Czech it OUT!

 

Saturday we went to the John Lennon wall and got to see the river in Prague where you are able to see the entire city from the other side. We fed the swans and took pictures with the city and the water.The John Lennon wall was created by students in protest
and fun fact: John Lennon never visited it. I wrote a bunch of quotes on the wall but the most significant was “Smile because you’re here”. I wanted people to remember that they are blessed to have the opportunities that they do and that we are able to live for an extended period of time in this incredible country. In Mala Strana we were able to see Petrin Hill, Charles Bridge, and the Prague Castle. On the bridge we touched a woman and a dog because we were told that the woman would bring good luck and weren’t quite sure what the dog would bring but saw that he was shiny.  After coming back we realized that we rubbed the wrong statute so we didn’t even follow the tradition in the first place! Our tour took us to U Fleku Brewery & Restaurant where we enjoyed another typical Czech meal (more meat, gravy, and bread). And went on a tour of the castle grounds back over the Charles Bridge. The architecture and design of the cathedral in the castle was incredible, we saw the most beautiful glass windows and sat in awe in the history that we were looking at. We learned that Prague was the city with the most statues in the world.

In 1990, the President at the time was President Havel who invited the Rolling Stones to perform in front of him and the people of Prague at the Prague Castle. We stopped for a break in the middle of our tour and had the best iced coffee I’ve ever had, it was the perfect way to get me energized and ready for the day. When walking through the castle, we found an area where if you stood in the center you could speak and hear your voice come back to you in a different high pitched sound.

When the king commissioned the work for the archways to be built in the castle, he gave a certain amount of money to the artist. The artist was almost finished but needed more money to finish. The king refused and the artist had to pay for the rest of the arch with his own money. He wrote “ano” instead of the word “anno” next to year because he was furious and wanted pay back in any way that he could get it. Before we left the castle, it started to rain and we stopped at the top to look down on the beautiful city. Before going to Prague, I had no idea how big it was and how much deep and rich history there was. Looking from above, I was able to see both old and new towns and the huge musical hall that we’d passed on our way up. It was said that when the Nazi’s invaded Prague, they wanted to tear down all of the statues above the hall that were of Jewish artists.
They did not know who was who and they ended up destroying Hitler’s favorite statue because he was the one with the biggest nose. On our way down, we stopped at a little store to buy a trdelnik which is a typical Czech dessert (basically a cinnamon bun with ice cream or fruit on the inside), and watched the sunset from the bridge.

That night we got to explore on our own and went to a five story club where every floor had a different type of music playing. Hits, oldies, Techno, Hip Hop, etc. Before heading out, we were starving and wanted to eat dinner in a nice restaurant around the club. We got frustrated because we we couldn’t find a good place and ended up settling for KFC! The meal was way different than I’d expected and had a Czech mix to the otherwise normal fried chicken. Once we made it to the club, we explored the five floors and even got to peek into the ice bar! We didn’t come home until 4:30 and needed to be up at 5:30 so I only slept for about 20 minutes before boarding the bus and making my way to Oktoberfest.