Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Prague

I woke up this morning feeling much refreshed after about 11 hours of sleep. After a nice breakfast of eggs and a mini baguette topped with butter, ham and cheese (my new favorite!) we got ready and hit the town. We spent the day touring the city, which meant A LOT of walking. \you realize how truly out of shape you are when climbing impossibly steep hills to see castles and little villages in the hills. I now understand why Europeans are so skinny. Maybe it will rub off while I'm here!

When we got into the city it was raining, so the first part of the day was cold and wet. It kinda sucked to have to hold an umbrella while trying to take in all of the beautiful arcitecture and take pictures and such. It hindered the sightseeing experience for about the first hour. I think Iva got sick of the rain, so we decided to seek shelter in a mall (which was built inside an old building-so cool!).  But, after sending up some prayers, the sun eventually came out and the rest of the day was sunny and cool (so nice after the hot temps in GA). The rest of the day was fantastic! I saw so many sights, including the Czech National Theater, the residence of the President of the Czech Republic, the coolest old clock on the side of one of the cathedrals (It had moving statues! and a trumpeter), and old Prague, just to name a few. I could describe them all but this post would be impossibly long if I described in detail the beautiful sights and arcitecture. It is quite breath-taking! I would recommend Prague over Berlin if you ever get the chance to come to western Europe.

One thing I forgot to mention was the interesting sight we saw in a park in the city. There was a group of about 2 or 3 dozen women wearing these interesting plastic skirts over their normal clothes, and they were doing some weird syncronized interpretive dance while this guy gave them directions and took pictures and recorded them. I figure it was some sort of artistic thing, maybe practice for a performance or what not, but it was still very odd! Once I figure out how to put pictures on here, I will post some of them that I took.

An interesting thing I have noticed about Europe (or at least the Czech Republic) is that there is a cathedral in every small village, and sometimes more than one! It reminds me a bit of home in that there is a church on every corner. This is especially true for Prague. TONS of cathedrals! And every one of them is beautiful! They put all of our cathedrals back in the US to shame. OH, and most of them are older than our country. Incredible! If you are looking at my pictures on Facebook, you will notice tons of cathedrals.

Once we got back to the apartment where we are staying, Iva made us some homemade schnitzel for dinner, with boiled potatoes! It was delicious! So, I got my schnitzel, and got to taste a couple of other Czech specialties, including this one pastry that was incredible (it was spiraled dough that was rubbed with cinnamon and sugar, then toasted on a mini fire pit type thing. The inside is kinda doughy, but the outside is bake and flaky and it is wonderful. The food here is great. I might have a problem. Thank the Lord for all of the walking!

So, tomorrow is going to be a day of sightseeing while traveling. Iva is going to show me around her country, and along the way we are going to be stopping at a few of the different castles, at least the most famous ones in the Czech Republic. Can't wait to see a real castle for the first time! I keep joking that the only castle we have in the US belongs to Cinderella and is located in Orlando. Haha we failed in the castle department.

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