Prague

Prague was a happening place. First of all . . . it was FREEZING!!!! It was miserable. I had to buy a hooded sweatshirt. I could hardly consentrate before we got it, I was so cold, and we just hung out in the mall a lot. And my back was giving me the worst pain ever- that's when we bought the meds- in the mall. We walked around and there was a festival going on! There was a couple on stage (in the background) and he seriously balance a grown woman on a knife he was holding in his mouth. Insane.

Our first czeck meal. We wanted it to be authentic so we went to this little restaurant and nobody knew english. Ok. Czeck money. They have no cents. Everything is "crown". 1 crown to 1 million crown. One dollar is 16 crown. But it was wierd, no decimals! Greg brought a calculator and at first I thought he was nuts but it was really nice. It was impossible to figure out how much things cost at first! As for our meal, we just ordered and weren't really sure what we were getting, but it ended up being really good. Czech food is basically meat and dumplings, and the dumplings are bread. Oh yes, and the bread wasn't free here either, neither was the butter. Whoops again.
There were lots of pointy buildings in Prague. I kept thinking this one looked like the witch's castle in Sleeping Beauty.

There was music and the whole event was this run thing. I think it was a charity event, I'm not sure. There were all kinds of teams, families, maybe co-workers. It was FREEZING and on cobblestone. I never could have done it. The lies of runners never seemed to end. It was fun.

We went to the Museum of Communism. Greg was really excited for this one. I didn't love it. A LOT of reading and details that I didn't always understand. Greg took his time reading everything so he must've been into it. At the end there was footage of The Czeck Republic's Revolution. It was so awe inspiring. It showed footage when communism took over and the events leading to their freedom. I'll talk more about that later.

This was the most expensive sight on our whole trip and the biggest disappointment. Oh well, live and learn. It was a palace and I thought it was going to be all beautiful and Cinderella like. Nope, it wasn't.

The cathedral actually looked "palacey" on the outside, the rest was all plain.

This part looked like disneyland. It was little houses for people living in the palace. Seriously small rooms. It would have been cooler, but it wasn't original.

This was sick. The torture chamber. There were all these ancient torture, spiky devices, small cages, lots of ones to dangle human bodies in like this picture. It creeped me out. Greg thought it was cool.

I don't know why we're smiling. This was the biggest rip off ever. Our audio guides. $30 and such a rip. They were so boring and ridiculously detailed we turned them off before 10 minutes had passed. We never knew what they were talking about either.

Public transportation was a bit of an adventure. Sometimes we'd get on and weren't 100% sure we got on the right tram, but we actually made it to everything with no problems at all!

Night time . . .

Another random event! There was a movie playing on a screen outside! So fun! So we watched! We came into it a little late and it was all in czech but we both really liked it. It had an interesting ending (as in no ending at all) but I think European movies are just like that.

This was a Jewish cemetery. There were-shoot I don't remember- I wanna say 12,000 or 200,000- who knows- graves there. I just remember thinking, "This space is way too small for that many graves. Impossible!" I guess the Jews were only aloud to bury here for years and years so they just kept going up. They would just put graves on top of each other, over and over again. They were really old and different looking. Hebrew on everything. I really wanted to read it. We walked all around the Jewish Quarter. It was really something. Of course there was stuff all about the holocaust but I nievely didn't realize the prejudice Jews have had since the beginning of time! One museum had all the Czech's names on the walls in synagogue who died in the holocaust. Upstairs were art work from children who were put in camps. It was incredible. All kinds of drawings from young children and teenagers. I learned a lot.

Another czech meal. This one was far more beautiful, but didn't taste as good. So we didn't TOUCH the bread they brought out and they charged us anyway!!!! We couldn't believe it. I guess it said it on the menu. What a rip. Greg argued by saying we didn't eat it and she said the charge was for salt and condiments too. So Greg told her we didn't use those either and then she showed him the menu. So . . . no tip.

This was the best part of Prague for me. This is the square where The Czech Republic won their freedom. It was HUGE and FULL of people when it happened! Everyone chanting and revolting. Cops beating people and getting beat up (not when we were there, this is what I saw in that film). This happened in 1989!!!!! The LATE 80's!!!!! I couldn't believe it! People suffering for so long. In the video all the people looked in their 20's and I just thought, "What courage." I've never had to fight for my freedom. I was in such awe that they took theirs back. It really was thrilling for me to be there.

This was infront of the building and they had lights and bomb sounds going off on the building. And the tank made noise too. In the background there was all this graffiti. We wished we knew how to read czech. We think it was a symbol of their end of communism.

It was crazy, for the flight back we got there really early and there was an art show going on at the airport! There was live music and weird big modern art everywhere. They had all these tables out and it was catered. It felt all fancy until I actually tasted the food (it wasn't very good).