Today was our day to be complete tourists. We started off the day by heading to the metro station up the street. We needed to get to Prague castle, which we saw last night and it was astonishing. We couldnt figure out how to buy tickets, but some nice gentleman who spoke perfect English helped us out. He even gave us 50 crowns because the machine only takes coins and all we had was bills.
We made sure to validate our tickets because we heard there were ticket police waiting to catch people without valid tickets. Transportation in Prague is very cheap, so people often dont buy tickets, or they dont validate tickets they buy so they can use them over and over again. If the ticket men catch you, you have to pay 500 crown on the spot and then they get the police involved. Definately not worth the risk. So we then headed to the tram. We came up to an escalator, and when I got on, I looked down, and no joke, the escalator was HUGE. I have never seen such a long escalator. I'll post picutures later.
We got to the castle, which was amazing. We saw the changing of the guard....not too exciting. They were all smiling and giggling like school girls. Not like in the U.S. where they look angry and constipated. Then we headed in, and the first thing we saw were the amazing gothic spires of St. Nicholas Cathedral. Its the church inside the castle walls. The church was amazing. There were all sorts of different scenes all around the perimeter, stained glass windows all over, just an amazing sight. We then saw a sign to climb to the top of the south tower, only 287 steps!. Well I thought it was a sweet deal, 287 doesnt sound that bad.........I was wrong. The staircase was spiral, very small, my size 14 shoes were having trouble. To top it off, people were also coming down as we were going up. The whole time it was hot and musty, and people here do NOT know what deoderant is, so that just made the whole experience that much better. When we got to the top of the tower, it was all worth it. The views were breathtaking. I was in awe.
After the castle we headed to the Jewish Quarter. We were in line to buy tickets, then thought the line was to buy into the audio tour. Well the audio tour is people running around with objects that look like phones from Saved by the Bell attached to their ear with a person telling them what they are looking at. I didnt want this, so we thought we just needed to walk in. I got no further than 2 feet inside the gate when some lady grabbed my arm yelling "ticket, ticket." I didnt feel like paying so we just skipped the Jewish Quarter.
We then headed to Old Town Square, where we saw the Astronomical clock preform. Nothing special, but cool to say that we saw it. Then we headed back toward our hostel winding down curvy alley ways filled with random shops selling all sorts of Bovarian crystal, puppets, etc...
Tonight we talked with our other 3 roomates at our hostel, and heard about their journeys. They are all really nice. 2 are from California and the other is from Australia. The California kids have been in Europe for 4 weeks and will be here for a total of 5 weeks, while the Australian dude has been in Europe for 2 mos, and is ending his trip in the U.S. He assured us that everyone in Europe hates Americams because of Bush, but he sticks up for us because its not the people fault that our government is dumb. Our hostel is nice, I didnt sleep at all last night though. I think it is the fact that I am sharing a room with 3 strangers and there is no air conditioning. It is extremely hot.
Tonight we ate dinner at a nice little cafe up the street, and then came back and had a beer at our hostel. The first drink I have had all trip. Tomorrow we are hitting the zoo and then heading out to Munich by bus. I will try to give you another update tomorrow, but it may happen on thursday. I hope things are going well back home. Miss you all. I will upload pics of all this stuff when I get to Oxfor. Bye for now.
AJ
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