Day 41 - Prague

We got up at 9ish and met Kate, the girl from Mac (grew up in Oakville) in the common room then we headed out for a day of sightseeing. We stopped at a place near the hostel and had a coffee and egg sandwich on a bagel (my first egg in Europe i think). We hit up the main square first, then wandered, crossed the bridge north of the famous Charles Bridge, then headed up the hill to the castle.

Like so many other places i've mentionned, Prague is absolutely gorgeous. All very old, Soviet type architecture and churches and mosques everywhere. Its also way cleaner than i would've guessed and has a great atmosphere and feel to it. Definately a great place to come to and i could easily stay and hang out here for a week or more.

So anyways, we walked up the hill and stairs to the castle, took some pics looking back down over Prague and then headed up to the square in front of the palace. We got there around noon, so it turned out that we'd gotten there just in time for the changing of the guard, which is similar to the changing of the guard in London. So we watched the ceremony which took about 20 minutes adn we saw the new guards march in, then the band played some music, then the two guards who were standing on guard out fron were replaced by 2 new guards who would be there for the next 24 hours, standing in the same spot, not moving at all.

From there we wandered through the grounds of the presidential palace in the castle and paid 50 Crown to go down Golden Lane which ended up just being a small road with tiny shops with 5 foot doors. There was a really cool, small, medieval weapons museum though that had a ton of crazy looking weapons that i've definately never seen or heard of before. From there we wandered back towards the river, had a Thai food lunch (good and cheap), then walked back to our side of the river across the Charles Bridge. Its a pretty cool bridge with statues all the way across (pedestrians only) and is definately the sight of pretty much every single Prague postcard because of the vies of the tops of the many churches adn mosques. Soooooo many tourists though and small souvenir stands and buskers everywhere. All part of the atmosphere though i guess.

We took a peak in a few of the many many many shops on the other side of the bridge and then back to the hostel. We chilled for awhile at the hostel and me and Rob moved our stuff. Since we didn't have reservations and since the place was almost completely booked, we had to switch roms each night; not ideal, but no big deal since the hostel was so good.

At 8ish we headed over to the main square with the Cali girls Meg, Lauren, and Kim, Bridget from Minnesota, and Kate (Mac) because they'd paid for a ghost tour of Prague. So me, Rob, and Kate decided to go along but didn't end up paying the 250 CR and thank God, because it sucked. So we laughed at the rest of them for wasting their money on it, grabbed some street meat, then back to the hostel for some more beers.

I ended up wandering into the 1st floor common room (we were all on the 2nd floor) and met a group of 6 people playing drinking games before going out to some bar and, of course, soon enough joined them. There was a Finish guy and an Aussie guy (both strange) and 3 girls (Olivia from the States somwhere but studying in Florence; Kath, from Aussieland; and another girl, not sure of her name and i think she was with Kath). Rob hung out with us at the hostel, but wasn't in the mood to go out, so when we headed out he stayed in.

I'm not sure which direction we headed out in, but the bar we ended up at was pretty good. Kind've a pub upstairs and a club with dancing downstairs. It was great times and I'm not sure what time we got home at, but i know that i was up till 6am. Late, but definately a good night.