Thursday night when we landed in Prague at around 9 PM local time, we took a bus, the subway, and a tram in order to get to our hostel, which was on top of a big hill overlooking old town and underneath the famous castle, which was illuminated fully at night and was beautiful. After setting up in our private four-bed room, we went to bed around midnight.
Friday morning we work up at 9:30 before grabbing an all you can eat breakfast for 75 Czech Koruna, which is the equivalent of about US $3.75. Following breakfast, we made the walk down the hill and across the Charles Bridge, the oldest and fanciest bridge I have ever seen, into old town square for a free walking tour. On our tour, given by a Hungarian guide named David, showed us all the famous sectors and areas of the city in two hours, giving us some great history along the way. When that was over, we grabbed some street food in the big square, which was very good, before taking a paid tour of the Prague Castle itself, which is the oldest and biggest in Europe. On that tour, we saw some incredible cathedrals and battlements in a building that started to be built in the 800s. We also got to mess with the royal Czech guards, which don't even hold a candle next to the the guards at the English royal palaces but are still cool to look at. By the time that tour was over, it was almost 5, and we then went for an early dinner with two kids we met from DePaul University. We chose a small microbrewery in old town, and I had some delicious duck (for the first time), which came with some potato skins. After dinner, we all went to a jazz club and listened to some fantastic live music until around midnight, at which point we walked back to our hostel.
Having stayed up late on Friday, we all slept in on Saturday before having some breakfast and heading across the river to old town at noon. In old town, we went on a boat tour, which took us along the river and into some back canals which were really cool, especially with all the very old architecture that created them being above us. After the boat tour we had a small lunch before walking to the very top of the tallest hill in the city to a big metronome, which ticks back and forth where a statue of Joseph Stalin once stood but was blown up in the 60s. By that time it was 4, and in order to make the most of our last night we continued to walk around the city until 7. At 7, we went to a local restaurant near our hostel, where I had schnitzel for the first time in my life (it was delicious). Having to get up early on Sunday for our flight home, we were all in bed by 11.
Sunday was a travel day, and by the time we all got back to London all I wanted to to was take a run, eat dinner, and watch football. I executed that plan to perfection, ready to get up early on Monday to try and knock out some of the work that I have to do in the next 27 days.
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