well i managed to start off the trip with a pretty decent sized fuckup, as i always do. but its getting to the point now where i feel that the anticipated catastrophe at the beginning is just a sign that the rest of the trip can only be amazing. for some unknown reason i decided to leave booking my train tickets to and from paris to the absolute last day before i left, and not even in the morning, but 2:00 in the afternoon. so then when i found out that the morning train to get me there was sold out and i had no choice but to take the 8pm train that evening it was a frantic rush to pack ALL of my stuff, shower, find a hostel in paris, attempt to teach myself the essential phrases in czech and hungarian (two insanely FUCKED up languages might i add), eat, and get my ass to le gare. needless to say i managed somehow and was off on the tgv to paris. by the time i arrived it was too late to really do anything so i just headed to my hostel and bunkered down for the night. i could see the eiffel tower from my hostel and i realized that after 5 months of living in this country it still hasn't sunk in that i can just jump on a train for 1.5 hours and there i can stand, at the bottom of the tour d'eiffel.
woke up early and attempted to shower, but i'm pretty sure the water was literally turning to ice as it came out, so i decided to pass. grabbed some breakfast and headed off the the metro to get my ass to porte maillot stop and catch the shuttle bus out to beauvais airport. my flight was slightly delayed (as they always seem to be from beauvais airport) but nothing substantial, and before long i was touching town in praha, czech republic!
from the airport i grabbed a shuttle to prague city center and then was on the hunt to find my hostel, travellers hostel.
once i had checked in sans problems i was out and about to explore what the city had to offer. even with my trusty map in hand i found it slightly difficult to get my bearings straight, and in attempt to find some sights i eventually realized i was actually at the complete opposite end of the town and nowhere near where i wanted to be. luckily prague isn't the biggest place, and i was able to walk absolutely everywhere. after spending the majority of my first day wandering around the "new town" i felt a little let down with prague, everything seemed so commercialized, and every gorgeous building i would see would just turn out to be another shopping mall.
the next morning i decided it would be a good time to take the free walking tour and see what was really out there.
usually i'm not a fan of guided tours in any way, shape or form, but this was actually awesome. i learned all about the depressing history of prague and how they manage to overcome their hardtimes after the communist invasion and become the city the are today. i also learned all the major points on the map to really help me be able to navigate myself around a lot easier. i spent the following two days walking for about 10 hours straight a day, taking in as much as i could. seeing everything including old town square with the astronomical clock (the world's oldest clock still working with its original mechanical parts),
the gorgeous national museum,
the john lennon wall,
karlův most, also known as charles bridge (which was sadly half under construction during my visit), the famous fred and ginger dancing building,
the jewish town (and the 12 layered jewish cemetery......), so many churches (which apparently the czech no longer care about since the communists ruined their religious lives, so now they just used them all for "laserbeam shows or concerts"), incredible architecture, and my favorite place of all: prague castle (one of the biggest castles in the world).
you had to hike up about 120 steps to get to prague castle but once you got to the top the view was definatly worth it. the castle itself was also really cool as it pretty much includes every architectural style of the last millennium because it has been continuously added to throughout the years/decades (although unfortunatly now, a lot of parts of the castle are used as museums, restaurants or other tourist traps... it was still beautiful).
i met a cool couple from outside chicago at my hostel and we felt it necessary to hit up the bar upstairs as they had cheap cheap beers, four kinds of absinth, and every third tequila shot was free; so it didn't seem like something that could be missed. a good time was had by all, but it was a shame that the kareokee machine was out of order, i think that would have taken things to another level. on my last night in prague i met up with a bunch of girls from the cief (that's the name of my school in france, for those of you who are unaware) and we grabbed some dinner together and i took them on a quick walk of the city to show them some of my favorite spots. then it was back to the hostel to pack up my stuff and get a few hours of shut eye before i was off to catch the bus to budapest!
that's all for now, i have the joy of starting second semester bright and early tomorrow, so i will finish this post later. hopefully by then my computer will fuck off and co-operate with me, and i'll be able to throw in some pictures here and there. stayed tuned, budapest and the return to dijon to come! biz x
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