aventuras de alyssa

The final installment in the Semana Santa vacation series! Sorry in advance, but it’s a long one! Thanks for hanging in there with me! 🙂

On Thursday, after our stop in Kutná Hora, we arrived in Prague at golden hour. It was so incredible to see the main plaza, called Old Town Square, lit up with the golden light from the sun. I was actually quite overwhelmed walking through the plaza because there were SO many people. We’re constantly warned about pick pockets, so I was hyper aware of that and trying to not lose my friends wading through the crowds. I couldn’t believe that I was overwhelmed and I live in NYC!!! There was an Easter market set up with all sorts of little shops selling souvenirs, hand-crafted items, food, and beer. There was also a stage where a group of kids from Prague were putting on a show, which we stopped to watch for a while.

After our free time in the plaza, we had our Medieval dinner & show! I was excited because I love Medieval Times in NJ and I thought it was the same, so I told everyone at my table that we had to eat with our hands… I hadn’t seen the cup of silverware so we were all idiots eating with our hands before someone noticed! We had five courses and unlimited drinks. They were extremely swift with replacing our beers, sometimes bringing new ones before we were remotely done with the previous. Talk about service!! 🙂 We watched a sword duel between two pirates, a snake charmer came out (and put the snake on Adrian – he was a champ! I would’ve cried), a guy spit fire and then swallowed it, there were belly dancers, and this one girl had a ring of fire that she was tossing around! It was wild!! And also extremely hot in the restaurant! Afterwards, we went to a nearby bar for some champagne and on the way home, missed the last subway so we had to wait for the tram for a while. It was an adventure navigating the public transport system!

Friday morning we had a walking tour with Thomas, who was from the UK but lives in Prague now. He had a very dry sense of humor and I enjoyed him greatly. On our walk into Prague’s palace, there was a marching band walking past us, speaking in Czech. Thomas started laughing hysterically and said this was their conversation:

Man 1: “Where do you think this group is from?”

Man 2: “They’re too thin, they can’t be Americans.”

Man 3: “But look at them smiling all stupid. They have to be!”

And so is the story of how we were made fun of by a marching band!! Apparently, a very telltale sign of American tourists is smiling all the time. Thomas said that Czechs and Eastern Europeans in general are cautious of us smiling because they don’t understand smiling if there’s nothing to actually smile about. I would 100% not survive in Eastern Europe for an extended amount of time!

Thomas took us on a walking tour of St. Vitus Cathedral, which was stunning. I was a bit sad because just a few days earlier the horrible fire at Notre Dame occurred and left us all reeling. Thomas assured us that the same wouldn’t happen to St. Vitus because it was only finished in 1929 (after nearly 600 years of construction), so there are more modern fire systems in place than there were at Notre Dame. Thomas then explained that most of the churches in Prague are constructed with two different sized bell towers. The north tower is skinnier, typically in the dark, and represents Eve. The south tower is wider, typically in the sun, and represents Adam. I wasn’t too pleased to hear this, since women were symbolized as darkness, but it reflected the times in which the churches were built and was an interesting tidbit of history.

After the palace, Thomas took us to these small little houses that used to be the homes of soldiers. They were built into the side of what used to be the city wall and the soldiers that lived there guarded the city. The houses were so cute, but they used to be quite disgusting because there was no plumbing in the alleyway. Can’t imagine living without running water!!! After stopping at a viewpoint of the city, we continued on to the John Lennon Wall. The John Lennon Wall was never actually seen or visited by him, but rather is a symbol of resistance because it was painted on in an act of rebellion against the communist regime. The wall is the only place in Prague where graffiti is allowed and every time you visit the wall, it’s different in some way because people are constantly adding to it. It was really cool to see this living piece of history!

The walking tour ended back in the Plaza, where we got lunch and some souvenirs. I tried langoš, which turns out to be a typical Hungarian dish but whatever!! It’s kind of like a pizza with fried bread, cheese, and garlic. I enjoyed it, but I wish there was a little more cheese on the one I had. Maesan came up with the idea for us to get matching “I ❤ PRAGUE” shirts and wear like the very cliché tourists do. We also got matching hand painted egg ornaments so that when it’s Christmas, we can hang up our eggs and remember the trip! The idea is that we’ll get “I ❤ NY”, “I ❤ TX”, etc. shirts from where we all live. It was really fun to wear our shirts around – we looked ridiculous, but there were 5 of us, so it was a gang of ridiculousness! We ended up going to this somewhat fancy restaurant for dinner wearing our shirts and it was hysterical. Bet you can’t guess what I had for dinner!!! (Answer will be at the bottom :P) After filling up on food, we had a bar crawl. The bar crawl hit four different bars and one club. It was a really fantastic time, dancing and enjoying our second to last night! We ended up getting McDonald’s at 2 am (after a struggle to find an open one), which was the perfect way to end the night! 😀

Saturday, we were up and at the plaza again to find some last souvenirs before meeting up for lunch with the rest of the group. We watched the Astronomical Clock, which honestly still amazes me. I’m not completely sure how it works and can’t explain properly, so I linked the Wikipedia page in the name if you’re interested in reading more. It was cool to see and we realized that the giant crowds in the plaza were for the clock because the crowds swelled around the hour marks! We met up with the group and walked to our lunch restaurant before the beer tasting. For lunch, I had delicious potato soup, fried cheese (which was legit a giant square mozzarella stick), and some sort of cake that was really good (my bad, I don’t know what it was called). We then went over to the beer tasting with our guide, Kevin. Kevin is also from the UK and he ran out of money while traveling. He was in Prague when he ran out, so he stuck around. Like all of our guides before him, Kevin was very funny and I think I learned the most on this “tour”!

We sampled seven different beers and the samples were not sample-sized, they were full glasses! Of course, I had to finish all of them because you can’t just leave beer especially when you’re in the beer capital of the world. Kevin informed us that in the Czech Republic, they drink the most beer per capita in the world, which means that the average adult drinks 3-4 beers a day. The Czechs aren’t religious people, so instead of going to church for community gatherings, they go to the bars. Beer is their religion! The first ever light beer (Pilsner) was created in the Czech Republic – before the pilsner there were only dark beers. In addition, Kevin told us that there used to be the German Purity Law for producing beer, meaning it could only have water, barley, and hops. Czechs still abide by this, which is why their beer is so good – no chemicals or other substances are added.

Afterwards, we wanted to enjoy the lovely weather and walk off the beer, so we went to the Petřín park to see the mini Eiffel tower and the views the park offers of the city. It was stunning! Of course we ended our trek down the hill with gelato 🙂 We headed back to the Old Town Square to meet Alex for our farewell dinner. It was more fried cheese for dinner (not mad about it) and Alex surprised us all with adorable gifts – a nail file with Swarovski crystals and a compact mirror with Prague’s skyline on the outside and our names etched into the glass on the inside! The boys got more “manly” gifts of a bottle opener and a cool pocket knife. I was tearing up because I didn’t want to say goodbye to my amazing new friends! Thankfully, we went another bar to dance a bit before heading home. Maesan finally got a DJ to play Taylor Swift and it was a great last night in Prague 🙂

Bottom right is Maesan and I with Alex ❤

Sunday it was time to leave! I was sad to leave my new friends, but I know I’ll see them again soon. And to my fellow trip pals: Thank you all for making the trip so special and can’t wait to have more OH SHIT moments together ❤

P.S. The answer to the dinner is…. chicken schnitzel! So much for trying new things lol!