Prague

Prague was not what I expected. To be honest, I had never heard of Prague until right before I left for abroad. A friend who had gone the semester right before had said that it was her favorite place she visited, and I had to look it up. The last free weekend of abroad one of my best friends and I decided to visit some of his hometown buddies who had been studying there all semester. I only got two nights out of the city, but I will go on record saying that Prague was at least top three out of the places I visited all trip.

My friend and I left right after our 9 o clock class on Thursday. We may have skipped our philosophy class. After a small layover in Germany, we arrived in Prague late in the afternoon meeting his friends at the airport. The first night we saw the Christmas markets. Every other stall has mulled honey wine. I now like mulled honey wine. They showed us all the landmarks, the main square, the observation tower, and the local casino of course. It was cold as hell though, like 20 degrees out, so we went back to the apartment and played poker and drinking games until bed.

The next day we spent the day walking around the city. We got hot dogs for breakfast, went to the overlook of the city, had some more mulled wine, and then went to the castle. The castle was immense, the biggest I have ever seen. (It is important to note that I have not seen many castles.) I actually ran into my mom’s best friend and basically my second godmother here, which was surreal. I was not expecting that.

After the castle, we went to a famous bridge, took some pictures, and found a bar. Prague is known for its beer, but I missed my watered-down American beer.

Once we had our beer jacket on, we found a train to a soccer game. The atmosphere here was incredible. It was two pretty mediocre teams, but everyone was acting a fool. There was riot police, people running around without shirts on in sub 20-degree weather and beer everywhere. It was nuts. W

e stayed until the end of regular time and then dipped to head to the main square to take part in a poker tournament. It was only a 2000 crown buy-in, which in dollars was only 20 dollars or so. Everything in Prague is much cheaper. Most of us busted early, but my best bud stayed in for a couple of hours. We actually left him there to get in line for a club, but it was a lot busier than we expected and we were unable to get in.

I left the next morning to attempt to see some family in Italy before heading home, as this was our last weekend in Europe. I was impressed with Prague; its public transportation, its architecture, organization, and beer. Would recommend this city.