Miluju Praha!

Translation: I love Prague! (ok, it's Czech, not French so I'll let you off easy this time)

Alright, I know I have quite a bit of catching up to do since it's been a few weeks since I've written. Traveling without a computer and studying for midterms preventing from sitting down and writing about my adventures, but it's ok! I'll fill ya'll in.

Praha. (Sigh). Oh how I miss it; it really was like a fairy tale with autumn forests and gorgeous castle reflecting in the river that winds through the city. My friend Astrid and I did absolutely no research on Prague before we arrived. It took us quite a bit longer to get there than we expected on account of more grèves in France, but eventually we made it. We got off the plane and realized how little we actually knew about the city; we didn't have any crown, only euro, and we knew that we needed to get to metro A, but it didn't connect to the airport. We were standing outside, trying to read a large czech map behind glass covered in smudged finger prints when a couple offered to help us. They were from Prague, and not only showed us on the map where to go, but told us what bus to take and gave us coins to buy our tickets since our exchanged 20 euros had given us two 200 crown notes.

We walked down the same street a few times before finding our hostel, Hostel Rosemary, a very clean and friendly establishment that went over with Astrid and I quite well for our first hostel experience. The man at the front desk was was friendly and gave us maps and oriented us as well as circled the places in the city we would want to visit, and showed us to our room. We learned that a lot of what happens in a hostel though depends on the people that are staying there as well, more so than on the conditions of the building itself. Astrid and I were staying in the 14 bed unisex dorm complete with a main room with 3 bunk beds, a smaller connecting room with another 3 bunk beds, and two single beds in a loft. We took the loft since it was available and provided a little more privacy. In the dorm there was an older man probably in his 40's who seemed to never leave his top bunk in the corner. There was also a russian couple and 3 Italian young men who seemed to be a little over-excited by my blonde hair all staying in the smaller room. My locker happened to be in the smaller room, so when I first went inside to lock up my pack, one of the Italians offered his hand, "Ciao! My name iz Daveeed. What iz yourz?" I introduced myself and talked very little about where each of us were from before Astrid and I left to grab some dinner and then drinks with a friend of a friend.

The two of us wandered through tiny cobblestone streets, slightly disturbed by the somewhat frightening-looking marionettes that hung in almost every window, lusting after funny furry hats, and trying to decide which door man we should believe had the best cheap food. We ended up at a pub, the waiter greeted us "Ahoj!" (pronounced A-hoy!, like a pirate, A-hoy matey!), and seated us at a bar table. Minutes later we were being served massive plates of food costing only 150 crown, mine consisting of a mountain of french fries and a large grilled chicken breast smothered in creamed spinach - delicious - salty, but delicious.

After dinner we wandered more about the city before getting a call from Joe, the son of my mom's boss who is studying abroad in Prague this semester from Cal Poly SLO. "Where are you?" he asked, "Uhhhh, I'm on a bridge...?" Apparently, there are a lot of bridges in Prague, I had to find one named Charles.

Astrid and I were browsing through a souvenir shop when I heard a group of rambunctious boys joking about themselves, "how are we gonna find her dude?", "just yell out her name, ha!", "Kellynnnn! KELLYNNNNN!"

-"Uhh, Joe?"

Slightly embarrassed, Joe and his 3 friends turned around and we all began to laugh and shook hands. I assumed we weren't going to far since none of them were wearing jackets in the 30, maybe 20-something degree weather, but I guess coats just aren't fashionable in Prague at night. After walking for about 10 minutes and getting acquainted with one another, we arrived at a bar. I walked inside to find older and angry-looking eastern-european men glaring at me behind their individual clouds of cigarette smoke - where the heck were they taking us? Down a flight of stairs, across a billiards room and through a narrow brick hallway underground and we found ourselves at the bar. Apparently the bar was an old underground communist hideout - guess it would make sense. Parting the now prevalent blanket of smoke we walked through the bar and sat down at a table together then ordered bahama mama's from the hilarious blonde waitress. We talked about our various study abroad programs and home since Joe was from Lafayette, and about all the traveling we had done and were planning to do, but since we were all tired, and the boys were leaving for a trip the next morning, we all said goodbye and Astrid and I head back to the hostel.

The next morning we woke up to the alarm on my phone, but allowed ourselves to lazily lay in bed while slowly regaining consciousness. I rolled over a few minutes later to see what time it was and noticed a small sheet of graph paper lying on top of my things next to my bed.Hmm, what is this? I turned it over, to find "I >that woke me up. "ASTRID! ASTRIDDDDD! .......ASTRID!" I hissed across our loft, hoping to gain her attention but no one else's. It took a second for her sleepy vision to focus, but then her eyes grew wide and she had to stifle a laugh.

We waited for the room to get quiet again in order to avoid Daveeed from Naples who we assumed was guilty of writing the love note. Heading towards the old town center, Astrid was craving coffee, Starbucks more specifically, and we had seen one the previous nights in one of the winding alley-ways. Before we could find the Starbucks however, we stumbled upon our new morning tradition, Coffee Heaven.Get the elephant latte or the coconut white chocolate mocha - it literally is heaven. We took our delicious drinks with us as we began our adventure through the charming fairy tale city for the first time in day light.

Through the old town center to the jewish district, across the river to the John Lennon "Imagine" wall and a pleasant place near by for a proper czech lunch of delicious sausage, a vinegar mustard and country potatoes; absolutely scrumptious. After lunch, up the mountain to the castle, through the amazing cathedral and running on the grass to play in the gold leaves despite the posted pictures of shoes on grass in a red circle with a line through it and the guard whom we waited for to walk behind some other trees further away.

We walked back down the mountain, back across the Charles bridge (now that we knew where it was and what it was), and head back to Rosemary for some down time before going to dinner and out and about on the town again.

We seemed to be the only two people in our dorm, and I'm sure it looked empty once we were up in our loft area because of what happened next. Astrid was napping and I was reading when I heard someone come in the room, but I didn't really pay any attention to it. They had gone into the smaller room where my locker was and thank goodness I didn't need anything out of it because soon we heard one of the bunk beds start squeaking. Astrid and I looked at each other quizzically - why was a bed squeaking? Then we started hearing some other noises... they could have at least closed the door! Astrid starting coughing loudly, hoping they'd get the hint, we'd move around trying to make it apparent that they weren't the only people in the dorm, we'd laugh or talk - get the hint! It was a bit late, but eventually I remembered that I had a farting application on my iPhone. Hitting number 7 once was all it took - the bed squeaking stopped and Astrid and I fell into a fit of ridiculous laughter. The situation became even more hilarious because Astrid thought that I had actually farted because she hadn't noticed I had pulled out my phone. Why I didn't think of it sooner is beyond me, but now I know the secret to solve nearly any problem I come across in a hostel.

That night we went to dinner at an Indian restaurant down the street from Rosemary. I haven't eaten a whole lot of Indian food on account of my weak tongue when it comes to spicy-ness, however most of my friends are all about it, so I gave it a try. I ordered something familiar, a chicken dish that I had has before, however the curry rice was more like fire rice. I noticed that if I ate it really fast it wouldn't burn so badly, so I shoveled it all in as fast as I could. Astrid was kind enough to let me sip her unpleasantly-salty-yogurt-drink-thing and eat some of her plain basmati rice she hadn't finished.

After dinner we wandered around town more, back through old town square where we found some funny furry hats that we couldn't pass up, especially with how freaking cold out it was. With our new matching hats, we were back in the alleyways, looking more like locals and happy about it. The people in Prague were the nicest and most friendly I've come upon so far in all my travels through Europe, I really wouldn't mind moving there to teach English, even if it just is an excuse to wear my funny furry hat everyday.

The next morning we woke up at a reasonable hour and prepared ourselves to walk everywhere. We were in love with our fairy tale city, and we wanted to see every inch of it. Passing the Charles bridge, we stayed on our side of the river and walked upstream to find our way to the dancing house. I don't really know anything about it, other than it's amazing. If you google Prague images, it's one of the first things that comes up, and is such a popular tourist attraction plainly because of it's incredible architecture. All of the architecture in the town however is amazing; it ended up taking Astrid and I a lot longer to get to the dancing house because we would stop in front of every apartment building we passed to stare at the various statues and decorations. Each one was so different and expressive, yet somehow they all worked together harmoniously for the individual building, as well as the rest on the street. It was incredible.

Then we crossed the river - we wanted to find some place really authentic for lunch, so we kept walking away from the river and upstream, only to find ourselves at scary looking McDonalds - we weren't in fairy tale land anymore. We decided to head back but were starving and were able to find a restaurant cafe that was quite delicious and was very helpful when it came to catering my celiac needs. I enjoyed a ham and cheese omelet with a side of fruit, a novel concept in Prague apparently as there was just a banana, a sliced apple and peeled orange awkwardly piled on a small plate.

Very full from lunch, we strolled back to the right side of the river. In the distance we could see some ruins perched on a hill, a church or maybe a castle? We didn't know but it looked cool enough to keep heading further away from the center of town. On the way we came across a farmers market on the riverbank. All the food looked amazing - why had I eaten an omelet? Why couldn't I be hungry again? But then I spotted something that I could maybe manage. There was a small cart next to the water with two men cutting whole raw potatoes into spirals then frying them. They looked and smelled delicious, the perfect amount of crunch but were still warm and chewy in the middle, like potato chips but all still connected - potato spiralies.Since it was only 40 crown for a paper cone full, Astrid and I handed over the coins and walked away with our salted coin of scrumptious spiralies. Though delicious, it probably wasn't such a good idea to force more food into my full stomach on account of the hike we had ahead of us to the ruins on the hill.

We arrived at the top, breathing heavily, but soon amazed by the view. You could see all of Prague in its perfection. The sunshine was reflecting off the river, making the sailboats look as if they were dancing, the trees of the forest all the vibrant reds browns deep greens and gold of fall, surrounding the ancient but charming brick buildings of the city. It was absolutely beautiful.

We were tired from walking, but regardless we hiked back down, followed the river downstream and crossed it, then hiked back up to the castle to watch the sunset and the lights come on in the city. beautiful variations of pink streaked the sky, bleeding from the mountains and slowly bringing darkness over the river and town. Once the darkness came, the cold came along with it - not that it wasn't already cold. We head back down to eat dinner and rest a little at the hostel before going out.

That night we found ourselves at the "largest club in eastern europe", consisting of 5 different floors, all of which were a different theme. There was "radio hits" and "dance music", "oldies music", "chill out music", and the best and most politically incorrect floor, "black music", referring to rap, hip hop and R&B. This floor seemed to be the most popular, decked with light-show walls, a fog machine, strobe lights and a sunken dance floor. My favorite floor though had to be "Oldies", simply because they played 70's and 80's music and they had a floor that lit up in colored cubes so that you felt like you were in Saturday Night Fever. The best part had to be the 60 year old women dancing their hearts out, singing along in horrible accents, while the teen and 20 something boys looked on in fear of being chosen as a dance partner. The videos are hilarious.

The next morning was our last in Prague. For the last time we went to Coffee Heaven. For the last time we walked through the old town center and watched our favorite old man sing and dance and play either the saxophone or trumpet. It was sad. We went back to the John Lennon wall since the first time the lighting for pictures was impossible, then spent 200 crown on a fixed lunch near by with delicious vegetable soup and a piece of turkey barely bigger than my thumb served on lettuce - needless to say not enough. Then we wandered through the rest of the city we hadn't seen, including a beer garden with another incredible view of the city (but no beer), and the National Museum which had been next to our hostel the entire time and we didn't even know it (we learned on this trip that it's important to turn around and look behind you).

Even though we said goodbye to Prague, our adventure was far from over. Our flight was delayed about an hour, landing us in Paris at about 12:30 am, just in time for all the buses and the RER to stop running. Perfect. We had met a group of french guys while waiting for our delayed plane in Prague, they had told us that the RER ran until 2 am, and though we should have known better having lived in Paris for 2 and a half months now, we believed them. We ran off the plane, through the terminals, following the signs to the RER. One terminal was closed so we were forced to go outside, but it's ok, we'll just go back inside at the next one - wrong. The next terminal didn't exist. We somehow had to find a way across the winding overpasses - usually you would go underground or take a shuttle - the French guys we were with just started running. Astrid and I looked at each other, shrugged; we might as well run too. Across a curving overpass, over a gate, across a street to another locked terminal - shoot. Turn around, run back across the street, back over the gate, down the exit driveway into the parking garage, around a corner, up a service staircase, down two escalators to the level of train platforms: RER closed. We knew that guy was lying when he said it was open until 2:30; they must not be from Paris.

Since cabs cost about 50 euro into Paris, and Astrid and I were heading in different directions and no one was going to my district to share a cab with, we decided to camp out in CDG. Now inside the airport again, we wandered through the unlit terminals, waving to the workers as they passed us on their floor polishing cars, until we made our way back to terminal 2B. We set an alarm for 4:30 am and tried to get comfortable on the chairs; back pack on against one arm rest, butt in the seat, knees bent over the next arm rest, hat covering my face in attempt to block out the annoying florescent lights. After about an hour, I pushed my hat up to see Astrid looking at me, exhausted and delirious, she had an idea. There was a restaurant across from us which was closed, but outside of it's main gate they had a small patio area that blocked off by wooden partitions and tall plastic plants. There was a man in there who had pushed chairs together to make a bed and seemed to be sleeping quite comfortably - it was brilliant idea. After fighting my way through the plastic forest, I helped Astrid as we flipped chairs from their upside down position on the tables and pushed them against a wall- voila, our chair fort! We put on a few more layers, cuddled our bags and slept with our funny furry hats over our faces until my alarm went off at 4:30 am and we made our way home on the first RER.

Yay for chair forts in Charles! - not. At least it was an adventure all the same.