Goodness! This place overwhelmed me!! It was open level on level on level! People zoomed everywhere, a billion languages were being spoken, trains arriving and departing in every direction, shops of all kinds, and eateries lined the walls on each level, and tall, scary escalators zipped up and down in both directions. Thank God (once again!) that my Eagle Scout, Miguel, was with me! I think I pretty much just walked in and then immediately stopped and froze by the impact of everything. He figured out where we needed to go and I followed him to the very bottom level.
We had to walk to the very end of the platform to board our wagon. We passed many wagons that reminded both Miguel and me of the Hogwarts Express which had some of us saying "expelliarmous" and "stupify" as we walked by. I'm really grateful we purchased first class tickets. We had so much room and seats together just the two of us. There were a lot of fellow Americans on the train ride, including a traveling senior group who made us giggle.
The train ride was so fun! It was great to have a morning of relaxing with nothing to do and no where to walk! We enjoyed seeing the German countryside (mostly farm lands and large pastures) and small towns.
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| Little train station we drove through |
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| Little train station we drove through |
Eventually the topography changed and old mountains popped up surrounding a peaceful river. We traveled along the river the rest of the trip. It was really very picturesque. There were also little villages here and there throughout the mountains. We saw a lot of cyclists, hikers, and boaters enjoying the area.
The ride lasted about five hours. Miguel slept for about two. He really needed it, I'm sure, especially as he was getting sick. When he woke up we both enjoyed checking out the views. He also got some school work in and I knocked out an email to my family. We only had three or four stops so had very little disruption. We had a conductor come through and check our tickets (but not our passports) once in Germany and then again when we entered the Czech Republic.
| haha caught ya sleeping! |
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| Miguel takes classes on the side to continue his education. I guess a Masters in AE isn't enough for him. I love that he is so motivated! |
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| Miguel modeling my Ostrich Pillow Light that I purchased for the trip haha |
Driving through the Czech country gave me a glimpse of the economic state. It immediately felt poorer and dirtier than Germany. Also the language seemed much more foreign and even the people looked different - much much more Eastern European.
When we arrived in Prague we purchased metro tickets and followed the directions to our hostel. It was a pretty quick and straight forward trip. Unfortunately the hostel somehow messed up our room reservations and reserved us a double twin room instead of a full. I was annoyed but there was nothing they could do at that point so we just rolled with it. (I think it might have been a kindness from God actually as Miguel got sick). They apologized profusely, gave us free breakfast passes for both days of our stay, and even sent over champagne to our room.
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| The Prague metro is way, way underground. The escalators are pretty long, and you go down many levels of them. |
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| Miss Sophie's. Where we stayed. |
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| Too bad I couldn't part take. pout pout |
After we dropped our things in the room (which was actually just fine) we walked to a late lunch at a close by brewery recommend by the hostel. On the way there we decided to get cash from an ATM but we learned we have never set up a PIN for the American Express. We called customer service and they were happy to create one for us and it would be mailed to our home address within 7-9 business days. Long story short, I spent the entire meal on the phone with Amex figuring out how to do a wire transfer. I'm sure we now owe AT&T a million dollars.
I wasn't too impressed with the brewery. Most of the customers spoke English and I was a little worried that it was a bit touristy. However, Miguel's goulash was really tasty! I was also pretty stressed trying to figure out the money thing (had to be me bc we only brought my card) and didn't have much of an appetite.
After we ate we went back to our room to take a quick nap before we had clean up for our evening at the opera.
We took the metro one stop up the road to Wenceslas Square. The square is more like a huge street ending at the National Museum with a large statue of Wenceslas. It reminded me of a scaled down version of Time Square. There were a lot of people, westernized restaurants (Burger King, KFC, and Starbucks are everywhere!), touristy restaurants (dressed up knights handing out menus etc) and street vendors. We walked down the street a bit to see if anything struck our fancy for dinner. Nothing really did and we weren't that hungry since we had a late lunch. Miguel ended up getting a sausage thing from a street vendor and I got an ice cream cone.
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| Waiting for the metro |
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| Wenceslas Square |
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| Wenceslas Square |
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| Miguel's dinner |
After eating our snacks and some interesting people watching we turned down the street to the State Opera House for our opera. I had been so concerned about possibly being underdressed (we packed very lightly) but saw some people in jeans which made me feel much better! But in general people were pretty dressy.
The opera house was glorious! So decorative! I'm so glad we were able to do this! Our seats were in the very top balcony. The seats were steep and very high but we were in the center second row so had great views of the stage, orchestra pit, and also the theatre itself. I was surprised how many people came to the opera alone! Pretty much all the people around us came alone.
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| The State Opera House, built in 1888 |
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| pretty, decorative ceilings in the lobby |
We saw Salome which I didn't knowing about besides the brief role she played in the bible and was curious about how they wrote a whole opera about her. This version they set in a modern day time (1920's ish). I wish they had stuck to the classical rendition. The opera was sung in German but above the stage they had a screen with both the Czech and English translations which was helpful! The singing and music were beautiful and powerful. Umm there was also male nudity... because you know, this is Europe and we can have a naked John the Baptist walk around if we want to. The opera lasted two hours with no separate acts or intermissions. It felt really quick though and I was surprised when it was over that it had been two hours!
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| Walking back to the metro at night... so pretty! |
When we returned to the hostel we grabbed the bottle of champagne from earlier and went to the common area/bar. It was packed!! I felt completely out of place! Not only did I feel older than most of the other people, but I also was sipping on a bottle of water and eating Pringles (Miguel was slowly sipping on the champagne) while everyone around us had just started a pub crawl and we're taking Jell-O shots. I was also in black tights, flats, my hair pulled back in a bun like style and the place was filled with midriff showing girls and dirty bearded college guys. We needless to say didn't stay long. We were exhausted anyways and we're excited to hit the pillow.
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