My bad about the lack of posts....I've been all over the place physically and also emotionally! I'll try to fill you all in on my adventures in the past 2 weeks! I'll probably have to break this post up but let's go ahead and start with where I left off....leaving Paris.
The flight was fine although I, unfortunately, was that annoying sick person on the plane that you hope doesn't sit next to YOU. Too bad, so sad.
When I arrived I was so happy to find my friend waiting for me at the airport. That’s always such a great feeling and something I never get sick of. My travels in Eastern Europe (that started in Prague) were just a whirlwind so; again, I’ll do my best to remember what happened, in what city, etc.
Prague: Carlos was so nice to meet me at the airport and we went there directly into the city. He had organized everything, which I was thankful for since I knew nothing, so when we arrived we hit the ground running. Once we got into the city we did a little bit of sightseeing while we walked to the hostel.
Our adventures were basically just exploring the city a bit more before it got too dark…so we saw the bridge, the cathedral/church and other various “tourist” points.
Carlos, the history buff that he is, told me tons of interesting facts and stories about the town. Of course I forgot mostly everything but I did retain a few fun facts such as…
There’s a point on the bridge where there’s a metal “sculpture” and 2 parts of it are really shiny. Why? Because people go there to touch it for good luck…it has to do with the king and being jealous and killing a priest (or some religious figure) because he wouldn’t tell the king about the confessions of his (the king's) wife (history lesson in 2 sec). The funny thing is that only one of the spots is actually what you touch for good luck. The other one was just a prank by some kids that came by in the middle of the night, poured some acid on another part of the “sculpture” to make it shiny…then all the people only assumed you should touch there too.
Hope you enjoyed that. So again, we just explored the town until we got hungry. We headed to a recommended spot nearby and boy were we right to go there. The ambience there was what one should and would imagine in the Czech…lots of old photos, large “barrels” where they stored the beer that they made there, a man playing the accordion, the waitresses that spoke almost no English yet seemed to understand everything we wanted…and the food. It was great, very “home” like as if you walked into a local’s kitchen, grabbed some food and took a seat. I actually felt pretty adventurous and had some wild boar (delicious), yum. We also tried some of their famous natural beer which is quite different from kind I’ve ever had before.
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| fish eye.... |
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| ...makes everything more fun! |
Another fun fact: the natural beers that they made have to be consumed within a certain amount of time (just a few hrs) otherwise they go bad. They also don’t have much alcohol in them meaning you could probably drink 2 LARGE jugs and it would be the equivalent of 1 small can (in terms of alcohol).
After food we headed to the hostel because we were gonna have to get up “early” to go on the tour. So…sleep, wake up & get ready…
Tour: We went on a Free Walking Tour of Prague (they don’t charge and you just tip what you want to pay…like 5-10euros roughly, depending on how they do). The tour was really interesting and we saw pretty much all the tourist points (on one side of town) with all the historical explanations.
Something you may not know about Prague is how romantic the city is. Everyone says how romantic Paris is but really I don’t necessarily agree with that…instead I really think its Prague. It’s just a typical small European town with a LOT of charm. Maybe that’s why we saw 3 brides in the main plaza area within the period of 2 hours…
We had to BOOK IT (literally RUN) from the where we ended the tour to our hostel, grab our stuff and then to the metro to get to the bus station! It was a bit fast but we arrived with about 5 min to spare…but we did arrive (huffing and puffing).
Next stop: Brno
I’ll keep this one in the same post since Brno is still in Czech Republic… so why did we go there? It’s where Carlos is studying! There’s a large Erasmus (exchange students within Europe) community but not much else. So once we arrived there (it’s only a few hour bus ride from Prague) we headed where? STRAIGHT to a pub crawl. We didn’t even have enough time to drop by the residence to drop off our bags; we just left them in some lockers at the train station (next to the bus station) and headed right to the meeting point of the pub crawl.
I’d never done a pub crawl so I didn’t know what to expect but I quickly learned...so in case you don’t know either, I’ll explain. There are teams, in this case teams of 4 people (I was the tag along 5th person) and you have to go to a series of bars. This time it was 8 bars, and at each one you have to drink X amount of beers, at this one it was 3 beers at each bar for the whole team…So 4 people sharing 3 beers at 8 different spots. Not only do you do this but you have to be the fastest…what does that mean? Well how do you get somewhere faster? You RUN. And of top of that you’re trying to drink the beers as fast as possible in order to get to the next place faster. Oh and it’s also you’re responsibility to make a strategic plan of what bars to hit first so you can be the fastest (since the bars are all over the city). ALSO you’re not allowed to take any sort of public transportation so running really IS the only option.
As I’m sure you can imagine…after a few bars people start to get tired…and tipsy…so the running slows down, you drink slower and talk more to the people at each bar. In the end everyone is happy (and probably sweaty) and you all meet up to celebrate…with more beers.
It was definitely “college” experience but I had lots of fun meeting new people from ALL different countries.
The next day was quite relaxing…since everyone had been out so late. We had a BBQ and chilled out in the sun.
OHHH and something else important to mention is the weather change…As I mentioned in the last post, while I was in Paris it rained a lot and just wouldn’t stop. So I only assumed that it would be even colder in Czech Republic…hence why I brought plenty of layers. BUT I was pleasantly surprised to find that as soon as I arrived to Prague the rest of my travels in Easter Europe would be done in the least amount of clothing possible…because it was SO hot. The entire time I was traveling it was between 25-30 ⁰C (roughly 77-86 ⁰F)! What a wonderful surprise! Seattle has taught me well, always travel with layers! Otherwise I would have been burning up in just sweaters.
As I mentioned we had a BBQ and it lasted most of the day. At the end I was pretty exhausted…being out in the sun for hours. That evening was more fiestas at the residence hall…I don’t know how they do it all the time! I guess it’s just something you get used to…or don’t. I think I would die of exhaustion hahaha
I only spent 2 more evenings in Brno but during the day we took trips to nearby countries so let’s end this post here and start with the next!
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