Prague, Czech Republic

Spending my birthday weekend enjoying the most beautiful city I have been to so far was absolutely wonderful.

There are no particularly special things to do or see in Prague, but this was definitely one of my favorite cities to just wander around so far.  I love the architecture, the feel, and the people Prague attracts.  As I explained in my journal, "I love the graffiti that is all over the city and completely covers every wall, window, or
anything in between. I think it makes the city look alive with fresh, vibrant art; it gives the city character and a bit of a rebellious spirit.  It makes Prague unique (in case the crazy architecture isn't unique enough!)  I would love a chance to get to know and experience the culture of this city."  I love the people I went with.  Here are some of the things we did:

We climbed Petrine Hill, which was super slippery because of ice and snow, but we had a ton of fun going slow and laughing all along the way, from yelling to hear our voices echo to singing "tomorrow" all together, we were shamelessly obnoxious Americans having a blast.  Then, we proceeded to play at a playground at the snow when we got to the top and go through a mirror maze.  Getting back down the hill without slipping, as well as figuring out the correct route down, was quite the adventure of constant fear and joy as we took the road less traveled.

We saw the Prague Castle, which had beautiful, unique architecture, but there's no way for tourists to go inside, which was a bit disappointing.

We saw the gates that couples put locks on together to symbolize that they will be locked together forever, which was really precious to see all the symbols of love over the years still holding strong as ever.

The John Lennon Wall was super interesting to see.  I loved reading what people decided was important enough to paint onto the famous graffiti wall in huge letters.


As I journaled about it, "I feel like what you put on something like that says a lot about who you are."

Charles Bridge is incredibly beautiful, especially at night.  The architecture of Prague is absolutely amazing, and this bridge for me was probably the highlight.  At the end, we saw the most famous clock in the world!  We got to watch the little characters in the clock move when it struck 16 o'clock.

My favorite part of my weekend in Prague was spending all of Saturday afternoon wandering around the city with Jordan and Molly.  We moved very slowly and made sure to enjoy and really experience everything everywhere we went, and we ended up getting nice and lost in the beautiful city, which was exactly what we wanted.  Some of the highlights of this afternoon include putting on a Handsel and Gretel puppet show in a toy shop with Molly, talking with a man at an antique store for
about half an hour and hearing all about his life and decisions for his children's educations (learning about education in the Czech Republic verses America and problems that can come from marrying between cultures and other interesting things like that), and exploring a Czech bookstore.  Wandering everywhere with these two was absolutely incredible; they are both such fantastic people!

On Saturday night, the group decided they wanted to celebrate my birthday, so they sang to me after dinner in the hostel and Molly and Annie made incredibly delicious oreo balls that were absolutely the most perfect pre-birthday dessert.  Then later we all headed out to Karlovy Lazne, the biggest club in Europe (five stories, each with a different music genre playing, dance floor area, and bar area, and much more).  It was huge, more of a tourist attraction than anything else, but we had a ton of fun just dancing and wandering around seeing the whole thing.

Our hostel was amazing-- if you ever go to Prague, STAY AT SIR TOBY'S!  The bar in the basement serves an amazing breakfast, the best I've had in Europe, and is such a good place to meet people.  I met so many travelers and got to hear their stories and get to know some really neat people from all around the world, which is one of my absolute favorite things to do.  Meeting people and hearing about their lives has been absolutely eye-opening.

I'm going to end this post with some journal entries from my Prague trip:

"I love hearing people's stories.  I ask a ton of questions (got called out on that one) and love to hear about people's lives and adventures!  Its cool to meet the people taking time out of their lives to just travel and maybe hopefully find themselves.  Traveling ignites a fire in everyone who does it.  It connects all of us and brings out our desire to wander.  In the hostels, we all simply understand each other without having to say it.  We all wanted to go.  We all get what being caught up at home is like and we all wanted to go somewhere else.  As Mark said, he "caught the travel bug" after his first trip and is now spending all his money to keep going places.  I feel like once you glimpse the world, you can't stop.  Asking people what brought them to Prague and hearing about how we are all from completely different places in the world and live completely different lives, yet traveling has brought us all together and we all have things to talk about... it's just really neat.  I want to keep talking to everyone I see.  I want to keep staying at social hostels to meet other travelers, and I want to keep learning and growing."

"I NEVER WANT TO STOP EXPLORING THE WORLD!"