In Transit! + Prague! Day 1

With high hopes and smiling faces, myself along with seven others met at Grand Central Station in Brussels to start our voyage to Prague. It was a little snowy outside and temperatures were typical for February. The first part of the trip was a train ride from Brussels to Charleroi. Unfortunately, this was the start for our misfortune. Our train showed up thirty minutes past its schedule departure. Tensions were high, and a few of us had already accepted the fact that we would miss our flight. But, that was only the start. After arriving at Charleroi, we missed our bus to the airport by about thirty seconds (It is an awful feeling watching your bus drive off without you). We looked at the bus times and saw another was scheduled to arrive in fifteen minutes. Tensions grew more, and more of us had accepted that we would miss the flight. After about forty minutes and hair pulling, a bus finally showed up. We got on with speed, but apparently everyone else wanted to crawl onto the bus. Fortunately, we made it to the airport and checked in with nine minutes left until the flight was closed. We ran to our gate and immediately got in line (We were ninth in line). Ahhh, we all felt relieved and our spirits were recharged. Our journey felt like hell, but it did not matter what came next made up for the whole misadventure.

After checking into our hostel, we went a restaurant called the Spirit Bar. If you have never ate in Eastern Europe, you are missing out. I got 500 grams of meat (chicken, steak, pork, smoked ham, and sausage) for 185 Czech crowns. Which comes out to about nine US dollars. It was the happiest meal of my entire life. We were all in a unique euphoria for the rest of the night. After eating, we watched Arsenal beat Liverpool on the big screen, and then went back to our hostel for free drinks. It was the perfect night.

The next day, batteries recharged and adventure kicking at the door, we left our hostel to visit some of the sights of the city. We landed upon an interesting breakfast place called Pavlac Café. I had coffee and cottage cheese crepes with berries and cream on top (for about 4 US dollars). We then aimlessly walked past shops, taking pictures of interesting buildings until we found ourselves in the middle of Old Town Square. If you look at my pictures, you will agree that this square is nothing but special. There were local merchants selling local cuisines such as peasant potatoes and smoked ham. We sampled candied almonds and cinnamon sugar pretzels. We took some more pictures until we decided to climb to the top of the astronomical clock tower. It was a simple fee of 5 US dollars to go on an unguided tour of the grounds, which included some of the best views of the city. We walked around the top of the tower, looking in every direction. After getting our fill of history and tourism, we decided to go to the mall (which had five floors, holding over 200 stores). The boys and the girls split up for obvious reasons, but met back up after an hour (we had to set a time limit, and it wasn’t just because of the girls). Once we were all together, we convoyed up to the food court to have a mid-afternoon snack. We decided after a good meal that we had had our fill of the city for the day. We marched back to the hostel to get ready for the night. We, once again, ate at the Spirit Bar, but with less than perfect food. Feeling a bit annoyed we decided to boycott the restaurant for a while. We then ran into some fellow Americans from University of Illinois. The group, now over 15 strong, went downtown to a FIVE-story club. We explored the depths of the place and deemed it suitable for an American takeover. We stormed the place and turned it into a truly great night for everyone.

PragueDay1 (pictures)