Free Day in Prague

I was a total ass to my rommie this morning.  I definitely pulled a Denver, by setting my alarm an hour before the time that I actually got up.  Letting it go off every 10 minutes and pushing snooze every single time.  She must have gotten sick of it, because when I finally got it she was already gone, at least I thought she was. 

The way that the security system works in the dorms is that there is a key for each room, which has two bedrooms, a mini fridge and sink, a shower room, a toilet room and a little free space. Each bedroom has a separate key as well.  As you know from before I shared my room with Renee and Emily and Aimee were in the other bedroom.  The last person to leave the room is supposed to lock up and drop the key off at the reception on their way out.  None of us have been sleep been sleeping very well in the morning.  We’ve all been waking up around 3-4 am trying to fall back asleep and sometime giving up by 6 am and just getting up.  Renee has been getting up pretty early and leaving in the morning to go check her email and chat with the boyfriend, so I figured she had done the same this morning.  I heard someone in the shower and just assumed it was the other girls getting ready and didn’t put much more thought into it.  I did my regular thing, got ready to go on my run, locked up our room and headed out, handing the key in at the front desk, figuring that Renee would just pick it up when she got back from checking her email.

I ran along the river again this morning.  I went the direction away from the tourist area to start, but when I started coming across sketchy looking buildings that looked like they were still being lived in I was worried that I was crossing in to the ghetto areas. I turned back and heading into the tourist area, where I had run the day before.  I was gone for about 40-60 minutes, so probably about a 7-9km run.  When I got back Renee was in the room and she filled me in our events from the morning.  It turns out it was her in the shower before I left and I had locked her out of our room with nothing but her towel.  This was even more exciting when she had to go visit the reception in her towel (located in front of a big open window that looks out to the street) and he said he didn’t have the key to our room.  When I left no one was at the desk, so I just slipped the key window opening onto the desk.  Thank God we were only on the second floor so she didn’t have to run down a few flights of stairs or take the lift down in her towel.  The employee went up and opened our room door for her and later found our key and brought it back up for her.  I was pretty thankful that she is very light hearted and even though I was very apologetic we were both able to find quite a bit of humour in the scenario.

We had a free day today to check out the city.  By this point there was a little group formed with some decent ideas of places to check out and were ready to take off.  I told them if they were willing to give me a few to get ready. After everyone waited for me to get ready quickly, who would have guessed a group of us headed out a day of adventures in the city.  In all fairness they said that is was good that they had to wait for me because more people joined onto the group because of it.

Nathan our self appointed himself as the group’s tour guide.  He led us along city’s the popular tourist route to Charles Bridge.  We were thankful to escape the tourist trap when we found a little staircase off of it that took us to a beautiful empty street that led into a park.  We followed it still be came to a art piece that represented the end of the communist era and the tram that would lead take us up the hill towards an old mosque.   

We also came across a Labyrinth (mirror maze) that we got to act like little kids in making our stomach hurt from laughing so hard,

              a lot of ridiculous pictures were taken while walking through the castles mote

  

 and  we also saw couple older historic buildings along the way. 

The 5ish hour walking tour ended at the groups popularly visited Pizzeria on the same block as our hostel.

 The evening was used for catching up with a few people back at home and through around some ideas for travels after the course with Renee.  I am still very indecisive about my after course travel plans.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so on the rocks with what I want.  One day I am convinced the best thing to do is to go home and then the next I convinced to stay and keep traveling.  Now that others people plans are dependent on what mine are the pressure is really on and time has basically run out.  I’ve been waiting for something to happen to simplify the situation and will make me 100% convincing on what should be done but like I said it hasn’t come.                                                                                                  

Class Walking Tour Day & Exploring the Castle

I was committed to go for a run this morning and I did.  A few people in the group had said they were interested in coming with me previously but they all weren’t that up for it when the morning came.  I told Renee the route I was thinking about taking in case I didn’t make it back in a decent amount of time and they needed to come look for me.  Without realizing I started running the opposite way I had hold Renee and quickly turned around once it clicked in.  It pretty hard to run on large cobblestone, you feel like your ankles are going to roll all the time but it felt great to be out and moving.

Our class schedule started at 10 am this morning. The lecture was pretty overwhelming with all kinds of dates and names of historical figures throughout Europe’s history.  After the lecture we headed out for the big city walk heading toward the castle.  We made a food stop off along the way, picking up for greasy potato pancakes and sausage but they were really good.  David (the teacher) parted ways with us at the castle and we stayed to tour through the buildings and the surrounding areas for the next 5ish hours.

 Our feet were sore by the end of the day but we saw a lot of the castle area,

                                                             ate some traditional food,

                                                            got some great scenic shots,

                                                     and walked the tourist route through the city.

Rainy Day in Prague

It was a cold night last night.  I woke up a lot throughout the night because I was so cold.  The hit kicking in around 4 am which made it a little more comfortable.  When I woke up in the morning I thought someone was in the shower but it was just the sound on pouring rain on the cement outside.  We were supposing to meet with David our teacher for breakfast and to go on a class walk of the city. 

Breakfast here is some pretty dense bread, meat, cheese, coffee and OJ.  The meal itself is pretty heavy but doesn’t do much in the way of satisfying my breakfast cravings in the morning. 

The raining didn’t stop and our big walking tour was shortened to a here is a good bar to check out and here is the grocery store style tour.  The full walk through the city is walking till tomorrow.

The air is really cold and the streets are a little slippery when wet because they are all cobblestone roads.  The cold started to really get to me and I found out that the Ukraine was gonna be even colder  so Breanne, Renee and I went searching the stores for warm layers and some warm bake goods from the grocery store.

We went to check up an authentic Czech pub for dinner, that we were told would be a big culture shock but it really wasn’t all that exciting.  We went in to the smoke filled room and sat for a little bit.  No one came over to bring us menus and the smoke was really getting to a couple of us, so we decided to head back to the trusty pizzeria again for dinner. 

There are lots of people that smoke here.  Everyone is free to smoke in restaurants, cafes, pubs, etc and there are no sections dividing up smokers and non- smokers.

Niagara, ON – Toronto, ON- Frankford, Germany – Prague, Czech Republic-Frankford, Germany

May 1, 2011



My flight left from Toronto at 5:30 pm today.  I didn’t get a whole lot done this morning.  Just finished packing up, popped in at the garden centre for some good byes and stopped in Oakville for some last minute shopping stop.  I arrived 2 hours before as normal for an international flight.  One hour was spent in the Air Canada line to check in and the other was spent in the security line up.  When I made it to the gate I had about 5 minutes to buy a bottle of water and make a last minute phone call before boarding the plane.

                                                          May 2, 2011

I arrived in Frankford just after 7 am this morning and was greeted by a few young female airport attendants who collected all the passengers heading to Prague and Amsterdam and lead us onto a bus.  The bus drove us over to a building with customs and security and then another bus took the Amsterdam passengers right to the stair case of their plane and us to the gate for ours.  I saw inside of the Frankfort airport for about 10 minutes before boarding the next plane.  Due to the lack of sleep on the last flight I pretty much passed out for this one.  I only woke up for the granola and liquid yogurt breakfast that was served, and then fell asleep again.

I was still exhausted when I reached Prague.  My luggage showed up, a little bonus for this flight but the minibus that my teacher had advised me to jump on to take to the hostel, but I found a shuttle bus that went into downtown and jumped on that instead.  I had a little map I picked up at the kiosk in the airport to figure out where my hostel was.

When I arrived the sun was out but I was too tired to stay outside.  My room wasn’t ready yet and the only other person from the group that had arrived was out for the day already, but they let me up.  I took the blanket that I stole from the plane and threw it over the duvet that was there and curled up in a ball and slept until the cleaning lady came and changed the sheets so I could crawl into bed and continue to sleep the afternoon away. I woke up around 5pm Czech time and went to search out some WiFi.  I found a Starbucks a couple blocks away and hung out of the internet for a few hours.

When I made it back to the hostel/ dorm my roommate Renee had arrived and the rest of the class.  We all headed over the pizzeria at the end of the block for a some dinner and to hang out for our first night as a group.