Czech it out: Prague

After Paris, Prague was next on my list of weekend adventures. Katherine was planning to go for her best friend's 21st birthday, so I decided to go, too. Blaire and Jenna, Kath's friends from home who are in our program, were also going. Prague is one of those places that I didn't see myself coming back to Europe for, so I decided I had to go now!

Since I booked my tickets later than Katherine, I actually decided that i would fly out on Friday from Rome to Prague, and then on Sunday fly from Prague to Naples, which actually was a lot cheaper. I would just use my Eurail pass for the hour-long train ride from Naples to Rome.

I woke up pretty early on Friday morning to make sure I had everything I needed. I headed out to Termini, where I would take the 45 minute bus ride to Rome Fiuminico airport. I bought my ticket ahead of time, so that I wouldn't have to take any extra steps at the station- and I could get right in line. Freaking Italy. That turned out to be my mistake.

When I turned in my ticket, they gave me an orange boarding card and I got in line. When the 9:10 am Terravision bus arrived, the woman in charge announced that only people with white boarding cards could board. What?! It turned out that the people who had purchased their tickets at the station that morning (last-minute, unplanned) had to buy them for 6 euros instead of the 4 euros that I had paid (last week!!) online, therefore that gave them priority. Only in freaking Italy would you get rewarded for doing something late. Also, on the bottom of my boarding card, it said that my seat on the 9:10 bus was guaranteed. Apparently that doesn't mean the same thing it does in the States. I didn't even feel like arguing with the woman in Italian. Besides, there were plenty of other people that were visibly pissed off. I ended up boarding a bus at 9:45, more than a half an hour late than what I had bought my ticket for. Thank god I had bought my ticket for the earlier bus, because I had been debating about whether to buy my ticket for the bus that would leave me with over two hours at the airport, or the one that would leave me with a little over an hour. Lesson learned: always go earlier.

I got to the airport and went to the line for security, where I realized that my waterbottle was still filled up. Being the cheap study abroad student I am, I refused to throw it away and asked the man if I could pour it out in the trash, as I had done in numerous other airports. He shook his head and pointed in the direction of the bathrooms, across the airport and out of security. Cool. So I got out of line, walked around the corner, and dumped my waterbottle into a different trashcan.

I ended up with some time to spare and sat at my gate, attempting to stuff my purse into my big Longchamp. Flying cheap had its costs. My airline required me to bring only one bag for carry-on, not even a personal purse with a carry-on, like legit airlines. The also required the bag to be pretty freaking tiny, but they thankfully didn't have me check the side when I boarded, and right when I sat down I took out my crossbody purse and reloaded it with the important stuff.

The flight was pretty quick and thanks to Katherine's perfect directions, I exchanged some money and bought a bus ticket. The currency was crazy. Something like 20 czech pieces were equal to 1 dollar. It was gonna be a pretty cheap trip. I got out 1,500 czech and boarded the bus, then hopped on the metro. Everything was so much orderly than Italy... even the people on the metro were kind of quiet. It was pretty cool to see everything on the bus, and weird to think that the country had once been behind the Iron Curtain. I read the book The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera in Civ at PC, which was set during the time of the Prague Spring, and the revocation of a lot of rights of the Czech people. It was cool to actually be there, and see where a lot of the novel had taken place.

When I got out of the metro, it was pretty cold and a little snowy, but I had expected that. The setting was so pretty, and exactly what I had thought it would be. I walked down the street where Katherine, surprised that I hadn't called her for further directions, met me outside Emily's apartment. I met all the girls, who were super-friendly welcoming- that's when I knew it would be a good weekend. We left the apartment to tour a little, and walked through the historical city centre, which was sooo cute. I literally thought I was in a fairytale, especially with the lightly falling snow. We stopped outside of the astronomical clock in the Old Town Square, where every hour a crowd gathered to see little wooden figures dance out of a little window. We stopped into a Starbucks, where I got a bagel (YAY!) and a mocha. Because it was the weekend of Emily's 21st birthday, her mom joined us, too. Then we headed over to the John Lennon wall, where we took a bunch of pictures. It was actually in a really quiet area, and while there were occasional people milling around, it wasn't surrounded by mass crowds or anything. It was decorated with all kinds of artwork, and was cool that everything really only lasted a few weeks, because someone would simply layer on top of it. In 1988, the wall served as a point of grievances for Prague people, where they would constantly draw images of peace and freedom against the government. There was even a severe clash between government forces and students on the Charles Bridge because of it. Czech authorities even tried to paint over it, but by the next day it was simply covered up with more lyrics, images, and words. Now, it serves as a representation of youth ideals and peace.

The Lennon Wall

Our next stop was the Charles Bridge, which had really pretty views of the Vltava River and the Prague Castle beyond that. We wandered over the bridge and decided to go to a sushi place for dinner, where Emily's mom treated us to a delicious dinner in honor of her birthday that night. I had a feeling that the waitress was either just painfully shy, or really didn't like Americans. I think that the accidentally shattering of a wine glass at our table didn't really help... Either way, I had a delicious dinner of tempura shrimp and vegetables (not too keen on sushi anymore). The prices were so cheap, once converted to the euro or the dollar, and I was surprised at the meal that I was able to get. I couldn't even finish half of it!

We headed back to Emily and Hanna's apartment to get ready for the pub crawl we had signed up for, and on the way we picked up a ton of candy and champagne. Our conversation turned out to be pretty funny. I was literally the only Catholic girl in the apartment that weekend, and since all five of the girls were Jewish, they questioned me on what I actually did as a Catholic. I answered some pretty funny questions. Yes, I had gone to Catholic school for a little while, and yes, I usually went to mass, and no, I didn't plan on having fifteen kids. I'm not quite sure what they had in mind about Catholics, but I was laughing pretty hard by the end of the conversation. In between the funny questions back and forth, we actually all learned a lot about each other, which was pretty cool.

We headed out a little behind schedule, and champagne bottle in hand (no open container laws, woohoo..), we trekked over through the snow to the first bar. They gave us our t-shirts and then made us all do a round of shots. There was unlimited drinks at this first bar for anyone doing the pub crawl, but thank god we moved onto the next one soon- there's no way we could have made it the whole night with that. The next bar we tried shots of absinthe. Those were pretty rough. Probably never doing that again in my life. The next bar was more club-like, and when it turned midnight, we sang happy birthday to Emily on the stage. Outside that bar, there was this woman, who looked like she was like 35, puking on the sidewalk. A little too nostalgic of college days? Even the college kids weren't doing that...

Trying a Trdelnik

The next and final stop was the famous five story club, Karlovy Lazne. Me and Kath left the rest of the girls in the basemen dancing, and explored the five stories. Each floor had a different theme, like oldies, or hip hop. Katherine took a video of us climbing all five stories and back down again. When we went down to the basement, we couldn't find the rest of the girls but luckily found some of the guys who ended up getting us a cab home. I liked the club and I'm glad I did it, but I'm just not a club person for the most part, so I more than a little ready to leave when the boys grabbed us a cab back. When we got back, the table was covered with various meals of McDonald's, and I was actually feeling a little hungry myself. Blaire, the typical motherly one, made me some scrambled eggs and we all hung out and rehashed the night. Thankfully, Emily had a great birthday celebration!

Charles Bridge

We woke up around 10 and headed down to breakfast at a French restaurant down the street. I had a delicious French croissant with swiss cheese and ham and split a quiche with Blaire, and had some kind of iced coffee frappe which was pretty yummy. Then we did some more touristy things, like going over to the Charles Bridge again to snap some more pictures in the daylight. I also tried a Trdlenik while the other girls picked up some Starbucks- a traditional Prague snack that was basically coiled dough cooked and seasoned with cinnamon. So good! Katherine and Hanna got a fish pedicure down the street, where you literally stick your feet in a tank and the fish nibble off your dry skin. I probably would've done it, but I had some open blisters and the idea of fish nibbling at those made me gag. In the meantime, me, Jenna, Blaire and Emily went over to Bohemia Bagels, where I got a chocolate chip bagel and cream cheese. Basically already starting to feel sick with the amount of food I was trying to stuff into my body, I was not prepared for the traditional Czech meal that we were about to have later.

Some good old Czech beer

The meter!

Emily and Hanna really wanted to show the four of us a real Prague dinner, so we headed out to dinner to a local pub-type of place. On the way, we saw the famous Prague radio tower, which is the tallest point in the city. Some crazy artist was commissioned to design the thing, and he did some really weird stuff, the creepiest thing being his giant sculptures of black babies climbing up the tower. They looked super creepy from far away.

Sausage in dark beer

When we got to the place, I was really excited. It was a dark little pub that smelled smoky and looked super authentic. They sat us down at a wooden booth, and Emily insisted on ordering something right off the bat for us all, called "the meter." At first I thought she was referring to some meat dish, but figured it out quickly enough when the waiter brought over this meter-long platter of ten beers. "Can't have a Czech meal without some Czech beer!" she claimed. There was an assortment of dark and light beers, and we each pulled out one of each. Then we set about the task of ordering, and I ended up getting a sausage in dark beer and potato pancakes for myself, and there was Czech goulash, dumplings, and plenty of other stuff ordered for the whole table. Everyone got something different, which made for a lot of taste-testing. And honestly, everything was absolutely delicious. My sausage was the best I'd ever had in my life, and the beef goulash was this gravy beef dish that was unreal. I ended up eating half of one of my three potato pancakes and not even denting the sausage I was full so fast. I was sad to have to waste such awesome food, but I literally couldn't eat anymore, especially in combination with the beer. In fact, I couldn't even start on the second beer! The whole time, I kept thinking how much my dad would've loved this meal. It was kind of refreshing to not have pasta or anything even remotely found in Italy. Such comfort food.

Our own beer tap

Me and Kath at the Beer Factory

After dinner, we headed over to the Beer Factory, where we had reservations for 9:30 pm. On the way, we came across this group of British men in crazy suits, and eventually figured out that they were a bachelor party, or as they corrected me "stag party." They jokingly followed us to the Beer Factory but turned around to go somewhere else instead. We were seated at the Beer Factory, which was kind of like an open pub-scene. All of the tables had their own Pilsner beer taps, so you could fill up your glass whenever you wanted. It kept track of how many liters we drank, and our bill would be based off of that. As people were starting to fill up on more beer, the atmosphere started to get a little crazier and the middle of the floor filled with people doing the "Harlem Shake" and other funny things. The "stag party" eventually circled back to the Beer Factory, where they turned out to be extremely entertaining to everyone there. After a few hours of fun, we decided it was time for us to head out after witnessing a group of men literally strip off all of their clothes. The waitresses kind of laughed, and didn't know what to do. That could have literally never gone on as long as it did in the States. Even as we were heading out, the men were still dancing around naked.

The "stag" party

We got home at a pretty decent hour, and I took a shower and headed to bed. I left Emily's apartment at 6 am  for my 9:20 am flight and took the metro and the bus to the airport. I got into Naples on time, and I have to say, the city was just as gross as I'd heard it would be. On the short bus ride to the train station, I saw that the streets were pretty trashed, and buildings that had looked like they once had been nice were falling apart and covered with graffiti. Any future day trip I'd been considering was quickly thrown out. Finally I arrived back to my apartment in Rome in the early afternoon. Conclusion: Prague was pretty sick; hopefully I make it back there someday!

Old Town Square, Prague