Praga

Everyone always says Prague is amazing and now I understand why. It truly is one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. The rooftops and buildings are so colorful; the green hills around the city and the river running through the city make it spectacular! I was in Prague with my friend Julia for 3 ½ days. We stayed at a hostel that was right in the center so we could walk everywhere. We got restaurant recommendations from the people who run the hostel, so we had amazing Czech food! Some of the best food was: beef goulash with potato dumplings, Czech beer, vegetable pancake things, all of the items at the vegetarian buffet (especially the yogurt dessert thing), and all of the pastries! We were there during their Easter festival/market so there were tons of little stands set up selling food, trinkets, and traditional pastries. We had some for breakfast every morning and then randomly. The most traditional pastry is this round bread thing (hollow) that’s cooked over a fire on a rod. It has sugar, cinnamon, nuts, vanilla, and some other stuff- really good! We also had a banana pastry in the shape of a bunny, a cranberry/peach/strawberry muffin thing, a gingerbread star, and some other goodies. Most of the people working the stands and around Prague spoke English so that was nice. I learned how to say hello, goodbye, thank you so that was good but luckily they could communicate in English. There were however a few funny translations (or just hilarious sayings) on the menus such as “a diet mistake” for dessert, “from piggy” for pork items, “from moo-cow” for beef items, etc.

Besides the food we got to see a lot of the famous landmarks- Charles’ Bridge, the castle, the cathedral, the Jewish quarter and museum, the astronomical clock, the Fred and Ginger dancing house, the tower, some parks, the chocolate museum, etc. If I had had more money with me I would’ve bought so much from the chocolate museum- it all looked so good!! We also accidentally crashed 2 weddings?! We had gone up to the top of the astronomical clock tower to get a great panoramic view of the city and on our way down the steps we ended up walking into someone’s wedding photo shoot! Of course we were laughing hysterically and they were still taking photos, maybe we’ll make it into their wedding album! The other wedding was just preparing to take the photo shoot but hadn’t actually started taking pictures when we had just walked out of the castle. Both happened on the same day so it was pretty funny; I guess it’s wedding season.

Random fact: the ATMs in the Czech Republic don’t charge any commission for withdrawing money even if it’s from a different bank!