(I have no idea why the formatting is so weird on this post and no matter what I try, I can't fix it. I apologize.)
We took Orangeways to Prague. The bus was nice enough, as comfortable as a bus can be, I guess. The ride was long, though, and I didn't bring enough food with me so I was extremely hungry by the time the trip was over. During the ride, mediocre movies I've already seen played, like Date Night, Bounty Hunter, and Prince of Persia. I did enjoy the scenery, though, because there were so many country hamlets all centered around a church with a single steeple, and they were all so beautiful. And I noticed that cities are more visually appealing usually because the buildings are so many colors! I was mentally comparing it to driving through Baltimore and other places, and realized that that was the major difference, plus less pollution. I couldn't sleep at all, however, even though I was exhausted from the late night before, followed by an early morning. I had to get up at 4:30 to pack and shower and get to the bus station early.
We took Orangeways to Prague. The bus was nice enough, as comfortable as a bus can be, I guess. The ride was long, though, and I didn't bring enough food with me so I was extremely hungry by the time the trip was over. During the ride, mediocre movies I've already seen played, like Date Night, Bounty Hunter, and Prince of Persia. I did enjoy the scenery, though, because there were so many country hamlets all centered around a church with a single steeple, and they were all so beautiful. And I noticed that cities are more visually appealing usually because the buildings are so many colors! I was mentally comparing it to driving through Baltimore and other places, and realized that that was the major difference, plus less pollution. I couldn't sleep at all, however, even though I was exhausted from the late night before, followed by an early morning. I had to get up at 4:30 to pack and shower and get to the bus station early.
When Caitlin, Dani, Julie, and I arrived in Prague, we immediately found an ATM to acquire some crowns and then chowed down at the conveniently located Burger King before heading off to find the hostel. The metro wasn’t too hard to figure out, and the hostel had pretty good directions printed on the booking receipt, so we found it with little trouble. The public transportation in Prague is actually pretty good. It has the same number of metro lines as Budapest, but the metro system seemed more up-to-date and efficient, as if the lines were placed better or something, I don’t know.
The hostel we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard. The bottom floor of it was a pub with the reception desk located at the bar, and it was dark but cozy and there were computers we could use for free to get on the Internet, which I didn’t realize until the last day, so I didn’t really take advantage of it. Our room was on the top floor of the hostel, so there were a lot of stairs. We were in a room with 32 beds but only about 10 people, so it could’ve been much worse. The beds weren’t that comfortable, but they were cheap and clean, and we got lockers with interesting graffiti on them. 
The first day was spent in spontaneity. We walked to the old town area after a woman from the hostel wrote some directions and marked important things on our map. It was beautiful. I felt like I wasn’t even in a real place, and while it was overwhelmingly touristy, it was still amazing. I can’t even imagine people actually living there, but there were apartments in the area.
We wandered around, just taking everything in, and saw a Museum of Torture. Of course, Dani and I needed to go there, so the four of us paid the entry fee and descended down the spiral stairs. It was so cool! It reminded me of the project of torture devices I did in 6th grade with two of my friends, and it was cool to actually see the things I read about. It was creepy, I’ll admit, because there were many wax figured demonstrating the use of these things, but still really interesting. Julie and Caitlin couldn’t handle it and rushed through, so we went to a nearby chocolate museum afterwards to be fair. That was fun, because we got to see a guy demonstrate the art of making chocolates, which came with a free sample, but then the experience ended in the chocolate store, where I spent too much money. But they had chocolate covered Belgian waffles…so delicious.
We went up the tower where the astronomical clock was without even noticing that the astronomical clock was there, which was actually kind of dumb of us, but we were excited about going up the tower to see the city. It was about dusk then, and so the city was illuminated beautifully and we could see everything!!
When we got back down, we admired the astronomical clock before eating dinner at an Italian place located out of the hustle and bustle of the main tourist zone, so it wasn’t ridiculously expensive. We did a ghost tour that night, which was so much fun because our guide was inexperienced and therefore kind of hilarious, albeit unintentionally. I took photos of what he said were orbs, but I think that’s bogus. We also did an underground ghost tour with him after, and that was more creepy because it was dark and we had lanterns and people used to be tortured there. We planned the next day before going to bed.
We got up the next morning and ate the hostel breakfast at 9, which was basically stale bread and cereal and boiled eggs (ew). We first went to the Mucha museum because he’s one of Caitlin’s favorite artists, and that was nice. I didn’t have a whole lot of fun there but I could appreciate it. We then went to the Jewish district to see the cemetery, but it was the Sabbath so everything was closed. Bad planning on our part. We set off to the castle, planning to walk across a bridge and through a park to get there scenically, but our plans were kind of thwarted by a half marathon that was occurring that day. We ended up getting stuck in the marathon’s loop for over an hour before finding a metro station to get to the other side of the river that way. We ran into Laura, who was there with her parents, and they ripped out a page of their guidebook with a dinner recommendation on it, which was very nice of them.
The royal gardens were beautiful, but we were running out of time at that point so we hurried over to the ticket office and bought the smaller version of the castle tickets that would get us into three places rather than all of them. The gothic cathedral was magnificent, as gothic cathedrals usually are. The castle part itself, though, didn’t look like a castle at all. I guess it was more of a palace but not very gaudy at all. The inside looked like a castle, though, and there were balconies with gorgeous views of the city. We also got to go to a medieval Catholic church. We were so exhausted after, though, so we sat on a cool looking bench and ate some food from a stand nearby. I hadn’t liked my lunch (obtained in the Jewish district after much exploring to find something that wouldn’t eat my wallet), and so I got something that claimed to be a hot dog but was actually kind of gross. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which was gorgeous but had way too many tourists on it, and made our way to a Czech pub for dinner. I tried garlic soup, which was surprisingly good. We went souveneir shopping after, and some shopkeeper kept trying to get me to buy vodka with a worm in it, which is apparently a thing people drink. It grossed me out and we instead went to a different store, where I bought a Slavic nesting doll for my parents as well as one for me.
The royal gardens were beautiful, but we were running out of time at that point so we hurried over to the ticket office and bought the smaller version of the castle tickets that would get us into three places rather than all of them. The gothic cathedral was magnificent, as gothic cathedrals usually are. The castle part itself, though, didn’t look like a castle at all. I guess it was more of a palace but not very gaudy at all. The inside looked like a castle, though, and there were balconies with gorgeous views of the city. We also got to go to a medieval Catholic church. We were so exhausted after, though, so we sat on a cool looking bench and ate some food from a stand nearby. I hadn’t liked my lunch (obtained in the Jewish district after much exploring to find something that wouldn’t eat my wallet), and so I got something that claimed to be a hot dog but was actually kind of gross. We walked across the Charles Bridge, which was gorgeous but had way too many tourists on it, and made our way to a Czech pub for dinner. I tried garlic soup, which was surprisingly good. We went souveneir shopping after, and some shopkeeper kept trying to get me to buy vodka with a worm in it, which is apparently a thing people drink. It grossed me out and we instead went to a different store, where I bought a Slavic nesting doll for my parents as well as one for me.
We didn’t have much time the next day because we had to be at the bus station by 3. We went to a fortress, and it was amazing. It was located on the river and it was gorgeous and I was so disappointed that my camera was near death and I had brought the wrong power adapter with me. We tried to go back to the Jewish district, but found that you couldn’t get into the cemetery without buying a ticket for a bunch of other places, which we had not budgeted for or left time for, so we gave up on that idea and ate lunch instead before heading back. Prague was beautiful, and it would have been nice to have more time there to do things more slowly and leave time to just wander around the streets without an agenda.
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