Last day of sightseeing before the Course Starts

I surprisingly woke up around 11 after coming home at 530am and was gonna meet the girls to do some sightseeing before class started Monday.

Finally I have a clear shot of the Muzeum in the main center- this is are regular metro stop.

City square headed towards astrological clock—does a little show at every hour so we weren’t gonna make it so we decided to grab some food before. Saw hara Krishna performances in the middle of the square—sooo weird!

We checked out St. James Cathedral close by and pictures were banned—but I snuck one picture anyway of the main part.. ohh it was soo gorgeous inside- reminded me of Medieval art and architecture class a couple years back—I wish I remembered some of it! My professor would have been able to tell us what era it was built in and what everything meant.. but it was gorgeous inside

Walked about and found a place to eat- had spiced chicken goulash with bread dumplings that Fran my roomie was raving about—she had eaten beef goulash everywhere she went so I tried it and it was pretty delicious

Went back to the square and saw clock at perfect time- saints going through windows and skeleton man pulling on the cord- no song which another girl said there should have been a song playing.











Went up the tower for 100 czk and best decision ever!! Beautiful views of whole city- wish I knew how to do the panoramic function on camera! Dammit.. I left the user's guide at the flat. We took the long trek up the tower.. we could've used the elevator and thats what this picture is of.. the elevator casing was really cool looking, but we thought it'd be more authentic if we walked up it. It wasn't too bad actually.. instead of steps it was ramps the whole way up. Nifty!
















There is this large tower we had heard of and it has these babies crawling up it. It's really weird, but from the clock tower, we could actually make out babies crawling up it!!



We also, saw this amazing little restaurant on top of a building.. like literally on the roof. It looked so cool! I definitely want to splurge one day and eat up there!





What an amazing though! We were tired though so we headed back home- Fran had a date with this Finnish guy she met the other night and we wanted to get on computers so below KFC is a place Déjà vu where we can still get onto the network and actually drink as we go! Yay! Perfect!

Saturday Meeting Everyone from CELTA

It was still raining when I got up and I had no desire to go outside but my room was a mess since I was non stop going out since I got there. So I took the opportunity to tidy up and put things in their place and saw there was no closet in my room to hang things.. shit there’s a community one in the main hallway but do you know how many clothes I brought? I finally was able to fit all my pants and things into the drawers and only shirts and dresses remain in my bag.

On the Celta course website, we made plans to meet other people at Jarmark bar in our metro station of Budejovicka. Got ready and tried to find internet before meeting everyone- found it at KFC! I was ordering food there and the counter boy apologized for not speaking better English! Ohhh my gosh.. why?!? I felt so bad! Why is he apologizing! I feel bad for not being able to say anything in Czech!

Finally headed over to Jarmark and met up with a lot of people from the course. Jarmark has a beer tap in the middle of every table so you can pour your own beer and it counts how many liters you used.. AMAZING!! No more waiting for your waiter when you finish your beer! I became the designated bar bitch since I was right in front of the tap.

We met a lot of cool girls and decided to go out into town after. Found ourselves at an expatz bar and we met guys- stag party. ****British term**** “stag party” as in- bachelor party. And “hen party” as in- bachelorette party. I wanted to go up to them and ask them since a bachelorette party was called a hen party, shouldn’t a bachelor party be called a cock party? I’m just saying.. it makes sense!

Decided to head towards a more “czechy” place- wandered around and didn’t find much but a clubby place that we weren’t really dressed for- but we decided to just go anyways cuz tired of walking- great decision!!! 80s 90s party for 100 czk and it was soo packed! Met guys from America though and hung out with them the rest of the night til 5 in the morning!! One guy was a salsa dancing instructor and right by the bar cleared a way so that we could dance. He tossed me all over that bar and was a really good leader. That was so much fun. Too bad he wasn’t my type though. We ate these amazing hot dogs on the street in the city center and just talked for a long time. Yea I didn't realize that dude was doing that in the picture.. what a douche.. he's the one I was salsa dancing with.. but don't worry.. He didn't touch me or anything like that!

They saw Czech girls walking down the street they went over to talk to them.. so we left—they made a pact earlier to meet only Czech girls so they were upset that they met us and had a good time cuz they wanted to be authentic.. I guess that was there chance.. its ok though—not too cute anyways and they were very very drunk
Took a cab for 300 czk from the main square and that was fine by me.. crashed the whole night!

First Day and Night in Prague- sightseeing/going out

The three of us- me Fran and Stephanie went into city center and decided to make our trek to the castle. It was such a hot day! We had lunch at a small little café a little outside of the main center which is called Wenceslas Square which is the main shopping district. The café was called Chillilli- weird name but delicious food for really cheap! I had a crepe with hand and cheese, soda, bread, water for only 100 czk which is around $5!

Walked towards the river and the Charles Bridge. Just beautiful to see the castle atop the hill overlooking the whole city! Lots a paddle boats in the water too and tour boats that I’ll have to check out some time. We decided to cross the Charles Bridge and hike up a massive set of stairs to castle. What a tiring journey in the blazing heat!!

What a gorgeous view from the top of the castle! The guards outside of castle were pretty dang cute! We wanted to give them our numbers and see where they hung out afterwards lol- But they are not like the British guards who can’t laugh or move or smile though. That was disappointing! These guys smile and start laughing all the time during the Changing of the Guards… it’s so weird!

There was the main church in the center of the castle wall right inside the main entrance. That is the main part that you see from across the river. It is massive inside and has tons of beautiful stained glass. My pictures just cannot do it justice.





















I particularly liked this one because all of the other stained glass windows were bright purples and reds and this one was soo different- again I can’t really capture the true beauty of this window but it has blues and the greens which you can barely tell that really popped out to the eye.

You have to pay to see some other parts of the castle so we decided to do it another day since we wanted to chop off our feet already from all the walking we had done. There is a tram that runs up from the main center up the hill straight to the castle, so we'll have to do that next time and save our feet!











Headed off through the main garden which leads down towards an exit. Every time we thought we had seen the best view, it really just kept getting better. People were just strolling through the park, playing hackey sack and walking their dogs.. crazy that this is their park! Within a castle wall!



Charles bridge where we walked from- very busy place with lots of random touristy things to buy.






Came back down and started raining out of nowhere—weird soo sunny all day and then crazy storm when we’re finding dinner- had to stop at bar in the center—expensive! But really good.. 500 czk- “old Prague plate” lots of meat— smoked mead.. pork.. soo delicious on potato pancake—too expensive though- never eat there again! Really aimed for tourists but its a cool setup inside with a bear rug hanging over the fireplace. Reminds me of an old English pub.

Went home.. got ready for girls night out! Stephanie had known some girls that lived in the area that one of her friends put her in touch with. These girls were soo nice and Lucie the one that actually was from Czech Republic was one feisty little girl. It was awesome- she didn’t let us get swindled just because we were American. She laid her foot down to the waitress about service charges and splitting up the check and forced a taxi driver to take us a different club.

She really didn’t like Czech guys and gave us a big warning that the good looking guys are either taken or are gay. I didn’t really find too many hot guys around anyways, but since Prague was a very open and liberal city, she said many gay guys flock to it- kind of like San Francisco. So every time I saw a really hot guy, I kept having to second guess myself if he was gay or not! Gosh my Gaydar is all off here!

We had drinks at a bar most of us had mojitos which seems to be really popular here and then Fran had straight whiskey- pretty awesome! Lol We then left cuz it was too expensive and dead inside and out of nowhere right when we finally finish paying another crazy downpour! Raining like cats and dogs and of course I didn’t bring an umbrella! So we decided to grab a taxi just to go around the block to a club called Tekla Mekla. It had a lot of lounge areas and then a really, really small dance floor! It was soo hot and I wasn’t able to get drunk at all because all the drinks seemed soo weak! But we had fun dancing to techno and random American songs mixed together. We decided to leave at 215 right after the other girls left. But we forgot to ask them directions on how to get to the night trams!

So we were trying to find the night trams to get home and I’m dying because I’m wearing knee high bitch boots and a jean skirt. Can’t wait to take my shoes off! We’re wandering and trying to follow the map lost in the middle of the city and out of nowhere—torrential rains! Feet are already dead from the whole day— but now- we’re sopping wet like dogs walking the streets in the middle of the night. Found the tram but the stops were really far and we couldn’t figure out which direction to go, and finally just decided to take a taxi home. The cab driver probably felt pity for us and only charged us 200 czk which is like 10 bucks to get home.. shit—why didn’t we do that earlier?!??!?! As we were walking from where he dropped us off Fran said “I’m going to have a lion tomorrow” And me and Stephanie- soaking wet still- just stopped and looked at her and was like whaaat?? She just kept repeating it, I’m gonna have a lion tomorrow, don’t you know what that is? We said like as in rooarr a lion. Oh my gosh we had the biggest laugh! ****British term**** “ly in” as in- sleeping in. Wow.. didn’t understand that one. Lol!

Uggh we got home at 315, changed into dry clothes, ate some bread to hold over the alcohol and crashed until 1 pm the next day! Crazy night! You really can’t predict the weather in Prague.. always carry an umbrella on you.. the other girls that lived there did, so I will take their advice now!

First Night in Prague!

Got into Prague at about 820pm and the taxi driver was waiting for me with my name on a piece of paper as I exited. He didn’t speak any English so of course that was really awkward! But he was nice. We tried to communicate with small gestures so that was interesting. The airport is pretty far from the apartment and we kept passing by some really ghetto places so I kept praying that he wasn’t going to stop the taxi at those places. We finally came upon a large tall building and that was my stop. He had a package for me that had he keys in it and maps and things that the school provided. He thank goodness helped me with my two bags and showed me the flat which is on the 13th floor.

My roommate had greeted me when I walked. Her name is Frances- goes by Fran and she is from Bristol, UK. I was so excited that she was my roommate because she was one of the girls that I had been corresponding with on the Celta website before I got here. I chose a room with a balcony but none of the rooms had closets in the room but they have a massive shared closet in the hallway far from my room. BAH! Do you know how many clothes I brought out here?!

Even after the long journey of getting there, for some reason I found enough energy to get out to the city. Fran had been desperate to get out of the flat. So we went to city center after refreshing myself and trying not to smell. The metro station is right down the street from the flat. We stopped at I.P. Pavlova- favorite stop on the C line because of how the soothing train voice says it- it is pronounced- E. Pei Pavlova—love it for some reason. Haha

Wondered the streets and realized that there was nothing really going on- we looked obviously lost so an American guy stopped us and headed us in the right direction- we should’ve taken the next stop- Muzeum- that’s the main center


Found a tram in the middle of the square serving beer.. not a functional one but just one for show. Another girl from the course had started correspondence with us to try to meet up before the course began- Thank god Fran was my roommate because she had her phone and was able to get in touch with that girl- Stephanie. Took a long time to meet Stephanie and figure out where we were in order to tell her where to go.

By the time we got there and found Stephanie and somehow directed her to where we were- we only had 1 beer and that was all and it closed so we just headed home. I thought I was a trooper for the night for going out in the first place anyways!

Paris

I took Air France to Paris. I was sat in an aisle seat in the front of a section where the flight attendants had their setting up area. So the entire flight I had flight attendants and people who were going to the bathroom knocking into me. Wonderful. The flight attendants were very VERY playful with eachother. There were 2 really hot stewards (is that what you call them?). All the stewardesses kept throwing packets of sugar and crap at them. Then when I went up to go to the bathroom, the stewardess tried to squirt water at the steward and he got out of the way and the water got on me!! wow.. that was interesting! haha but the flight wasn't that bad. I watched I Love You, Man and 17 again so that made the time pass by quickly.

I got to Paris and I only got about an hour and a half of sleep. I was soo tired but I had a 9 hour layover before I got to leave for Prague. So of course I had to go see the Eiffel Tower. So I asked the hot steward what the best way was for me to get there and he was really helpful. I took the B line to St. Michel/Notre Dame and then the C line to the Tower.. however C line was closed when I got there so I took M-10 to Bir-Hakeim and walked to the Tower. I could see the Tower as I was coming in from the train.

There was such a long line at the Tower that I didn't think I would have time to go up. Plus how lame is it that I would go up there alone! I already felt dumb taking pictures of myself in front of the tower and having to ask people to take a picture of me. But it was soo hot and I was soo tired that I couldn't find the energy to stay out there long. I crossed the bridge and these black guys kept trying to sell stuff to me. This one guy tried selling to me and I said no and he was like something something something in French.. sexy and winked and pursed his lips! uggh why do all the black guys always do that to me!?

But anyways.. there were a lot of hot guys there though. But it was the city of romance and love and I was there by myself! I bought a panini at a stand across from the tower and ate it on a bench in a park by the water fountains. It was beautiful. I was sweating like crazy all day so it was nice to take up some shade and relax and watch people. I finally decided I should head towards the metro again and I decided to have a beer at a little restaurant I saw by the metro. The waiter was seating me and I said just 1, and he looked at me funny and said "where' the other one?" --- to make me feel even worse!!! jerk! lol

I sat outside and people watched and found a couple of guys that had some ridiculous capri pants on. I took pictures of a couple of them because I knew Seth would appreciate them. He bought some of these ridiculous pants so that he wouldn't look like a tourist when he came out to Europe. The first guy I saw was the most ridiculous because they were very tight jean capri pants up to his knees and then they flared out like 70s style but they cut off mid-calve. Unfortunately I couldn't pull my camera out fast enough to catch it, but here are some pictures of other men with that kind of style of pant.

I had to head back to the airport because I was going to fall asleep right there at the cafe. I took the train back and OH MY GOSH-- it was the hottest ride of my life!! No vents for some reason and I was boiling. I somehow fell asleep anyways and woke up right at the airport in a pile of my own sweat. I felt really bad for whoever was going to sit next to me on the plane- I forgot to put an extra body spray in my bag! I got to the airport 3 hours before the plane was going to leave. Found my gate and tried to sleep as comfortably as I could. Finally got on the plane and yay the seat next to me was empty!! woo hoo! Next Stop-- PRAGUE!!

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