Prague... Weekend Trip 1

Ok, so while I procrastinate on homework, I'll give everyone my update from Prague.  I'm not planning on taking my computer with me on the weekends so updates about the city will have to happen once I get back each weekend. 

This weekend was our trip to Prague.  We left Linz early Friday morning and after a 4-ish hour bus ride got to Prague.  The day started with us grabbing lunch at a little pizza place before our lecture, which was in the Adria Hotel on Wenceslas Square.

The lecture was a couple hours long and from there we went off to find our Hostel.  Since I had just been in Prague 5 months ago and still remembered how to get around and use the metro system, I got to be the leader.  There were 9 or so of us in the same hostel, which was great.  We stayed on the castle side of the river about a block and a half from the Charles Bridge.  Friday evening we went to the Old Town Square for a drink then met up with a bigger group in Wenceslas Square to head out for the night.

 We ended up wandering around and until we found a restaurant with a huge underground space that they let us use to get drinks and some food and dessert.  At one point some of the guys ran into Prof. Lanier and even brought him down with us for a drink.

From there, we followed the sound of people and music to another bar/club and hung out there for a couple hours before heading back to the hostel, which turned out to be its own adventure. 








We weren't quite sure where we were and ended up taking a few wrong turns and wandering the city for a while until we asked some cops which way the Charles Bridge was.  They basically looked at us like we were crazy Americans (ok, so we kinda were) and pointed us in the direction of the bridge.  Terrel got ahead of us and we couldn't find him which lead to walking around yelling for him for even longer.  We finally figured he had to have gone back to the hostel and went back to check before we kept looking.  Sure enough, we get back to the hostel and there he is, layin' on the bed eating left-overs from lunch.  By this point it was probably about 3am so we went to bed to get up for a full day of sightseeing.

We got up in the morning and headed across the bridge into town to meet up with some people before heading back to the Castle.  The royal gardens were open so our walk around the castle grounds started there.  They had a birds of prey exhibit area where you could see the falcons, owls, and an eagle that are on the property.  TJ held the eagle and Amanda held one of the owls.  The owl was adorable and the eagle, well, the eagle was just freakin' huge!

We kept walking around the castle grounds, and went and saw the cathedral before walking down to the outside of the castle where there are amazing views of the city. 

After walking around and exploring the castle, we met up with even more people.  First we went and found the Lenin Wall and then we headed off to a beer garden for dinner and to start the night out.  Once we got there the servers brought us beers and shots of Becherovka before we even had to ask. 









We hung out there for a while before heading back towards Wenceslas Square and the Old Town Square to find the rest of the group, which we didn't manage to do, and watch the end of the Soccer game, which we did manage to do.  Eventually, we wandered back to the hostel to get some sleep so we could be up to leave this morning.  After checking out of the hostel today, we went past a market to do some souvenir shopping before getting on the bus to head back to Linz.  On the way back, we stopped in a little town, Budweis for lunch, where a lot of us were very excited to find salads, since we've been eating nothing but meat and bread (really tasty meat and bread but still, we couldn't remember the last vegetable we saw).

And now, I am back in Linz, and off to do my homework!