My Birthday, Hiking, and an Endless Amount of Pretty Pictures.

The last few days I’ve been super busy! This post will mainly be pictures because I just feel like that will be more entertaining. And I really want a nap…

Sunday I went on a USAC sponsored hike in Tisa, near the border of Germany. Only the first fifteen people that signed up were able to go so I felt super lucky that I signed up early. We left at 9am and took a bus through the country side of the Czech Republic. It was really nice to get to see what’s outside of the city. It was beautiful! There were tons of rolling hills and tiny towns. It was a European countryside at its finest. Then all of the sudden we were in the mountains and there was a foot of snow everywhere! The hike was a total of five miles through a bunch of sandstone cliffs. It was really really cool. Figuratively and literally – it was snowing really hard during the hike and it was probably around thirty degrees. I had on multiple layers to say the least! Overall though, the cold wasn’t too bad. The snow was fun and since we were moving so much I stayed warm. I took my gopro and got some really neat screenshots of the scenery. It was seriously like I was in Narnia. Or a snowy heaven. Or any other ice wonderland you can imagine! It was awesome.

Monday after class I walked around the city and toured the National Library, which was amazing!

This is a statue that's been there for quite some years. It's a man hanging with one arm onto a pole above the city streets.

This is the reading room in the library. It's hard to fully appreciate it through a picture but it's stunning. The murals on either ends are amazing, as well as the architecture.

Monday night a bunch of us went to a klub called Roxy. The music wasn’t great but I liked the atmosphere. Since I technically turned 21 at midnight it was pretty fun. People bought me shots and got my birthday off to a great start. What wasn’t great was waking up the next morning and going to class at 9am. Haha. 

The other birthday girl, Madeline.

It was also another girl’s birthday (same year same day and everything) so a bunch of us went to a traditional Czech restraunt for dinner. It was delicious! I had goulash and potato pancakes. And a pivo of course. Beer is literally cheaper than water or cokes here so it’s pointless not to have one with every meal.  

This is the restaurant we went to, Korunni.

After that we went to this really cool bar called The Pub. It’s actually a small chain throughout Europe. Every table has their own beer tap (Pilsner Urquell obviously). There is a touch screen monitor and each person at the table has their own number. You click on your number whenever you want to pour yourself more beer and it keeps up with how many liters each person has had. So not only are you trying to out-drink the people at your table, there is also a giant screen that shows how much beer each table has had in the restaurant. It also shows the top ten tables throughout every Pub in the country, and the top ten Pub’s overall on the continent. There were pubs from Germany, Romania, etc. So my table ended up being first in our pub, fifth in the country, and our pub overall was second on the continent. Needless to say, it was a really cool concept and bar and I will totally be going back. The Pub also had a really American feel so it was kind of refreshing. 

There's my table at the top of the leader board!

My birthday was really good. Huge thanks to all my USAC friends here for making my day so special and going out with me. It’s not easy being half way across the world from everyone you know on your birthday. I haven’t known everyone here very long but it feels like we’ve all already been friends for a month. It’s really weird. Everyone totally made my birthday great though. I wouldn't have wanted to spend it anywhere else but Prague. I'll never forget where I spent my twenty-first. Also, I really have the best roommates. They gave me a card, flowers, and some delicious Czech pastries. Haley also got me a book on Prague to add to my collection! They’re all so sweet and I’m super thankful for them. Thanks to everyone else who wished me Happy Birthday on facebook, text messaging, or etc. My class also sang me Happy Birthday in Czech so that was super cool.

So I had asked my program director, Jan (yawn), if they had Dr. Pepper here and where I could find some. A few days later he brought this to me at school! He's so awesome and nice. And I was super glad to have a taste of something familiar from home.

Well, our Czech language class ends tomorrow and I’m off to Berlin with my roommate Haley this weekend! Na shledanou everyone! (goodbye)

Sights of the city!

This view pretty much sums up the last few days for me here in Prague. I can't describe or put into words how much I love this city and how completely amazing it is. I'm become more comfortable here and falling more and more in love with my adopted city everyday. (By the way it was twenty eight degrees today)

Wednesday night a bunch of us went to a dance klub (pronounced cloob here) called Retro Music Dance Hell. We all had a blast. The music was great and the klub was packed. Haley and I finally left at around 3 a.m. and had to take a cab home. The metros, buses, and trams all stop at like midnight except for a few night trams, but we had no idea where a tram stop even was so we just took the easier route and caught a cab. Everyone had to be in class the next morning at 9 a.m..... so you can imagine how well that went. Pictured below, two of my friends, Shaina and Tate.

Last night was fun as well.We walked around Old Town a little and stopped and had hot apple cider. It was delicious!! Probably one of my favorite drinks I've ever had. Then we went to a pizza place down the street that we've already eaten at like three times. The pizza here in Prague is absolutely amazing!! And it's like four dollars for a giant pizza.

This morning (Saturday), we finally had a day off from our language class so we were able to sleep in, which was heavenly. We then decided to be super touristy and go sightseeing. First stop though was breakfast. We went to a cafe` called Paul. It's a pretty popular chain of cafes here. It too was delicious. Overall I've been really impressed with the food I have eaten. Everything is just well made here with really fresh ingredients. 

Grocery shopping here is a completely different story. It's very complicated. I have no idea what anything is and there are very very few recognizable brands. Like basically none. The language class has been helping though and I've gotten a lot better at knowing the names of different foods. Also, the yogurt here is so good!! Tonight I actually made some mac n' cheese for myself. I used cheddar and gouda cheese and it turned out pretty good. It was nice to have something semi-familiar. At Paul, below, I had strawberry yogurt, hot chocolate, and a chocolate croissant which was all really really good. Note the random castle in the picture of the outside of the cafe'. Super pretty!

Next we took the Metro and crossed the Vltava River and went to Old Town. Below are the gates to the Royal Garden. The President here lives in Prague Castle. There were tons of castle guards everywhere which was really cool. Also, on most of the statues and for example the gates below, they incorporate lots of gold. It's really neat looking and it's all over the city.

 Czech out the castle gaurds.

This is the area outside of the St. Vitus Cathedral. It was gorgeous. There was a big fountain and statues of different saints, like Peter and Paul.

This is St. Vitus Cathedral. It's so massive it's impossible to even get a good picture of it. It's unbelievable ornate and completely breathtaking. I loved it. 

Below are a few pictures from inside the cathedral. It's really just pointless for me to even try to describe everything. All I can say is that it's unbelievable. I can't believe places like this exist. These pictures just can't even do these places justice. It's just something you have to see with your own eyes to see how breathtaking and amazing it really is. I really loved the bright colors of the stained glass and how it contrasted with all of the gold and the concrete walls. The ceiling was also so beautiful. 

This is the outside of Prague Castle, which is actually connected to St. Vitus Cathedral. The castle is infamous and you can see all the spires from almost anywhere in the city with a clear view.

 So pretty and massive and just too amazing for words.

Just outside of the courtyard area and castle/cathedral walls is this amazing view of the city all the way back across the river. For as far as you can see are tons of beautiful domes, and spires, and beautiful roofs that are all hundreds and hundreds of years old. It's really eye opening to be in such an old and historical city. It makes me and my tiny existence feel quite unsubstantial.

Right across from the John Lennon Wall was the French Embassy. As everyone knows, there was a terrorist attack in Muslim and there have consequantlly been having a massive movement calling for peace (Je suis Charlie). Below is a memorial where people lit candles and left mementos and signs in front of the embassy. It was really neat to see and be involved in different and historical affairs in other parts of the world. It reminds me of being in the riots in Time Square in New York this past December, which was pretty crazy.

This sign was outside of the embassy. (Rusky means Russian by the way)

Next stop was the Lennon Wall! It was actually really neat and way cooler than I thought it would be. Back in the 1980's young people suppressed under communism regime would paint their grievance on the wall for everyone to see. This eventually led to a movement called "Lennonism", inspired by the peace that John Lennon wrote about in his songs. Now people paint messages about peace and acceptance. People from all nationalities and religions are able to come together in one spot to create a really cool piece of living art. I love it.There are usually musicians around the wall as well. Today there was a man playing John Lennon songs on an acoustic guitar. The street and area itself were really cool. It was in Mala Strana, a really pretty and colorful area of Prague, tucked away on a backstreet. Also, graffiti is everywhere in Prague, but instead of painting over it, they kind of embody it and it's really become a part of the city.  I haven't seen anything dirty or anything painted on walls so far (but I mean it could be just in another language). For the most part it's all just art. 

A few months ago, a group of art  students painted over the entire wall with white paint on the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. The only words left on the wall said "the wall is over". Obviously since then people have repainted and continued the tradition, changing the words to now say "the waR is over". I definitely plan on finding some spray paint and coming back to leave my mark.