Prag
This weekend we went on a short trip to Prague with my classmates from language school: Iker (Basque Country), Tessa (USA), Thomas (Holland), Katja (Russia), oh yeah, and Mike (Germany) too. Quite the international group!
We stayed in a hostel called Le Papillon for fifteen Euros a night per person. For that price I shouldn't complain, but for a hostel it was pretty sleezy and that's really saying something! I'm glad we only stayed there a night.
The first day we walked around a lot and I was quite impressed with the Czech Republic in general. I have heard many things about Prague, that it's beautiful and that it's a dirty tourist trap. I have to say that I agree with both views, but it did not hurt my impression of Prague in any way. I anticipated that there would be a lot of tourists and people trying to sell us things (it is the 6th most visited European city), so I was not surprised by it. But what I was surprised by was how interesting I found the city.
My favorite part was just to walk through the streets and see all the old buildings contrasting with the new shopping malls. It was a strange juxtaposition of the old and the new, the ugly and the beautiful, like many other eastern European cities I have seen. I liked it.
I liked the Old Town Square with the gothic cathedral, baroque church, and astronomical clock with moving figures.
I loved the views of Prague from Charles Bridge. It would be nice to take a boat tour sometime.
I have to say I wasn't too impressed with the castle, even though I had heard so much about it. To me, it was really unremarkable and boring. I was a bit let down after the hike up the hill, but the St. Vitus Cathedral up there was very beautiful with lots of colorful stained glass windows and where the relics of St. Wenceslas are kept. Also, the views from the castle of the city were amazing.
At one point we passed two Czech children playing basketball and Mike asked them in Polish if we could play with them. Katja and I watched as the boys played. The little boy, Marro, was very friendly. He spoke English and he was very surprised to learn that we were all from different countries. It was a memorable experience. He gave us some tips on what we should see, but strangely enough he didn't have much advice about Prague's bar scene.
Most of our interactions with the Czech people were pleasant. Most of them speak either English or German so we got along fine, and when we didn't they could understand some of Mike's Polish. I have to say that most of them were very friendly for Europeans.
The exception was at a restaurant we went to at the advice of our hostel's owner. We went because we were told we could get a free small beer if we ordered the goulash, a typical Czech meal.
Well, we were surprised when the beers were quite large, but they drank them and then ordered some more. When the bill came we had been charged for six beers, even though we should have gotten the first round free, and we were also charged for two colas when I had only had one.
When Mike confronted the waitress she came back with three smaller beers and said that these were the free ones and the big ones were not free.
Obviously she wanted to rip us off because we were tourists and she hoped we would either not care enough or not know enough of the language to argue with her. But she underestimated Mike, who argued with her in Polish until she relented, which was quite some time. My hero.
I have heard that this is one of the risks in Prague. Don't let it deter you from visiting, but just make sure you know what you are ordering and what you are paying for, because some people there do try to take advantage.
On Sunday Mike and I decided to go solo and take it more slowly than the day before. We had breakfast and then we went and saw Dark Knight in a theater because in Czech Republic they do not dub their films, so it was in English with Czech subtitles. So exciting! I waited so long to see that film, and it definitely lived up to all of the hype.