Praha/Vienna

February 21- 26, 2011

Day 1- We left for the airport early Monday morning on our way to Prague. By the afternoon we had arrived at our hostel- Sir Toby’s hostel. We checked in and got settled into our room. Next we decided we should have some money for this trip so we went to the atm to take out Kronos- a.k.a. Czech money.  It was the weirdest thing since 30 Kronos=1 pound. When you go to enter the amount to take out the recommendations are 1000 kronos and higher. You have to click another amount to get anything smaller. That is how de-valued their money is. It was really weird because it seemed like you were paying a lot of money, but when you worked it out in your head you were really paying like 5 pounds. It was actually quite awesome.  Then we headed to dinner which was just around the corner at a place called Rustika. It was a German restaurant. They had really good food/alcohol and it was really cheap. We relaxed and enjoyed our food. I ordered a martini (not expecting it to be vodka and a hint of lemon juice) and chicken with mushrooms and sauce and fried potatoes. It was amazing. I couldn’t even finish my plate they gave me so much and I only spent about 5-6 pounds! After that we stopped at the shop to buy some alcohol to drink back at the hostel. We got 1 bottle of vodka and two mixers for about 1 pound each. Then we went back to the hostel and went to the lounge area by the bar to start drinking. We met up with Jeremy a.k.a.- Dad who introduced us to Toby (lol not sir Toby of the hostel just Toby who ran the beer tasting event at the hostel). He joined us and we ended up needing to get more vodka. Tiffany a.k.a.- Mom, volunteered to go get some. She got two more bottles (looking like a robber with her scarf wrapped around her face and her hat on lol.) We only drank one more then Toby decided to take us to this club he knew not too far away. The 8 of us went along to Cross Club. It was a really cool club because everything was made from machine parts. It looked really cool (see facebook pictures). We hung out for a while drinking cider from a can and ordering fries (yes I ordered fries at about 2 am). Then we went back to the hostel to sleep the little sleep we could before an early day of sightseeing the next day.

Day 2- Tuesday- This morning we got up and went into the Circle of Prague to sightsee. We got a little lost on our way in. But the amazing part was that we paid for a tram ticket, but we didn’t even need it. So the rest of the trip we never bought another one. Oh and the tram was awesome! I’ve never ridden on one before so I was excited to ride on it. On our way we saw some really cool looking, pretty buildings and also I saw the tourist signs that I heard about. They are for tourists but are written in Czech; very helpful huh. We finally made it to the circle to see the famous astronomical clock. This was also really cool it had so many different clocks on it and every hour the bells rang and the doors opened for the gods/goddesses to show themselves and finally a trumpet player plays from the top of the tower. The clock is on a church which was really cool. We then decided to do the free walking tour of the city. We went on one in Scotland that was really good so we decided to do it here. Our tour guide was actually Scottish which was funny. His name was Colin and he was really funny. He showed us the Intercontinental building and some really cool statues. We also saw some really cool bridges. There was one where you could see the Castle from it, however no matter where you stood you couldn’t get a picture of the whole castle because it is sooooo big.  We also saw the building where Vin Diesel sat to film the movie Triple X. After the tour we walked over the Charles Bridge. There were some beautiful statues on the bridge and some people selling stuff; also a man with a fake monkey turning a wheel for music to come out. It was a little ridiculous. Across the bridge we found some shops and also found a shop with tickets for the black light theatre. We took some brochures and decided to go to a pub and talk over which show we wanted to see later that night. We found this pub and Dad asked if we could sit at a table even if we were only ordering drinks and dessert. He said yes so we took over a table (I mean there were 8 of us). We sat down and he came over to take our order. As soon as Mom ordered a beer he laughed at her (I thought maybe it was because of the way she pronounced it), but by the time we got around the table he had rolled his eyes at us and left! Without taking Jon’s order! He walked by a couple minutes later and Jon tried ordering again, but he kept walking! So Jon got up to go tell him what he wanted and the guy rolled his eyes and walked away from Jon. Finally, we got up and left. We don’t think he was even going to bring us anything if we stayed. It was absolutely ridiculous. We decided to try another pub. We found another pub and decided that we wanted to go to the Box black light show versus the Alice in Wonderland show. We didn’t think we could stay up for the Alice in Wonderland one and the Box one looked really cool. We went back and bought our ticket then decided to go to dinner before the show. We went to a restaurant across from the clock so of course it was going to be expensive. I got a pork schnitzel (a.k.a.- fried, breaded pork) with potato salad. It was good, but not as big of a portion as the night before so I was still hungry and it wasn’t as cheap as the night before. We then headed to the black light theatre and met up with Dad. We were early so we went into a shop across the road since it was sooooooo freezing!!!!! We did everything we could to find a place to stop inside and warm up. I also wasn’t thinking clearly and didn’t wear very many layers not thinking it was going to be this! Cold. Luckily we stopped here since I found a shot glass with a cherries inside it and a glass picture of a giraffe with the word Praha on it! Then we headed to the black light theatre to see the box light show. It was really cool. There was not much of a story line except during scene changes there was a little skit going on that was funny. Although, there was no story line it was still really cool. They did little performances in light up suits and had props that lit up as well. My favourite was when they had a net that lit up and the person wearing the body suit that lit up was flying in the air over the net. It looked like he was jumping on a trampoline.  It was really cool. After the show we went to a pub for a drink/dessert. Again I didn’t get anything as we were in the center of Praha and it was expensive. We definitely chose a weird place though. It was full of stuffed animals. I don’t mean teddy bears and things like that, I mean literally animals killed and stuffed. All over!, on the walls, tables, next to your chairs. There were bears, foxes, birds, cows, you name it and it was there, a little disturbing as well. Afterward we went back to the hostel for some rest as the next day we were venturing to another town in Praha about an hour away.

Day 3- Wednesday- This morning we decided to get up early and go see the human mummified arm in the church before taking our trip to the Kunta Hora. We got there at 9am but it didn’t open until 9:30 so we looked in the Big Ben Bookshop while we waited. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the church but there were windows you could look in so we took some pictures from there. Some people snuck pictures of the arm so I will steal theirs. At 9:30 we went inside the gorgeous, gold church. Everything seemed to be gold. It was beautiful and no wonder people wanted to steal things from there. We found the arm which was really high up and difficult to see. It actually looked like it was getting ready to fall down soon. But it was cool to see a mummified arm even if it was difficult to see. We then booked it over to the train station as we were running late and just barely managed to catch the train to Kunta Hora. We were going to see the bone church. This church got its name because the inside is decorated with bones….human bones.  Outside the church there was a beautiful cemetery. You had to pay to get in the church so we paid a discounted price and got into two churches. At the entrance are the inscriptions HIS (in bones) which stand for Jesus the Saviour of Humanity. As soon as you walk in there was bones everywhere; decorating the ceiling, walls, and even the floor. In the corners of the lower chapel are pyramids made of bones. These bones were stowed up without being bound together. The human bones represent multitudes which none can count facing the Gods (written on the information sheet given to us). In the middle of the chapel there is a chandelier which is made of all of the kinds of bones that can be found in the human body. This was my favourite. It looked really cool. Directly underneath the chandelier is a crypt which contains the remains of 15 wealthy citizens. To each side is an ostensory which contains 40,000 people’s bones. They also had mounds of skulls, and skulls stacked on top of one another and even a display case with skulls from the warriors of the Hussite wars with their injury marks shown on them. The skulls stacked on top of one another was another one of my favourites. After getting a picture of me touching the bones we headed to the next church. This was the cathedral of the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. This church was also beautiful. It had paintings and statues all over. It even had a cool spiral staircase that lead to a landing that lead to a creepy tunnel where you could walk over and see the remains of the old ceiling/roof. I also got my picture taken with an angel statue J. Then we headed back to Praha. Once there we split up. Half of the group went for food and to rest and the other half (me included) went up to the Castle on the other side of town. It took us forever to get there, not only because it was across the bridge, but also because we had to climb up a million steps. No exaggeration (well maybe a little) but roughly 10 flights of stairs. We finally made it up and turned around to see a gorgeous view behind us. It overlooked the whole city and was just so beautiful. We took pictures then took some pictures of the outside of the main part of the Castle (since the entire castle is like a mile long). We also got our picture taken with the guard outside the castle. Of course he had to stand still but we could see in his eyes how ridiculous we looked going to stand and take a picture with him. We got inside and went to buy tickets to actually see the inside of the Castle and realized it was too late to buy tickets that everything was closing soon. We were disappointed but told we could still try to see St. Vitus church as it wasn’t closed yet and very close to where we were. We were excited about this, as this was the church in the Castle. We got there and realized it was better not to have paid to see the Castle as the part we got to see for free was enough. It was so beautiful and my favourite church in Prague. Mostly because of the stain glassed windows that were everywhere in the church. I believe I took a picture of each one of them, that’s how much I loved them.  The outside of the church was also beautiful. We took some more pictures and found another spot with a pretty tree that over looked the city as well. Then we began the decent down the hill. This time on the other side so no stairs. We stopped so I could try mulled wine, which was awesome, and then stopped for the other girls to have crepes. We were supposed to meet up with the rest of the group at a monastery that was also a brewery however we realized it was in the middle of nowhere and no one knew how to get to it. So we decided to meet back at the astronomical clock and find a place to eat. I text Jen and Rachel (who also went to Prague on the same days as us, but with a different group and we hadn’t seen them at all yet) and they met us as well. The other group didn’t show up so Jen, Rachel, Me and the girls looked for a place to eat. We decided that everything in the center was too expensive and decided to try another spot near our hostel. So Jen and Rachel graciously went with us and we went to Molo 22 for dinner. It was really nice. It was a nice restaurant, not too classy, but nice and not expensive. However, they treated you like it was a classy, expensive restaurant. The wine was served like champagne would be, we were served bread (which apparently we had to pay for but didn’t know about), and if you moved your napkin onto your lap like Tiffany did, you were brought another one right away. I ordered pasta with pork and red sauce with a Tequila Sunrise. It was sooo good. After dinner Jen and Rachel left and the girls and I went to the store to get food for the train ride the next day and mixers for drinking that night. Then we went back to the hostel and drank the rest of the vodka while planning out what we are going to do the next day in Vienna. We then went to bed at about 2 am when we had to get up at 4am to get to the train station.

Day 4- Thursday- This morning we got up really early to go to the train station in order to go to Vienna, Austria. It started off as an adventure to say the least. At 5 am realizing that Tiffany and Jeremy didn’t print off their actual ticket just their seat reservation and finding out the person yelling at you doesn’t speak English and makes you pay for another ticket but can only sell you one that goes to the border , even though you can’t have a seat reservation without a ticket. It was nuts and everyone was very upset. After we got that sorted out (and by that I mean them paying), we slept for a while until we got to Vienna. The first thing we had to do when we got there was take out money in Euros since that is the currency they use. At this point I had three currencies in my wallet- British Pounds, Czech Kronos, and Euros. Then we found our way to our hostel- The Wobat and left our luggage to go sightsee for the day. We started by going to the square where basically no matter which way you turn to look you see a beautiful building. Not 100% sure what all the buildings were but they were all pretty. We went to the Hofburg Palace which has museums in it, saw Parliament and some churches, and the Maris Theresa buildings. Then we headed to the Opera house, on the way seeing the Mozart statue with a treble clef of (flowers) now dead grass on the lawn. We saw the opera house and were told to come back at 5:30 to try and get standing room only tickets for that night’s performance. We then went to Karl’s Church as we were told it was one of the most beautiful churches in Vienna. They told us right. Not only was it a beautiful church, but it had an elevator that took you up most of the way to a landing where you could walk the rest of the stairs to get to the very top of the church. We got some really cool pictures of the ceiling of the church while standing next to it! It was a little scary to walk up the stairs but of course we had to see the very top. That was an experience. Kristi and Sarah swore so they had to apologize since we named it the stairway to heaven. Then over the edge there was a ledge full of money. People must have thrown it onto the ledge. I asked why they would do that and Jeremy replied that it was suicide money and he was really tempted right now, lol. We then went upstairs and saw an interesting gallery of paintings and also books splatter painted with nails through them. After we walked around and found a memorial for the war, so we took some pictures there. Then we saw the Palace Schwarzenburg and then headed to the Judenplatz where the Jewish memorial/museum is. We were really excited about this. We got there and saw the memorial for the Jews from the Holocaust which was a square block and then we went to the museum. Now this is where the real let down happens. We each pay 4 Euros to get in and given an ipod with a monotone voiced man and woman describing the life of Jews. Then we enter into 2 rooms with pictures on the wall and glass cases with artefacts about Jews and the life they live. And if you’re real adventurous you can walk down a creepy tunnel to some stairs to go see some ROCKS! Yes I said it, rocks. No idea what significance they had but apparently something. It was super boring and not at all what we expected. We thought it was going to be about the Holocaust. Next we went to see St. Stephan’s church which we were told was another beautiful church and it was. We took some pictures and then decided it was time to sit down. So we tried the American bar as we were told this was a cool place to go. However, it was really, really, tiny. Only two booths and the bar and it was very awkward to get to the toilets. I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland everything kept getting smaller. I didn’t order anything as it was super expensive too. We stayed for a drink then headed to starbucks for coffee before buying our opera tickets. We met Jeremy at the Opera house, we were a little late but thank god Jeremy got there when he did as the line was super long. They were only letting in a small group at a time. Luckily, we all made it in! We bought our tickets and then were told we had to go upstairs to the room. That was when we realized why the tickets were so cheap. It is a tiny room with railings where you tie a scarf around where you want to stand. However, they cram so many people in there that we had to stand in the aisle. Then a man who works there tells us it is free to check our coats so to please do that before the show starts. Well our group was only planning on being there for about 20 minutes or so, so we decided not to check our coat. A few minutes later the guy came over again to tell us we had to check our coats. I explained we weren’t staying long so we were fine without checking it. That is when he informed us that we HAD to check our coats. Had to! Are you kidding me? Since when is a rule that you have to check your coat? Now, it could have been the little sleep I had had all week, or the fact that Vienna was not all it was cracked up to be, or the fact that I was getting tired of being with the same people 24/7, or the fact that it was late and I was pissed off, either way I was so angry that I told the guy off for making me check my coat. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous and there were no signs or anything written on the ticket or anything to indicate it was a rule. I finally gave my coat to Jon to go check but after that I made sure to point out every single person still wearing their coat so the man could go tell them to check it. Once the show started I realized why it was a requirement to check your coat, because they packed so many people into the room that with coats on you wouldn’t be able to fit as many. It was packed. And also a fire hazard as if there was a fired I’d either die from being trapped in the room because I couldn’t get out there were so many people or I’d die from being trampled because the amount of people leaving the room would be outrageous. We stayed for about a half hour then left. It was not what I was expecting. For some reason I expected them to come on stage and just sing for me. I didn’t expect it to be like a musical that I couldn’t understand a word of so it made no sense to me. Afterwards we went back towards our hostel to find a place to eat. Now here comes another adventure for us. We found a place that the hostel recommended and looked decent. We were very wrong. All 8 of us ordered. There was one waiter and one cook! Now the place was not very busy (which should have been another hint that we shouldn’t have been there). 5 of us got our food about 45 minutes later. The other 3 didn’t get their food for ANOTHER 45 minutes. Yes, we were all finished with our food before they got theirs. The waiter tried making it up to us by giving us each a free shot. However, I said when he did this that they shouldn’t pay for their meals as it was ridiculous how long they took.  He agreed. They finally got their food and we began paying. He gave one of them the bill and I repeated again that they shouldn’t have to pay. He agreed again, a little questioning this time with us explaining that in America this would never have happened and if it did they would not be paying. He left and as they finished their food the waiter came over with some other woman yelling at us for not paying. Now mind you, the owner of the restaurant was there, we had seen him earlier in the night, however he did not bother to say one word to us. Instead some woman we had no idea who it was was threatening to call the police if we didn’t pay. We argued a bit and asked who she was. She replied a colleague and eventually we paid and left. It was totally ridiculous. At this point we just wanted to be back in Prague. However, our tickets weren’t good until the afternoon of the next day. We tried everything we could to get this changed. We called the people we bought the online tickets from, we went to the train station and everything but no one could do anything. We had to leave on the train the next day in the afternoon. We decided to get some sleep and we slept in a little bit the next day.

Day 5- Friday-Then we checked out of our hostel and decided to eat some more pizza, again delicious and cheap. Then we split up and decided to just walk around and do shopping all day. We wasted the day by shopping and trying to drag out things with all the time we had. We decided to go to a hotel Andrea recommended where they had really good cake. We had a piece of that and finally could get on our train to go back to Vienna. Now this train ride was epic. We started off by playing cards. We played rummy and I won. Then we were really hyper so we played hangman for a while. Kristy picked the category of movies since she would randomly quote toy story 3. Finally the girls decided to do mash for everyone. Now if you don’t remember from your childhood, mash is a game where you choose 3 things for every category (usually involving your future, ex- spouse, number of kids, where you live, etc) and the other people choose one more for each category (usually something funny and mean) then you tell the person to stop writing lines and the number of lines you get is your lucky number. They go through counting and crossing off items for the number until you have one left in each category and that is your fate. Now we did this with the four of us, most of them being pretty funny, except mine which was awesome because I got the best fate with nothing bad in it. Then I had the brilliant idea of making it into a fortune teller and inviting the others one at a time to get their fortune read. We had the curtains closed and we set it up where they were going to sit and one by one they gave us their answers. Then at the end we read them their fates. It was so much fun and made the time go by fast. Once back in Prague we waited forever for a tram and then attempted to find a place to eat. The place we wanted to go was Rustika the place we ate at the first night but they had closed their kitchen. We found this other place called Pet Penez or Bar Petka. They were super nice and had good food. I got a pasta dish. However, I was not in the greatest mood and I just wanted to go back to the hostel and shower and get ready to go out. That was our plan. To get ready to go to a club that was open late as we had a very early flight and didn’t feel like sleeping would help us. So at about midnight we got ready to go out to the club. We had bought more vodka so we drank that in the room for a while…..which turned into a long while…..which turned into me falling asleep on my bed. I was woken up by Tiffany, so I assumed we were headed to the club as it was about 2am. But no…….there were boys in the room next to us. So of course we couldn’t leave. I said invite them with us but nobody wanted to go. So I said fine I’ll go myself (hoping they could join me). I went downstairs and got on the computer and then realized they didn’t care one bit. No one was following me. I talked to my mommy and people from home for about an hour and then decided to go get ready for bed. At this point I realized EVERYONE (including the guys from next door) were in our room. I got ready for bed and then nicely asked them if there was anyone in their room. They said no, so I nicely asked if everyone could go in there as I wanted to sleep and Andrea was asleep on the bed. At first I was met with a loud NO. However, I thought this was very rude as we had a flight the next morning and since no one wanted to go out I might as well go to bed. So my plan was to keep asking over and over again until they complied. Luckily I only had to ask 3 times before they moved. I shut the door and got in bed. That was when they all realized none of them had a key. This resulted in banging loudly on the door and yelling at me. So I decided that until they could ask nicely I was not getting out of bed. Finally Kristy asked nicely, I let her in and she got her key and left. I fell asleep for a while. Then I heard Tiffany come in and go to bed and a couple hours later I heard Jon say they were finally going to the club. I passed out …

Day 6- Saturday-…. and woke up the next morning to get ready for the flight. Everyone was there and asleep. I was the first one ready and I went downstairs. Finally everyone was ready and we went to the airport. Half of the group was on an earlier flight so they left and the rest of us waited for our flight. We finally made it back to London and continued our adventure with the cab driver. We had called this company because they are the ones who drove us to the airport to start our trip. However, they were late picking us up then the driver wouldn’t even get out of the car to help with our bags until we made him. Next he had stuff in his trunk so we couldn’t fit all our luggage (2 carry ons and 1 checked) in his trunk so Sarah had to sit with her bag on her lap. Then he told us it was 45 pounds but we were told it was 40 pounds. We told him this and he said basically too bad its 45 pounds. I was texting the other group who was in the cab with the driver we had earlier in the week. She gave me his number and said to have our cab driver call him to see it was 40 pounds. I told our cab driver and he freaked out. He yelled at us telling us it was ridiculous that we spent 30 minutes texting about 5 pounds. If it was that big of a deal he would just give it to us but we were being ridiculous and how come we didn’t ask the airport for a discount since we look for one everywhere. It was terrible. He was harassing us! Then he said to stop talking about it because he didn’t want to anymore. Next he decided to be super sweet even though he had no idea where we were going! He made us give him directions!!!! We finally got home and he didn’t get out to help us get our luggage again! We were sooo pissed. So I called and complained to the company. Finally we were back to London in our rooms and I just wanted to sleep. I watched a movie and slept and was glad to be back.

Until next time,

¬D¬