Prague

This past weekend I went to Prague---not only to visit the city---but also to visit some of my best friends from AU who are studying there. I left late Friday night after an AWFUL experience in the Brussels airport. I thought it would be a good idea not to check any luggage (I was afterall going to an Eastern European country plus I didnt want the hassle of waiting for it), but silly me forgot about the whole liquid thing. Unfortunately and surprisingly, Europe is even more strict about their liquid policy than America. I wasnt allowed to bring anything bigger than 100 ml (baisically the size of a hotel shampoo bottle) and so the security guard proceeded to throw out ALL of my cosmetics in front of me and the rest of the airport. THEN my bag goes through the x-ray and i am greeted on the other side by a sour looking Belgian who is insisting that i have a pair of scissors in my bag. After almost being late and then having all my things thrown out i was NOT in the mood to be accused of terrorism so I was not very pleasant about the fact that i DID NOT have scissors in my bag. So the stupid lady said "Fine, then I am going to take everything out of your bag." Which she proceeded to do....including underwear.....AGAIN in front of the whole airport. Turns out it was my eyelash curler. No apologies. And then i was patted down and wanded TWICE. I was shocked they didnt ask me to strip down. I mean I am all for security, but jesus...
SO ANYWAYS. I arrived Friday night and my friends Alli and Kristie picked me up at the airport and brought me back to Alli's apartment, which is where i stayed for the weekend. My other friend Brandon came over to meet us and then we went out to a Czech club called "Futurum" where it was an 80's night....complete with cheesy music and a big screen with music videos! Yay! We didnt get home until 5:30 am because it was so much fun, so Alli and i slept in pretty late the next day.
Saturday Alli took me to see some of the sights...we went to the Charles Bridge, probably the most touristy attraction in Prague, and had lunch. I ate beef goulash with potato dumplings which was delicious, but very heavy. Brandon met up with us and we walked around "old town", the Jewish quater and we saw the Tyn church where the famous "Astronomy clock" is. We went out to dinner and spent another night on the town with all their friends from their program.
Sunday we decided to be a bit more productive, so Alli and I got up early in the morning--and by early i mean 10 am--and went to Prague Castle. It was more of a palace than a castle, but there were beautiful views of the city since it was on a hill. We also went to St. Vitus church which was so old and beautiful. It was huge and had lots of dead people in it, but all the signs were in Czech so it was a little difficult to understand. The cool thing about St. Vitus, is that there is a statue of him in Brugge Belgium AND one on the Charles Bridge in Prague that face eachother in terms of direction which i think is pretty cool. We also went to the Senate Gardens which were really nice, they are probably beautiful in the spring and summer. There was this really cool man-made wall there that was made to look like the inside of a grotto, but the cool part was that the artist carved things into certain spots so it was neat to stare at it and try to find the hidden faces (i found a face of Satan...strange...).


We went out to lunch where I ate some more ethnic food...including this cheese that Brandon made me try that was PICKLED! It was actually really good though. We also went to "Petrin" which is a really big mountain that overlooks the whole city. It was really beautiful up there, and the fall colors were really nice. We did a mirror maze which was really hilarious and saw the "Prague Eiffel Tower" (not very original is it?).
That night we went to a Black Light Show...these things were all over Prague and we figured we would try it. It was called "Cabinet" and was a vocal-less show about this crazy inventor who has this cabinet that transfers you to an alternate reality of BLACK LIGHTS. There were all these strange dance performances where the people glowed. It was cool the way they did it because things would look like they were moving on their own....it is SO hard to explain (visit the link to get SOME idea of what i am talking about). http://golem.gringo.cz/subdom/3dom/palace/main My favorite scene was where this alien creature was having an epic battle with a piece of cloth that looked like swiss cheese. It was all very trippy and confusing and we just stared at eachother afterwards trying to figure out what the hell we just saw. As Brandon so aptly put it...."those were the things that nightmares are made of."
Alli and I went to bed relatively early, because i had a flight at 7 a.m. monday morning (UGH)....so i got a solid 4 hours sleep before i had to get up to go to the airport.
It was SO nice getting to be with my friends though and it was a nice break from Brussels. I was DEAD on Monday though, but it was more than worth to get to spend time with my best friends in such a cool city! Tonight we are leaving to go to Luxembourg, Germany and France for the rest of the week! More to come....

Love,
Cristen