Prahahaha! The Prague Blog
Written by Jennifer December 12, 2014
Church of St. George is part of the castle and it was very beautiful!
Church of St. George is part of the castle and it was very beautiful!
Church of St. George is part of the castle and it was very beautiful!
Prague’s famous clock that has quite the anticlimactic ring
Goulash=delicious.
Lunch=Goulash.
Never on my experience studying abroad did I think that I would visit the Czech Republic- I am so glad I did. The sunshine crew (Lindsey, Taylor, and my new given nickname) was back in action. We traveled Saturday morning to Prague and let me tell you it was definitely Fall. Near the end of the trip I was, as we like to call it, double-scarfing. A Florida girl in cold weather is not a pretty sight. Walking onto Prague’s streets, the crew was reminded a lot of Munich. Much of the architecture was gothic and the streets were laid with dark brick and grainy concrete. It definitely smelt the most like tobacco than any other city I’d been to.
The Sunshine Crew headed to the atm because Prague uses Crowns! Now this is crazy. If you want to feel like a hot shot go to Prague. The currency rate is 1 dollar to 22.25 crowns.
They use 2,000 crown bills. One bill with the number “2000” on it! Prices look crazy there too. Of course the cost of a cup of coffee was priced at around 100 crowns. It really looked, well at least I just felt- bewildered.
Back to Prague, so we dropped our bags off at our hostel (which we all had difficulties opening the door for some reason), and headed to the streets. We crossed the BRIDGE. It had a pretty spectacular view. There are vendors lined up all along the bridge drawing caricatures and selling jewelry. Fun fact, garnet is from Prague.
Quite honestly, we wandered around a great deal after lunch. We ran into a food market so naturally we ate again. Prague is well known for these cinnamon spirals and hot wine. The spirals are as you can imagine- awful.
Fooled ya, they’re actually amazing on a cold day. They were called Chimney Cakes! After the post lunch snack or as I like to refer to it as the cool down, we bought some clothes at the H&M in the mall next to the market. H&M really does have better clothes in Europe if for some odd reason you were wondering.
It’s about time for the Old Timer- Prague’s famous clock that has quite the anticlimactic ring. The clock has been around for 200 years or so. I guess I’ll give it the stamp of consistency. We climbed it too!
In the square in Prague there are always musicians playing. Really talented musicians. I was blown away by this one guy on the piano. He got a crowd of about 50 people. Prague really appreciates music!
When dinner time rolled around, we met up some other Cimbans- Natalie, Kayla, and Sam. The six of us headed to quite the venue. Dinner on a roof! Our meals were mouthwatering……..and Italian. I’m telling you, my heart really is in Italy.
Okay so we did something sort of crazy. We went to the largest Night Club in Eastern Europe. Whoa. If you like to dance- go there. We walked in and were bombarded by the five levels of themed dance floors. The lowest floor was pop hits, another floor was oldies, another chilling music, then finally dance music and R&B were mixed in there too. Did I mention the ice bar? So cool! (In both senses of the word) They handed out gloves and snow coats before entering. We got back at 3 am. We got back to our “difficult to open” door at 3 am. After what felt like an hour, maybe really 30 mins, we survived and fell gracefully asleep!
The palace for day 2! So we actually didn’t go inside of the palace…is it sad to say that all palaces start to look the same. We get it, you have a lot of money. Your ceilings have gold and you really love paintings. I felt okay with skipping this one. Church of St. George is part of the castle and it was very beautiful!
I don’t know if you heard about what happened to the Lennon Wall recently, but the Monday before we headed over, some art students painted over it. That’s right, art students. The students painted, “The Wall is over”. We were a little sad about our timing, but the wall was already painted over once we arrived. We even got to help!
Lindsey, Taylor, and I really loved Prague overall. We grabbed our last meal at the food market. I’ve come to discover that in Europe food on really says a lot about the country. Prague food was very spicy and warm. It fills you up but tasted so delicious that you wanted to go back for seconds. Some sweetness in dishes, some tang in others. The food in Prague was ever-changing with traditional core ingredients. You recognize the basics: bread and goulash but stumble into spices and seasonings that wake up your taste buds. A young society mixing with classic roots- this is Prague.
It was a quick visit, but I can confidently say we lived it up! (Prague in Czech is “Praha” I just love that!)
…I can also confidently say that this was a mere warm up for Barcelona!
Blogger: Jennifer, Furman University
