So Thursday evening, 10pm, me and my roommate arrive in the Santa Maria Novella train station to begin our journey to so many different places. Everyone there was holding suitcases and was so excited to be leaving. I ran into my friend who actually wasn't supposed to be on teh trip but decided to switch over, so that was a nice surprise. We checked in with our leaders adn then proceeded to go to the bus for our lovely 10 hour bus ride. This bus was sooo hot!!! Have they not heard of air conditioning? And can I just mention that the air conditioning was not turned on once during this whole entire bus ride. It was terrible. I attempted to sleep but it didn't go over very well. When we finally arrived in Prague, it took 2 hours longer than we had hoped. But I got off that bus with the worst throat ever. I just hoped that it would go away when I got some air conditioning. When we arrived at the Czech Inn in Prague, it was so nice! Everyone at the front desk was so friendly and then we got our room assignments. Me and my friend weren't expecting much because it was a hostel. So we recieved our key and went up, and let me tell you, it was NOTHING to what we were expecting. Us and 4 other girls shared an apartment! and I mean an apartment! 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, our own bathroom, an upstairs, and a patio! It was incredible!!! And there were normal rooms too that some of my friends got that had 8 people in a small room with a communal bathroom. Boy did I get lucky. See for yourself:
After we all check in, we meet downstairs for brunch, which was INCREDIBLE!!! and then we proceeded to go on a tour with a guide from a company called NewEurope. They are really fun and really energetic. Our tour guide was from the US and just moved to Prague to do this job and he says he loooves it. I don't blame him though. So for the next couple of hours he shows us all around Prague. We see the infamous clocktower. This clocktower has about 12 different clocks and people gather around this clock on the hour such so they can see the peopls on the clock move and a fake bird to make a sound that sounds like he's dying. Sounds awesome right? Then we continued on and he stopped and told us all about the history of Prague and how the famous death penalty there was throwing people out of windows and if that wasn't painful enough, they would have two guys at the bottom of the building holding what were like pitchforks, you know, just to finish the guy off. After we saw a beautiful church and he talked about cubism, which was a little weird but he made it funny. After we went to Bohemia Bagels which is a famous bagel shop in Prague and we all got food and it was delicious! then we continued walking and saw what used to be the jewish ghetto. For many people, they found it so interesting, and it really was. I got really sad when I saw it because they started talking about the Holocaust and showed us a museum which we didn't go into and was closed the next day so I never went. After we saw a building where Mozart performed and I found that very cool and then finally the tour ended at the Charles Bridge. Here are some of the sights I saw :D
Later on that night we got the chance to go on the ClockTower Pub Crawl. This is one of the most famous pub crawls you can go on. So of course me and everyone else in our travel group gets ready to go out. The meeting place was at Bohemia Bagels again because at night it turns into a bar. The way the pub crawl worked was as usual, they take you to four bars and one nightclub with free admission for about 16 Euros. But the difference about this one was at Bohemia Bagels, for an hour and a half it was free beer and shots. and the beers kept coming. They gave your table a liter of beer and cups and then if your liter ran out you got another one and that just continued for an hour and a half straight. It was so much fun and I met a lot of people. Then, on the way home, I left with a few people, including a tour leader, and there was a sausage stand outside still open in the wee hours of the night so clearly I had to grab one to try Prague's food. The sausage was huge and it was the most delicious thing. Even though it didn't settle well with me in the morning, I don't regret it. I don't regret it at all. If you ever go to Prague and your a teenager with nothing to do and want to meet people; do the Clocktower Pub Crawl.
The next morning we all got up early to go and walk up this massive hill to see a viewpoint that looks like a fake eiffle tower. I did not go up because I didn't have my passport. TIP!!! bring your student visa everywhere!!! It gets you major discounts on museums and most of the time free!!! So me and my friend waited for everyone to come down and then we continued on to go and see this huge castle and church that, on that specific day, Prince William was coming there to have some sort of meeting. I didnt' see him but I did think the idea of him being there was cool. After that was done, my and my friend did our own thing and headed towards the Lennon Wall which was awesome!!! and then went over the Charles Bridge which is like a copy of the Ponte Vecchio. Then on our way back, we picked up our souveniers and a gyro which was sooo good!!! Then 16 miles later headed back to the hostel and decided not to go out again that night because we were still so tired from the night before. However, we DID decide to go out to dinner because we head that the beef goulash and bread dumpling are a delecacy in Prague so we headed out to a restaurant called U Bulina and ordered just that. The serving size was massive and it was DELICIOUS! That made me fall in love with Prague just a little bit more <3
9AM Sunday - We head out. Goodbye Prague. 5 hour bus ride to Berlin, Germany!! Once again, we arrive about 2 or 3 hours late meaning that our free tiem there just got cut down a lot. So when we get there, me and my roommates drop our bags and head straight out to see the Jewish Museum. After walking for about forty minutes and getting kind of lost, we arrived at the museum. I love reading about the Holocaust and that's what half of the museum was so tat really fascinated me. The other half was more on the history of the jews and just facts so it kind of bored me. After that, it was starting to get dark but we were all starving and the hostel there was awful. They couldn't tell us anything. So a bunch of us started walking and found this restaurant called Maximilians. It was pure German food and I got german meatballs with carrots and mashed potatoes. The serving was massive!! and the whole thing was incredible especially the dessert which was warm apple strudel with homemade ice cream and whipped cream.
The next morning was awful. I woke up incredibly sick. I couldn't breathe at all and I come to find out that my tonsils are triple in size and that I can't breathe or swallow out of one side of my mouth. I had no idea why this happened. I don't have allergies and I wasn't eating anything weird. But I just hoped it was because the air was dry so I continued and went on the tour that was given by, you guessed it...NewBerlin. He took us around in pretty much a huge circle. We started off looking at the most expensive hotel in all of Europe that is 15,500 Euros a night which is 21,000$ Apparently that comes with three butlers and pretty much anything you would like. For that kind of money, I wouldn't ask for anything less. He also told us that, that exact hotel was thh one with the infamous scene of Michael Jackson holding a baby out the window. That's the point when we all started taking pictures. (typical tourists right?). Then we went on to see a famous gate that opened up West and East Berlin as well as a Holocaust Memorial. It was so cool because it looked like a maze and you can get lost in it and it's supposed to be a design where people should percieve the design as something different. After, we went to where Hitler's underground rooms were and then he showed us the exact spot where he burned. It's a sewer. Not even lying. As we continued walking we headed to the Berlin Wall. Trust me....not that exciting. It actually looks like garbage. Very unhappy with it. Walking around some more, we saw a famous church that was beautiful and the river.
After the tour was over, me and two of my friends decided that we have to go and try some of their famous currywurst. It's a sausage served with ketchup and curry. So we go searching for this place but since we didn't know how to use the trians we decided to go somewhere else and eat it. It was very strange but I liked it. The curry was very overpowering but it could have been just the place because I heard from a bunch of other people that it was amazing. After we finished that I had to go home because I was not feeling good at all so I walked back to my hostel to take a nap. It was really upsetting that I was so sick. I decided to get up and go to the group dinner since it was our last night although I was sick. We go to this place and I get pork's knuckle and it was HUGE! it was like four of my fists put together. Of course I ate the majority of it with the potatoes it came with. Then they served us soft pretzels to eat with it, instead of a bread basket (best idea EVER!) For dessert I shared an apple strudel with my friend and after that I couldnt' breathe anymore because I was so full. Although I wasn't a huge fan of Berlin to begin with, the meals definitely made up for it.
After dinner was time for bed and then in the morning........Amsterdam and then Paris!!!! (mentioned in my next blog! :D)
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