A Snowy Easter in Prague

Happy Easter everyone! (Or just Happy Sunday if you don't celebrate).

So after wondering around a little more, I finally found my way to the place I am staying. I am staying with Christine, who lives about 5 minutes on tram from the center of Prague. She just left me a pair of keys, and so I've been able to come and go as I please which has been wonderful. I tried to meet up with her last night, but found myself lost in the middle of Prague and after 2 hours of wondering around, I decided to return back to the house. Prague at night is quite wonderful though, and it was to see a bit of the city. Figured I should catch up on some sleep (the short nap I took out before leaving was not quite enough), so that I can enjoy the rest of this trip.

The city is absolutely beautiful. I haven't found a part that I'm not completely in love with. I think I've finally conquered the subway and tram system, and have stopped riding around in circles (which I did multiple times yesterday). Maybe I'll just stay here instead of going back to Cyprus.

Today I got up and decided to find a mass, not that I would be able to understand a word. I made it to the Church and found myself behind the gate guarded by a churchman. I know I probably should have been paying attention to what was going on beyond the gate, but I seriously wasn't going to gain anything from the Latin readings, and watching him shoo and shame people with cameras was hard to resist. Finally I was allowed in, and the church was absolutely magnificent in beauty. After mass, I walked around the town center which was full of people, and Easter festivities. I didn't spend too much time there tho, as Kara will want to see it when she arrives here tomorrow (our flights were unfortunately messed up, and she went to Berlin for two days while I adventure through Prague). I did go up one of the towers, because I don't think it will be open when she is here, and saw some absolutely amazing views.

After that, I headed outside of the city to a few different areas. I'll explain all the things I did in picture captions, so look at them. Basically I climbed a bunch of towers, saw a few churches, and walked around a lot lot lot. Unfortunately, I didn't eat any ice cream as I was freezing because I had stupidly left my gloves at the apartment. Tricia, I will do it for you tomorrow; I never say no to good ice cream.

Sitting down on a bench to enjoy my peanut butter and bread that I have been carting around with me, since I am attempting this trip on practically no money, I got to have a nice chat with a man offering me wine. Okay, maybe it wasn't a chat per say as he really just kept motioning between me and the wine bottle, and I kept nodding no. Then he moved on to offering me a loaf of bread with just as much gusto (although I'm confused as to why he did this, as I clearly already had one). When he finally realized I was not going to take his bread or his wine, he finally moved on to chatting which resulted in not much more than the two of us discovering that our brothers live in Chicago, and a whole bunch of nodding, smiling, and shoulder shrugs.

Prague also may have the world's best behaved dogs. No one uses leashes anywhere, and yet all of the dogs are well behaved and never roam off. Amazing.

Tomorrow I will probably just do a lot more walking. Might have to get a little more inventive, as Prague closes down on Mondays. It will be nice to have my travel partner come so that we can see the famous sites on Tuesday. I'm sure I can figure out magnificent things to do...or else I will just drink lots of Czech beer as it is dirt cheap and I haven't been able to enjoy it yet. Clearly you can't go wrong with 1 euro beers. No wonder the Czech Republic is number one in the world for beer consumption, with an average of over 150 liters per person drunk each year. These are the things we learn in my Current European Issues class...life is wonderful.




Love you.