Seriously, go to Prague. Easily my favorite city I have been to so far in Europe, and for so many reasons. I spent a week there, touring the city, experiencing the culture, and making a million memories - too many to remember...if that makes sense.
My stay started out alone, though I would soon meet up with friends I had made while in Berlin. My hostel was amazing. Named Sir Toby's, though I never figured out why, this place had it all. A quaint and fitting bar in the basement, unbelievably nice staff, and yadda yadda I clearly liked it. I have found that great hostel experiences really influence your outlook on that place/city, and maybe it helped me love Prague that much more. Or its just cause Prague is so awesome.
I spent the first two days touring the city, first taking the free walking tour led by brilliantly entertaining guides through the old town and Jewish section of the city, and then the next day over to the castle grounds. Walking through the old town you can't help but feel like a kid in a candy store, staring wide-eyed around you at the city that seems to take you back in time a couple hundred years. The buildings stun, the atmosphere buzzes with culture and excitement, and...everyone is drinking beer. I made some great friends really fast, and on my first night enjoyed a huge meal with just me and two others, drank a couple delicious local Pilsners, and when the bill came - a whopping 12 dollars each. Greattt start. The following night, we topped this off by checking out an Absinthe bar, where we had the real deal "green fairy" kind of stuff, including one shot that cost me around 50 dollars, for the Absinthe with the strongest amount of the root ingredient that supposedly causes the hallucination effects. No, it did not work. But yes, I got very drunk.
Day Three I walked out of the shower to find two of the friends I made in Berlin had checked in, and not only that - they got placed in my room. We spent that day not doing something I hate...shopping. I bought a hat. I hate shopping. I'm realizing my days are sort of mixing up so I'm gonna just give the highlights of the next few days:
The Aussie friends (Terry, Aaron, and Brandan) and I went to the Communist museum, which is HILARIOUSLY placed between a Mcdonalds and a Casino. Learning about the history of the Czech republic gives you that much more of an appreciation for the city, dealing with a constant change of powers between Communism, Nazi Germany, and back and forth. Centrally placed in Europe, but too small to have a strong enough army, Czech has consistently been the stomping ground of whoever was in power in Europe in their time. After the museum, we thought it would be funny to gamble a bit in the casino next door, and most of us (sorry Brandan) made a good deal of money real quick and we took it and decided to spend it on something fun- a Segway tour!
What this meant, was Aaron, Brandan and I paid a guy to drive around with us on Segways, cruising up and down cobblestone streets and checking out the sites, and changing my view on those tours on Segways (I always thought they were lazy, but damn those things are fun).
The following day we took a day trip an hour and a half outside of Prague to check out the Ossuary in Kutna Hora. Or simply- we wanted to check out the "Bone Church", an Ossuary that is decorated wall to wall by the bones of about 40,000 people. Yeah, take that in for a second. This place has it all as far as creepy bone structures go - in the middle of the chapel there is a chandelier consisting of all the kinds of bones that are found in the human body (picture above), in each corner you can find an ostensory built of thousands of people's skulls and other bones, there is even a coat of arms belonging to the family that bought and owns the place (for hundreds of years) built entirely of bones (also picture above). So creepy, but so cool.
The following day we would manage to top the grotesqueness that was in this place - we traveled to Krakow, Poland, and took a tour of Auschwitz concentration camp. But more on that later.
Go look at those pictures I'm about to add. And again- Go Czech out Prague.
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