Prague, Prag, Praha, Prawhaw. Prahahahaha. Ha.

Hey, look, Margaret finally posted about Prague! Czech it out!

This trip started far too early on the first Saturday morning in December. My train left at 6:30am and I was generally able to sleep until we got to Berlin, when a family of four joined me in my mostly-private compartment. They were loud. Very loud. Particularly the 12-year-old punk boy whose voice hadn't dropped yet. As I was eating my apple bread for breakfast, he told his Mom I was doing drugs. "Nicht heute." Punk.

Anyway! They got off in Dresden, afterwhich the scenery got pretty impressive. Huge cliffs bordering a river, speckled with cute little German and Czech towns.

I got into Praha in the early afternoon and was reunited with my dear Hana at the train station, a fine moment indeed. She took me to her adorable flat to drop off my things and feed me tea before we went wandering around the Old Town Square and other parts of the city. There was a big tree and little children that were running around dressed up as angels and devils.




The crowds at the Christmas markets were unbelievable (well, pretty believable for a Saturday night), so we escaped to a cafe where we drank perfect hot ginger with lemon and honey. Note to self: delicious. Once warmed, we went to pick up Hilary at the airport, which was also a wonderful moment until we found out that she was terribly ill with some short-term wretched stomach thing. We quickly changed our evening plans and had a night in, talking, tea-ing, and eating scrambled eggs.

(Note of clarification for those of you not in my Smith circle: Hana and Hilary and I have been housemates for both years at Smith. Hil was my wonderful roomie for our first year and Hana was my wonderful roomie for the second. I LOVE THEM.)

The next morning, Hil was still feeling ill, so we had a lazy morning and then Hana and I went adventuring. These adventures generally involved me falling slowly in love with the city for several different reasons. The first was the ancient castle looming above everything.

The second reason was for its randomly fantastic street signs.

And the third and most prominant reason for my attraction was for its delighfully decorative cobblestone sidewalks.

We eventually ended up around the Charles bridge area.

It was here that I discovered Prague's love of bizarre public art.

Very bizarre public art.

Then we went up up up to the castle!

The view of the red red city from the top was gorgeous.

Unfortunately Hana had more trouble than I at indulging in its beauty. Good thing she's a creative thinker.

Then I took lots of pictures of her, as she said she needed a new facebook profile picture. Heh.

Adorable. After white chocolate pistachio hot chocolate and lemon pie at a cafe, we went back to check on Hilary and drag her out to dinner with us. (She was feeling better.) We met up with another awesome Smithie for dinner and she introduced us to the best hot chocolate that has ever existed ever in the history of all things chocolatey and delicious. It was like liquid chocolate. Warm and smooth without being gritty or too sweet. Perfection in a cup.



Then we wandered around more, followed by another cafe with hot cranberry juice and a Harry Potter crossword puzzle that someone had created in the cafe's guestbook. Apparently that's what one does in Prague - sit in cafe's and do cafe-y things.


We also rode the longest escalator ever. In Hana's words, it's so long that halfway up you forget you're on an escalator at all. It's true.

Something that struck me pretty immediatly about being in the Czech Republic was that suddenly I was in a place where I didn't understand the language. Ever since my junior-year-of-high-school travels, I've only been in English, French, or German speaking countries where I can generally understand things. Czech was totally new and crazy and a language I know nothing about. Thankfully Hana rocks and had picked up enough Czech in her few months there that enabled her to get us around, feed us, answer basic questions, all the important things in life. I was impressed. (Be proud, Bob! Yer kid speaks Czech!)

On Monday morning we packed up our things and wandered more before catching our (Hil came back to Hamburg with me for the rest of the week!) mid-afternoon train. This invoved eating Trdelnik, hot rings of dough coated in cinnamon and sugar. Mmmmm.




It also invoved huge patties of fried cheese in a pub, a necessary (one time) czech gastronomical experience that is not to be missed or miffed at.


In conclusion, Prague = wonderful. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much as I did, as I thought it was just going to be another old touristy city like Berlin or Paris. Of course, it is an old and touristy city, but it's got something else that really attracted me. I was the sidewalks. I'm convinced.

But even better than the patterned sidewalks was spending time with a couple of my favorite people in the world, and spending time with them in such a crazy place in the world just made it that much better.

...And the train ride home was beautiful, at least for the last couple hours of daylight.