Czech it out!

Disclaimer: The puns that can be made about Prague are bountiful and I'm going to apologize in advance for using them in this post. It's Praha-bably going to get a bit annoying, but just bear with me.  After not connecting well to Vienna, I have to admit that I was a bit concerned about getting excited about Prague. We had heard such great things! People love the city! The culture is fun! There's the biggest castle complex in the world! What can be bad about it? The answer, we would come to find out, is nothing. Prague completely lived up to what we hoped it would be and far more. Hooray  for the Czech Republic!  For a land that has been invaded and forcefully overcome by other countries for the past 600 years, Prague has managed to retain a wonderful, gentle sense of pride for what they are now.  Although they do not force the traditions and history that they held on to through the rein of foreign nations, angry dictators and communism upon you, I feel like everyone that comes is welcomed in and invited to explore their past, and that's exactly what we did. 

Our first day in Prague began with a three hour guided tour of the important parts of the city, which is basically everywhere. The best part about the tour set up  is the company that runs the tour called New Europe. Their founding principle is that everyone should be able to experience a city to its fullest, despite their budget, so you can join a tour in about 10 cities across Europe for no charge. The guides don't get paid for the basic city tour (although they do have paid tours in other parts of the city) and simply work for tips. It's neat because you then get to decide what you think the tour was worth or what youwould have paid for the tour and then tip that much. It works for us because it is a heck of a lot cheaper than other tours and the guides work a lot harder to make them tour fun and interesting because they will make more money if we enjoy it. Anyways, our tour was Czech-ceptional and I don't think that I have ever learned so much applied history and culture in 3 hours before. The other good thing about such a comprehensive tour is that we get to see a bit of everything and decide at we want to come back and explore more.  After the tour, we went up the the Prague Castle, which is still the home of the president of Prague whose name I don't remember but I do know he stole a pen from the Chilean president (it's a funny story, you should google it). The castle has an impressive cathedral (really any church in Europe is incredible), grand views of the river, a prison/dungeon, an alley of really tiny houses and other cool castle-y things. It's strange to think that someone still lives there...I don't know that I would want to though. The sweet views don't quite overcome the damp, stone feeling that is everywhere in the place. My cold bloodedness wouldn't do well there. 

On the way back down from the castle and after a czech dinner, we stopped in one of the Easter Markets that popped up everywhere in the city for the upcoming holiday. Think really small scale state fair, but with less farm animals and vegetables (eastern Europe hasn't really caught on to that whole fresh produce trend yet) but still with meat on a stick, wonderful sticky sweet bread treats, knickknacks and entertaining performances (Czech dancing probably trumps country singing in this case though). After a stroll around the square, we went back to the hostel, found our roommates (Americans studying in Madrid and on holiday in Prague) and went out for a beer. The beer was much needed because in the time between getting back to hostel and dinner, we went to book out next hostel in either Berlin or Munich (we hadn't quite decided yet) only to find that Easter in Europe is about as popular as St. Patrick's day in Dublin and there were only really expensive and really icky rooms left to be had. After about a half an hour of slight panic, we decided to go to A: go to Munich instead of Berlin and B: go ahead and book a hotel (yes, I did mean hotel instead of hostel) for our first night in Brussels, which is the Saturday before Easter. We decided on a hotel because the other options were to save 5 dollars and stay in a 40 or 50 bed dorm in a less than well rated hostel or find a bar that is open all night. Since neither of those were valid, we embraced the idea of having at least one night of solid rest with a nice bed, two fluffy pillows (hostels only give you one...it makes my neck sad), a tv (we don't really miss watching tv per say, but we could use a lazy night in) and the grand finale for me...a bathtub! I'm so looking forward to  a nice soak in a hot bath, it's hard to describe. So anyways, our panic subsided and now we are happy campers excited about our hotel and being in Brussels, the chocolate capital of the world during Easter so we can eat lots of delicious Easter bunnies.

It was also a nice Pra-ha! moment (another pun...I do apologize but they are such fun) when we realized that even though we made a slight error in planning, we did not freak out and we figured it out. I think this trip has really given us a chance to develop skills that we wouldnt really ever get back home, like making friends out of little or no connection, planning out day after day of what we want to do (I know it doesnt sounds tough, but we have to make a conscious decision every minute about what we are doing and are going to do next. It can get a bit exhausting sometimes). We are also much better at weighing options and cost/benefit analysis (sometimes when it comes to trains, it really is worth 10 euros for an extra 2 hours in a city) and then adapting to changes when circumstances beyond our control.  It was then that I reallz realized...we are growing up! And we are learning about ourselves as well as other cultures on this trip. We are just expanding our boundaries left and right. Still, we still cant forget the dumb, blind faith that got us here and continues to help everything work out for us. I think this may be how real life is...a lot of hard work, thinking on your feet, and also having faith that things will probably work out, because they usually do. It was a Pra-ha! moment indeed.