value for just over €6 a night.. Plus the hidden fees of course. We dropped off our bags and started to wander down by the river and across in this nice park where although it was still warm, you could feel fall was very near. There were some big ass hills.. And my hour run the day before followed up with all the walking meant my legs were hurting pretttty bad. But there was Prague to see! And it wad supposed to rain the rest of our stay so I had no choice but to push through. We made it to the top of the hill which had amazing views of the city and an old castle? Town? wall and a funny park and a little baby want to be Eiffel tower. We then crawled into the lesser town and looked through tons of paintings of everything Prague is in a tourists eyes and eventually made it to the John Lennon wall.
We strolled across the St Charles bridge for the first of many times, disappointed because over the bridge is under construction.. So even if I had my big camera and wanted to take cool pictures of the bridge lined with all these crazy statues in the eerie dusk mist, it would suck anyway because they've constructed big tents and were tearing up the cobblestone. We more or less headed back to the hostel, stopping for some tesco groceries along the way and of course taking advantage of the samples... One was a Czech alcohol.. Yes we took a free shot at the grocery store! I have no idea what it was.. Something kinda minty and kinda awful. After gettin back to the hostel midafternoon, we were pooped and took the evening slow.. Luckily this is when the promised rain decided to hit so that was convienent. We decided to mix it up for dinner, kinda copying these crazy Scottish kids we met in Vienna who were taking a year to bike from Scotland to china.. Or however far they could get. I meet so many people that make me look boring and normal that when people get excited about me bouncing all over the world, I kinda laugh inside and think about the many insane travellers I've come across that act like what they are doing is no big deal. anyway, they made some stew/soup with tons of veggies that we imitated.. And it was pretty darn good and filled us up for two nights for nearly next to nothing. Good deal. We were commited to finally going out, and since the vodka bottle that we had now carried across 3 or 4 countries slipped from merediths grip in the luggage room and nicely scented everyones luggage for them, we decided we could afford to buy a beer or two somewhere. So we took some suggestions from the man at the front.. Thank god not mr Czech who checked us in earlier and gave us an hour run down of why all czech people are racist but he isn't and why they have no pride in their country and how horrible immigrants are, but no worries he isn't racist so it's ok, but they are thilthy and he despises everyone he sees... Good god we just wanted our room key and to know why he was charging us an extra 60 krouns. Then he went off on how America hides fees too, like tipping in restaurants and tax outside the total price so this is how the Czechs stay in business. Aye yaye. It took us over an hour to check in... No joke. So we eventually made it out and again wandered the streets of Prague, still confused but doing better with our landmarks, and we eventually found the "nonstop"
Shop to get our cheap beers and chocolate :) we never really found anywhere too compelling to go in, so we eventually called it a night after enjoying the beautifully lit clock tower and church in the main square and did our best to head straight back.. I think we were down to one wrong turn.
We slept in pretty well the next morning.. Mere of course went for her run and I was still too sore to think of running. We got our lives somewhat together and met up for the free Prague tour and learned lots and lots about Prague and some czech history about how it all went down and how depressing it was and the highs and lows that were very much evident in our crazy hostel mans voice when he volunteered his life opinion about the ppl of Czech and eastern Europe. One thing I noticed was that we only found one Czech flag in our three days in Prague... Very much a lack of national pride as you can't walk down the streets of some other countries without running into a flag. So on the tour we saw the main Prague sites.. Many of which we had run into or came across on our night stroll the night before. St Charles bridge, the astronomical clock that does a little dance like the one in Munich at the hour, the university, the place to get bagels in Prague, the Jewish quarters, every type of architecture you can imagine, even cubism, and then so much more!
Our guide was pretty legit.. And so we decided that we'd take his suggestion to do the pub crawl that night, especially since we failed to find a bar the night before. So after our tour we got some kebabs and wandered the streets a bit..first to this church where there was a hangin arm.. This guy tried to steal the jewels off of Mary's neck and she grabbed his arm.. After a few days the priests decided to cut the dudes arm off.. And the statue went back to normal... Never mess with Mary! Ha. So this nasty little shrivelled mummified arm is hangin near the entrance.. Or at least someones really old limb is! We headed to the castle- the must see of Prague and explored the pretty awesome church inside the castle? The castle or palace is freaking huge, and some of the government is still run from it.. So I think we were techinically in the castle! We attempted to explore the castle gardens but got off track and outside the walls and had to forge our own track back to town. No worries. We found our way along some little back streets and went back to the John Lennon wall to leave our mark :)
it was starting to get pretty dark, so we attempted to head back over the Charles bridge.. Also to see it at dusk which would be cool, but we got stopped halfway after crawling over this police tape... The bridge is no longer a safe place... Very dangerous! Was it a crime scene or something else equally cool!?! We kept walking until we were escorted further back than where we started from.. Somewhere along that walked we found out there was a gas leak.. Prolly from all the construction. So we had the long walk back over the next bridge where we saw the Charles bridge and the castle lit up all beautiful in the evening sunset :) o yay.
So we went back, had some more soup and got ready for our pub crawl... We were running late we thought so we literally ran (and to keep warm! The temp dropped crazy over 24 hours!) and we got to the clock tower in less than half the time it normally takes.. Guess we finally figured out the way! So we stood in starbucks for 5 mins while the heap of ppl corralled in the square around the scary yelling pub crawl leader man. The first stop was the bAr from eurotrip.. Apparently that whole movie was filmed in Prague which makes it even better! It was an all you can drink hour.. Naturally the americans clumped as always, theres too many americans on my travels these days, and we started a big flip cup game.. Mere and i were pretty important team members! And then we had fAke shots of abstinthe- the czech claim to fame- and a shot of (rum and) coke. And then we went to this kinda sketch underground bar where we almost popped in the night before but didn't.. If you are brave enough to make it to the -3 floor, beers are only 25 crowns (1euro!) our only purchase of the night obviously.. And we danced at this other place before we ended up at Roxy.. Supposedly the best club claimed by a few... Better than the famous 4/5 story one.. Well I'm glad we didn't waste our time or money gettin into the famous one because the roxy was lame.. especially as meres first club ever... And it was already 4 am so we decided it was time for bed!
A few lovely hours later we got up and checked out.. Had our delightful breakfast of champions.. I'm not sure where we collected so much food from, but we had to donate a lot of it to the girls next to us so we could get on our plane to Greece in the afternoon! We went to go pick up our free pub crawl tshirts and found out they were only free If you bought a beer.. The last thing we wanted at 11 am. So we skipped on that and strolled around town for some free taste samples... Prague is pretty good for samples.. We found that out the day before but took full advantage of it that day! At the candy store, the little cafe, the almond man in the center of the main square.. We pretty much almost had a meal.. And then we had a handful of crowns to spend, so we got the Czech version of a pretzel, kind wierd, a trdlnik or tradelink as we called it.. Or something really close to that and then after searching for the biggest hot chocolate we could afford for two with no result, we went back to tesco and bought snacks and our own hot cocoa mix. We got our lives together, had our cocoa, and headed to the airport... Or made an attempt when we were short crown because the little man wouldn't sell us a ticket without also selling us a ticket for our backpacks.. Dumb. The bags were half the price of us.. And so after about 10 mins of dicussion, or more so lack there of, we found every coin we possibly could and a 5 euro cent coin to make the man happy.. And then we of course rode the metro and the bus without ever havig to get our tickets checked in anyway shape or form. Bah. We made it. And at the airport they weren't so happy with meres bag that was a carry on because of literally an inch.. So we sat on the ground and shoved things and put clothes on to shrink the bag and make it work and laughed at the dude... Too bad we had a ticket for Andrew and he had a checked bag but we couldn't use it.. Of course not. So like pack rats we boaded the reapply empty plane.. We both couldve had our own row to sleep and one for our crap.. If the lady would let us put anything on the seat. But we took our "sits" together and flew to thessoloniiki
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Ash, I can't believe that! I went to Chili Hostel as well, and I had NO idea you'd been there just a few days before. It was completely random how I got there too... I just walked there at that same AWFUL time of 3:30 that the book lied about with some girl I met on the train who was just as frustrated by the lying book as we were.
ReplyDeleteHaha, it's really weird to hear you talk about your time in Prague since I went there like 4 days later and saw almost all of the same stuff... nice.