Belgium Birdie: Prague, Czech Republic

[Feb 4-7]

The first weekend in February was my first flight for a weekend trip; We flew to Prague, Czech Republic with Wizzair and had no complaints. All of our airfare has been relatively cheap within Europe so we were expecting the worst, but it was not bad at all! The plane was a decent size and departed/arrived on time.
Our flight was at 8:30am so we had to leave our hotel by 5:30am because you have to take an hour train ride from Brussels to the airport that the inexpensive flights fly out of. Regardless we were excited to wake up early and be on our way! In addition to my roommates, six other boys from our program joined us on this trip and it was a phenomenal travel group.
After the freezing cold weather in Paris and hearing that it is colder in Eastern Europe, I was much more prepared for this trip. We dressed in lots of layers and I wore both my north face and pea coat outside. Surprisingly however the weather was very pleasant when we stepped off the train and we knew it was a good omen for a great trip! When we first arrived at the airport we all had to take out money from the ATM because Czech Republic has its own currency and does not accept Euros. They have a high inflation rate so one US dollar was equal to 17 Czech crown; we felt like we were rolling in the dough when the ATM spit out two 1000 crown bills!
From the airport we checked into our hostel in order to put down our belongings before starting to see the city. The hostel was very interesting. It looked extremely old and we had three separate keys to get into our room because there were three different doors you had to open--at least we felt safe! In addition when the hostel manager was showing us to our room it took him about five minutes to get the last door open with the key in which he told us, "This one takes full power to open". Needless to say the boys had to open the doors and often times we had to wait several minutes before they were successful. It was nice however because we had a room just to ourselves with enough beds for all of us. We were secluded from any other hostel guests so we didn't have to lock our belongings in lockers, simply had to lock the door.
On Friday we ate at a restaurant close to our hostel because we were starving from our travel day. We soon discovered that most of the local food was relatively inexpensive in comparison to other European countries. We ate plentiful and delicious meals and always spent under $15!

Saturday was our exploratory day. We ate at a pizzeria for lunch and then starting walking around the city of Prague. It is such a beautiful city! It is very hilly however, so when I said we walked around, we definitely got our exercise in for the day. In the afternoon, five of us decided to walk to one of the highest hills in Prague to "czech it out" if you will. (Yes we may have overused the "czech" pun a lot this trip) Once getting to the top the view was spectacular; you could see the entire city! We then noticed however that there was a large tower on top of this hill that would have an even better view so we called this the "mini Eiffel Tower" and climbed up all of its spiral steps to the top. While we were very winded after all the steps, we were not disappointed. The sun was setting as we looked basically on top of the city. We could see the castle and large church as well as all of the distinct buildings. After taking numerous pictures we started the long walk down the hill to meet up with the rest of the group and go to dinner. Another amazing dinner was in store and we were more than full and satisfied when we left the restaurant! Czech is known for its dumplings so Laura, Trica and I split bread dumplings and they weren't exactly what we expected. To put in simply--the bread dumplings looked similar to soggy pieces of bread covered in a sauce. Regardless we were happy that we tried some ethnic food!

Sunday morning we woke up and took another free walking tour around the city. We had a great tour guide and another beautiful day during the three hour tour. It was very fascinating to hear the history of Prague and Czech because they were still under communist control for so long and just recently had their revolution in 1989. It was rich in culture and interesting to compare this Eastern European country with the Western European Belgium that we live in.
Our tour guide recommended a restaurant for us to try, and yes you guessed it--we were not disappointed! I tried the potato dumplings this time stuffed with meat and sourkraut and they were delectable, much much better than the bread dumplings from the night before!
After dinner the five of us that initally went exploring went back up to the top of the hill with the pretty view in order to see the city at night. When we got to the top we all separated for about thirty minutes to ourselves and really took it all in. It was so powerful to be so close to the bustling city but it be completely silent; you were able to look at this beautiful sight with only your thoughts surrounding you.
As if to completely oppose this peaceful place we eventually all walked back to our hostel together and watched the Superbowl! It aired at 12:30am in Prague and I was pulling for my Steelers!! We had a flight home Monday morning at 6:30am so we thought it would be a good idea to stay up watching the superbowl and then leave at 4am for the airport and catch the flight. While I was happy to be able to see the game, we missed the end with the exciting part and it made for a very unpleasant Monday. When the plane landed in Brussels three of us had to book it because we had Econ at 9:30am. We walked into class with ten minutes to spare and no sleep whatsoever. I then had Econ from 9:30-12:15 and Accounting following from 1:30-4:45pm. Needless to say I was beyond tired Monday night and will hopefully never have to pull an all nighter travel day again.

Prague was an AMAZING trip however and I loved the city! We had a great travel group, spectacular food and the weather cooperated. While we were there until Monday it still did not seem like enough time and I would go back in a heartbeat.