Kutná Hora excursion.

After far too little sleep in a way too hot hotel room, we woke up early to head out to Kutna Hora to visit the bone church. We had been told it was a church constructed entirely of bones from dead bodies exhumed from the cemetery, so it sounded like a pretty awesomely creepy place.


The trip took approximately an hour by bus, and while Anita got our tickets, we waited around outside. The church isn't in the central part of town, but rather more on the outskirts, so there wasn't much around aside from a couple convenience stores and a crystal shop.

From europe v3

We got our tickets and went into the Ossuary which was part awesome and part disappointing. I had expected a church made of bones, but it was just a church decorated with lots of bones. While many of the designs were cool (bone chandelier), most of it was a bit kitschy for my taste, and not as spooky as I'd thought it would be.

From europe v3

From europe v3

After spending about five or 10 minutes in the church, I'd seen everything, so we went across the street for some ice cream and sat in the sun until everyone was done. Then we headed to the downtown area, first to the St. Barbara Church (which was, admittedly, kind of boring) and then just walking around the cute but deserted downtown. While we were searching for a place to eat, I ended up making a couple kitty friends: my first and only in Europe.

From europe (other pictures)

We settled on a Tex-Mex esque place which was an extremely awesome and unique find, and had their version of enchiladas and quesadillas (different, but still relatively delicious, and cheap). That was followed up by mojito ice cream, and then a walk back to the bus to head back into Prague and decide on our plans for our last night there.

From europe (other pictures)

Finding common ground with Prague.

We woke the following morning with a little (but not a lot) more optimism about Prague, and headed out for a walking tour of the city. We rode to the Prague Castle and walked around the former royal palace and its surroundings, including St. Vitus Cathedral, which is not the most impressive cathedral I've been to, but definitely a unique one.

From europe v3

From europe v3

We decided to take a 15-minute break at a nearby gift shop so people could take pictures and buy postcards and such, and this is when we encountered our first potential thieves, posing as a family of four tourists and attempting to steal from a couple of the girls in our group. Sneaky, and definitely a better tactic than the "you speak English?" gypsies that frequent Checkpoint Charlie and Notre Dame.

We continued on, walking past the St. Wenceslas Vineyard which offered beautiful views of the city, and down toward the Charles Bridge where we stopped to touch the various places on the bridge which supposedly offer good luck, and then headed to the other side of the city.

From europe v3

From europe v3

From europe v3

From europe v3

From here, we wound our way through the streets and beautiful buildings, until we ended up in Old Town, about five minutes before the hour, in time for some kind of fanfare, which turned out to be a dinky clock show and a trumpet player who comes out at the top of the tower and plays a super hokey song. In other words, relatively anti-climactic.

At this point, we had the rest of the day to ourselves (it was just after noon) so a handful of us sat down to lunch at a restaurant on the square. We had the option of going to the communist museum but Elia and I opted out (her because she wasn't interested, me because I'd rather have been drinking Pilsner). This is where we first experienced the "Prague Way" - in other words, getting charged for everything (even a side of ketchup or hot sauce) and the in-your-face boldness of servers who unabashedly demand tips and even remark when they feel their tip is "not enough". WTF. I was definitely turned off to this part of the culture.

We had some hours to kill, so we met up with Jesse and an indecisive Tanya, who was advised not to go off alone due to 1) pickpockets and such, and 2) her Berlin stunt of disappearing earlier in the week. She didn't want to go back to the hotel just yet, so she stuck with us and wanted to look in a gazillion different souvenir shops. Finally, we suggested she get something to eat, so we all sat down at a cafe and had some beers while she ate a late lunch. Afterward, we had a little bit more time to walk around and take things in before meeting up with Alyssa, Amy, Lynn and Sara to go to a concert.

From europe v3

From europe v3

From europe v3

From europe v3

The seven of us made our way to the Church of St. Salvator to buy tickets for a chamber ensemble performance that evening, then grabbed a quick drink before heading into the church. It was an hour-long set of works by Pachelbel, Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and other famous works and we had fantastic seats right by the quintet.

From europe v3

When the concert ended, we started walking back toward Old Town and found a mediterranean restaurant, where we decided to get dinner together. The food was some of the best we had in the Czech Republic, and the music playing inside was all English pop and dance hits, so we took a moment to have a Lady Gaga dance party...

From europe v3

The dinner was leisurely, but toward the end, I realized that the World Cup game (USA versus Ghana) was about to begin, so Jesse and I cut out early to go back to the square and watch, while the others went shopping. The game was great, except for that final goal which bummed me out, but I'm still proud of the U.S. team for making it that far.

Once it ended, the seven of us asked our server the best place to get a taxi. He asked if we'd ever taken a taxi in Prague and when we said no, he warned us, saying "you'll get stolen". I admit I was slightly freaked out, until I realized he meant that we wouldn't get kidnapped, but rather ripped-off, unless we were smart. He quoted a price of 100 crowns (the equivalent of 4 euros) per person and suggested nothing more than that.

At first, the taxis refused to take all seven of us, but when we agreed to pay 600 crowns to the driver, he agreed, insisting that Elia get down in the back so the police didn't stop him for having too many people. Although I would think the police would be more likely to stop him for driving like a crazy! I don't think I've ever feared for my life that much while in a car, but his crazy driving was pretty on par for the rest of the drivers in Prague, and he got us to our hotel in less than 10 minutes (which would have been about a 40-minute walk).

Elia went to bed at this point, so I took a shower and then went down to the lobby to use the Internet and catch up on all the drama happening with the groups. Finally, just after midnight, I went to bed as well, as we had to be up early to head out to Kutná Hora.

Our first night in Prague, or Prague Fail.

We all loaded up on the bus to Dresden and many of us put on our headphones and immediately went to sleep, but were woken an hour or so later by our tour guide, Anita, who informed us we had entered the Czech Republic. The whole concept was difficult for me to wrap my head around, as I recall the sister of my second grade teacher coming into our class in 1992 and teaching us about Czechoslovakia, which she had just visited.

Although I was sleepy and bleary-eyed, I forced myself to wake up and take in the landscape, which was absolutely beautiful - so so green and quite picturesque.

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

We stopped shortly after for a quick bathroom break, then loaded up and kept going until we hit Prague. This trip was particularly important for the Texas group, because they were Czech in background and all did traditional polka dances back home. Of course, the irony of it all was that a handful of them immediately booked it for the McDonald's at our rest stop. Ohhhh middle and Southern America...!

It took us some driving around to find our hotel, but we eventually came across it. Only this Hotel Legie was the most janky hotel I'd ever seen from the outside, and I felt like we were staying in the TL. Our group piled into the lobby, which smelled like smoke and deep-fried food, and waited around forever because the front desk ladies had a somewhat complicated method of checking everyone in. And once we got our keys to our rooms (mostly on the sixth, seventh and eighth floors), we had to wait for the ONLY elevator in the building - which only took three people at a time - to come down and go back up. Annoying.

But we made it to our room, which was small and smoky and not very luxurious ("This is a three-star hotel?" I asked Elia incredulously) and dropped off our baggage, then headed down to the second-floor "restaurant" for dinner.

The food was another adventure all its own, and by that, I mean it was disgusting. The food was mostly fried - fried potatoes, fried chicken, fried fish. And the vegetarian options consisted of a cucumber tomato salad with no dressing, stale-ish bread, and the aforementioned potatoes, plus some questionable scalloped kind of potatoes. When we told the kitchen staff that we couldn't eat that food, they begrudgingly informed us they would make us a vegetarian option. Which was... fried mushrooms. FML.

I was frustrated with this - add to it the fact that the front desk ladies told Lynn that our neighborhood was so unsafe that if we females stepped outside after 10 p.m., we wouldn't be seen again, and we were disappointed. After all the money we paid for our trip, we were not at all pleased with the accommodations or the location.

Lynn, Elia and I were pissed, and as a protest, we said we'd go get food elsewhere. Jesse was fine with the food, but he didn't want to be stuck with the Texans (who he was rooming with) so the four of us peaced out.

We wandered and finally came across a cute looking pizza place, although not before coming across a lot of sketchy looking bars and people. There we were able to have delicious food (for relatively cheap), delicious beer (but gross wine) and enjoy the weather and brainstorm our options.

When we returned to the hotel with a plan, we got beers at the "restaurant" and sat down with Renate who had, in the meantime, chatted with a couple employees and a couple from Berlin that was staying there. They said they stayed there every time there were in town, and quickly put to rest the garbage that the ladies at the front desk had told us, saying that they were trying to 1) stir up fear and 2) keep us in our rooms at night and not constantly coming in and out of the hotel at night. LAME.

But there wasn't much we could do at that moment, so we all decided to go to sleep and think about it, because that was all we COULD do, and reassess the situation in the morning.

Afternoon in Dresden.

On Friday morning, we all woke up far too early and began the nearly 200 kilometer trek to Dresden, a beautiful beautiful city in Saxony.

This was our first day of nearly unbearable heat, and our day began with one of the Texas kids passing out in the middle of the square, from what was likely dehydration or heatstroke (in my mind, lots of drinking plus little sleep plus lots of heat usually equals passing out). After that all passed, we picked up our tour guide, who took us on a guided tour of the city by bus, during which we saw lots of fancy and ornate buildings and gorgeous gorgeous homes, as well as a few castles.

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

The tour ended after an hour or two and we were turned loose, so Elia and I went out to lunch and afterward, she opted to do some writing so I wandered and took in the architecture and street life.

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

Finally, our group met up and we boarded the bus again, this time on another nearly 200 kilometer journey to the Czech Republic, although little did we know what awaited us there...

Shopping in Berlin.

The next morning, we began with a walk a few blocks down to a museum, The Story of Berlin, which could have been cool under different circumstances, but neither of us were particularly interested in it, so we breezed through it.

From europe v2

Our plan of attack was to hit up the shopping on the street, since we were staying in a classy area. The first stop was Diesel, a no-brainer, where the pants were incredibly cheap (100 euros here for a pair as compared to 300 dollars back home) but none of the pants that I liked were in my size, so instead I got a new purse which was on sale. I also got my official German soccer jacket, which I'd been searching for everywhere and finally found at - duh - Adidas.

From europe v2

Once those purchases were complete, we were off to the Berlin Zoo. Let me tell you: this zoo is amazing. Absolutely awesome. The landscaping is gorgeous, there are so many different animals, and all the animals actually appear happy. They have plenty of room to roam and aren't confined like other zoos I have seen.

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

From europe v2

Next we went on a shopping excursion to Berlinomat, where Rich had suggested Elia go, and along the way, she picked up a great new dress at F95. We quickly had to head out to meet the group for dinner, so we made our way down near Alexanderplatz where we had another relatively subpar dinner of vegetables covered in cheese (thank goodness for the beer). After dinner, we skipped out on the whole group's trip to Potsdam and instead went to a nearby shopping mall (the first cool mall we found in Europe!) to cool down and walk around. After hitting up all the floors, we caught a train and began our walk back to the hotel, where Elia came across some shops and I made a new pug friend named Rocco who wanted to follow me back.

Since we weren't in a huge rush back to the hotel, we stopped off at a restaurant and hotel nearby our hotel and had a couple drinks and enjoyed the evening air. Then while she took a shower, I went out to the nearby store to pick up some beer and candy, and we watched "American Pie" on my laptop, before the both of us turned in for the night.