Prague

Prague- November 26-28th, 2011

Prague was amazing. If any city can get you in the Christmas spirit, it is Prague. The night we arrived, we realized how beautiful Prague was, even at night- everything was lit up, and the streets were lined with gas lamps. We got there late that night, so we got some dinner and headed to bed. I have to say, the currency exchange here was odd at first! They do not use Euros, they use Czech Crowns. Basically the exchange rate was about 25 crowns = 1 euro. Taking 3500 crowns out for the weekend sounded odd, but it was really only 130 euros! I quickly became accustomed to the exchange rate, and I actually liked their currency.

Although it was very cold that Saturday, we ventured out for the entire day. Our first stop was the Christmas festival in the main square (this was the first day of the festival). Everything was covered in decorations and lights, and a giant tree sat in the middle of the square. When we first entered the square, I saw the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life. It was like a small horse or a wolf, but it wasn’t… at least I don’t think it was. We saw four more of these strange dogs this weekend so we decided they are native to the area. We shopped at the vendors and listened to the Christmas music for a while before heading up to a monastery up on a hill overlooking the city for lunch. Apparently the monastery is a well-known brewery in the area so for lunch we all grabbed a beer and some goulash at the monastery’s restaurant- it was good! Later that day, we walked around the Prague Castle and adjoining church, and then we headed back down the hill where we went to the main square again to see it at night, and then to dinner. Being in Prague is like being in a fairytale- everything seems like it is straight out of a movie.

The next day we decided to sleep in a little. Once we woke up, we headed to the Prague tower, and went to the top to see the main square from above. Prague was even more beautiful from that view than it is on the ground… which is saying a lot. One thing I noticed about Prague was how clean it was. Every building looked freshly painted and the streets were clean- however maybe I feel this way coming from Italy, which is not clean. After we climbed the tower, we grabbed some sausages and my first Trdelnik of the weekend. Best served warm, Trdelnik is sweet dough covered in honey, wrapped around a metal bar, and slowly spun over a flame until crisp and golden. The little dessert cylinders were roasting on every corner. The outside is coated in sugar and almond pieces- It was finger-licking, mouth-watering goodness. The perfect treat on a cold day. I proceeded to eat three more of these this weekend. We started calling them turtlenecks because we didn’t know how to pronounce them- they are kind of a turtleneck shape too! After lunch, we headed to the Dancing Houses by Frank Gehry. These were a little less impressive than I imagined them to be, however after being in a historic city, seeing a very modern building was a little shocking. I like seeing pictures of this building away from this site, however being situated on a busy intersection takes away the interest of the site. We walked back into town along the river (hopefully burning some of the calories from the two Trdelnik’s I consumed earlier) and stopped in a few shops along the way. Later that day we stopped by the Alphonse Mucha museum’s gift shop. We didn’t want to pay the 200 crowns to get in to see an artist we didn’t really know much about, so we decided we could see some of his art from the posters in the gift shop. I actually like his work, very Art Nouveau. To finish our day, we continued to shop around some of the vendors and we grabbed dinner from a vendor at the Christmas festival. We didn’t have a ton of crowns left, so we had to be wise with what we spent our money on for dinner, but we succeeded in spending all of our crowns down to the penny.

The next morning I was sad to leave such a beautiful place. It was a really nice trip—my last trip of the semester :(- but it was a good one. I have one more week of hard work in studio before heading home on the 11th!