Prague

As I sit here in the common room of the worst hostel so far, house music blaring in the surround sound speakers, you can imagine how much I'm ready to move on to Munich. While I absolutely hate this hostel, I definitely like this city. Since we got here, we've been constantly in awe of our surroundings. The city's mix of gothic, baroque, renaissance, and moorish architecture has quite frankly blown our minds.

We decided to take Prague as a 'recuperation' city, i.e. no partying, no expensive hostel, and no unnecessary eating (well, almost). We found the cheapest hostel we could find and quickly discovered why it was so cheap. Let me paint the picture: 8 bed, male dorm, community shower/tub across the hall, thin mattress that does little to hide the metal frame it lays on, and a common room with shitty wi-fi and CONSTANT house music beating the block down at all hours of the day/night.

Moving on, we decided a good way to get the full run of the city while still staying on budget was to take a free walking tour through the main sights of the city. Our tour guide, a Czech native named Clara, chauffeured us to all type of interesting landmarks, giving us the story behind each one. While all of the sights were a delight to look at, the religious legends of their origins were the best parts. First she took us to this courtyard that we would've usually breezed through without paying the least bit of attention and told us that it used to be where the city of Prague would hold executions (mainly of religious heretics). Next she took us to a giant astronomical clock that had been built by a famous clock-maker. The king at the time wanted it to be the only one in the world so he had the man blinded in an attempt to have him never build a similar one again.

The next three stops stole the show. First was one of the most ornate churches I've ever seen in my life. The legend behind this church was that there used to be a statue of the virgin Mary in the middle of the church. One day, someone came in a tried to steal jewelry off of Mary's neck but she reached up, grabbed the man's hand and wouldn't let go. The people decided the only way to free the man's hand was to remove it, by sword. Then, to prevent future attempts of theft, they hung his hand in the back of the church (yea….it's still there today in the back of the church #awesome). After church it was off to the Charles' Bridge, one of the biggest attractions in Prague, as well as the city's oldest bridge. Similar story here, people go against the church (Roman Catholic), they get thrown off the bridge, you get the gist. Last stop of the tour was the Prague castle. Wow. I don't know where this castle rates on the "World's Biggest" list but it was gigantic, dwarfing us in its' glory as soon as we walked up. Before entering, you must pass by a set of two guards who, like the royal palace in England, do not smile…..at all. Then when you finally get in it hits you, 'Holy shit, this is a real castle. Not one of those fake ones in a movie or at a theme park. The real deal.' The peaks of its' towers were covered in ornate gargoyles, lions, and old depictions of previous kings. The detail in the design was just something you can't imagine…

During the tour, Clara briefly mentioned a local bar that had cheap Czech beer on tap so we made a B-line straight there when the tour was over. Good decision. When we walk in to this cleverly named bar called "The Pub," there's hardly anyone there (3:00 pm) and a waitress tells us "Go ahead and find a seat anywhere." Now that we had a firm grasp on the obvious, we move to the back of the bar and see a set of 10 tables, each with their own beer tap in the middle of the table. We don't know much about heaven, but they have these there. How it worked was that you were able to have up to 10 users on each table, each selecting his/her seat number on the touch screen above the tap before pouring a beer. When you started pouring the beer, the tally of total liters consumed would rack up on the screen in front of you. Bad news. This quickly turned into a drinking game (they kept a tally of how many beers each table had consumed on a projection screen at the front of the bar (we were winning until a table of 7 sat down; we lost by 1 beer)) and then subsequently a reflection of the trip so far, but definitely an awesome experience.

As for food on this stop, we tried to find the local cuisine but found out that there really isn't that much here. Their big dish is goulash; basically a beef stew. Pass. So naturally, as we've done so many times before back home, we sniffed out the nearest Hooters and pounded some wings. Compared to the Hooters in Switzerland, this one blew it out of the water. Better food, better beer, better "service", the whole 9.

On a sour note, we got robbed…again. First we had our shampoo stolen in Amsterdam #timesaretough. Then, after reluctantly buying a new bottle, lightning struck again. When we got home from Hooters, we discovered that my headphones and thermal sweater were gone, as well as our shampoo and bath soap. Top that off with Nick forgetting to bring his razor and you have two grizzly, stank Americans walking the streets of Germany and Italy for the next two weeks. If you're sitting there shaking your head asking, 'Come on, how much could some shampoo and soap cost?' you must not have read the rest of the blog. The budget for Germany is slam packed with sausage (pause) and beer while the budget for Italy is packed with carb loading and wine tasting, there's just no breathing room for a 3 Juro (that's how they pronounce Euro everywhere we've been) bottle of shampoo or a 2 Juro bar of soap #timesaresupertough.