So here I am, more than one month later, FINALLY getting around to blogging about my backpacking trip. Luckily I journaled throughout the trip, so I do have a fairly accurate depiction of my thoughts/feelings as they were.
So the morning on my flight to Prague, it was absurdly hot. I mean, wake up covered in sweat hot. So I thought to myself "Its summer. Its going to be this hot the entire trip. I'm not bringing a single pair of pants along". I took my one pair of jeans out of my bag and smiled at my extra room I now had, knowing that it would be able to hold something I bought along the way. Guido picked me up in his car and drove me to Treviso, singing along to Nicki Minaj and other absurd things (If you've never heard and Italian guy rap Nicki Minaj, it actually gives reason to listen to her). The line at the airport was super long and I cleared through check in with about two minutes to spare, and I raced downstairs and managed to be one of the last people on my flight.
We got to Prague just over an hour later, and of course it was raining and freezing. Immediate regret of not bringing pants. Jake, my friend from elementary school who currently teaches English in Prague, met me at the airport and we headed toward his house. I met Kevin, his friend from college who would be joining us on our epic adventure. We chilled out for about an hour before heading back into town. The first day was pretty relaxed, we saw a bit around the Old Town and Church (called Malostenska) and enjoyed the architecture and met up with one of Jakes friends. He went to look at an apartment and Kevin and I went to a supermarket to buy some dinner. We bought bread, cheese, meat, random spreads, and some dessert and had a little picnic by one of the canals. We went to the train station to get our tickets to Krakow but found out they were way more expensive than we thought they would be (about $50) so decided to look at a different place tomorrow. After dinner we decided to head back to Jakes because we were all pretty tired, so we watched Eurotrip and went to bed
The next day we woke up pretty early and got some traditional Czech pastries for breakfast, which cost around 1 euro (or roughly 25 czech crowns) We headed again toward old town and found an outdoor market where I got some more breakfast because there was a waffle stand and waffles are awesome. We spent pretty much the entire day walking, seeing Old Town Square, the Lennon wall, the locks, and The Charles Bridge. We met up with Jakes other room mate Dan and went to a botanical garden which had a bird Jake fell in love with. We went to this hill that overlooks Prague with more of Jakes friends and smoked and had a really lovely picnic overlooking an awesome sunset. I also played with quite possibly the most adorable dog that has ever lived. We went to a bus station and tickets to Krakow were still really expensive ($35) so we went home to research cheaper ways to get there and found a few good solutions we planned on exploring the next day.
The next day we went to Kutna Hora, a city about an hour outside of Prague. While we were at the station we found a way to get to Wroclaw, Poland for only about $12, so we bought those bus tickets and decided we'd catch a train to Krakow from there. On the way to Kutna Hora, we fucked up our trains like 4 times so it took us a few hours to get there. When we got there, we went and looked at The Bone Church, which is named that because its interior is made entirely of human bones. It was pretty awesome but also really strange to think that I was basically standing in a glorified grave. Upstairs there was a guestbook where someone had signed it "This Place Cray- Kanye and Jay Z" which made me laugh a lot (and still does). We headed back to Prague after a quick stop of ice cream and had dinner with Jakes friend Eloise and watched "Anchorman" because she had never seen it before. We had some vodka and decided to go to some clubs. We started at Cross Club, which was this really strange industrialized hippie/dub step place that was set up like the worlds most absurd maze. I got lost roughly a dozen times. We stayed for a while because we had paid to get in, but it was definitely not my style of a place to be. We moved on to a regular dance club that had way less people so was way more fun. I spent the night laughing at Jake breakdancing and breakdance fighting with strangers, dancing hysterically with Dan, and trying to not bump into the many couples furiously making out on the dance floor. We left when the bar closed which was when the sun was coming up and started making our way home. While we were waiting for our tram, Dan and I kept dancing to songs that he was making up as he went, like "down the rooooooad theres a McDonalds, I wonder if theres anyone at the McDonaldsssss" and I could not stop laughing because this went on for nearly a half an hour. I still think its funny. Then we got back to Jakes, grabbed our shit, said goodbye to Dan and tried to convince him to meet us in Brussels, and hopped on our bus to Wroclaw!
So the morning on my flight to Prague, it was absurdly hot. I mean, wake up covered in sweat hot. So I thought to myself "Its summer. Its going to be this hot the entire trip. I'm not bringing a single pair of pants along". I took my one pair of jeans out of my bag and smiled at my extra room I now had, knowing that it would be able to hold something I bought along the way. Guido picked me up in his car and drove me to Treviso, singing along to Nicki Minaj and other absurd things (If you've never heard and Italian guy rap Nicki Minaj, it actually gives reason to listen to her). The line at the airport was super long and I cleared through check in with about two minutes to spare, and I raced downstairs and managed to be one of the last people on my flight.
We got to Prague just over an hour later, and of course it was raining and freezing. Immediate regret of not bringing pants. Jake, my friend from elementary school who currently teaches English in Prague, met me at the airport and we headed toward his house. I met Kevin, his friend from college who would be joining us on our epic adventure. We chilled out for about an hour before heading back into town. The first day was pretty relaxed, we saw a bit around the Old Town and Church (called Malostenska) and enjoyed the architecture and met up with one of Jakes friends. He went to look at an apartment and Kevin and I went to a supermarket to buy some dinner. We bought bread, cheese, meat, random spreads, and some dessert and had a little picnic by one of the canals. We went to the train station to get our tickets to Krakow but found out they were way more expensive than we thought they would be (about $50) so decided to look at a different place tomorrow. After dinner we decided to head back to Jakes because we were all pretty tired, so we watched Eurotrip and went to bed
The next day we woke up pretty early and got some traditional Czech pastries for breakfast, which cost around 1 euro (or roughly 25 czech crowns) We headed again toward old town and found an outdoor market where I got some more breakfast because there was a waffle stand and waffles are awesome. We spent pretty much the entire day walking, seeing Old Town Square, the Lennon wall, the locks, and The Charles Bridge. We met up with Jakes other room mate Dan and went to a botanical garden which had a bird Jake fell in love with. We went to this hill that overlooks Prague with more of Jakes friends and smoked and had a really lovely picnic overlooking an awesome sunset. I also played with quite possibly the most adorable dog that has ever lived. We went to a bus station and tickets to Krakow were still really expensive ($35) so we went home to research cheaper ways to get there and found a few good solutions we planned on exploring the next day.
The next day we went to Kutna Hora, a city about an hour outside of Prague. While we were at the station we found a way to get to Wroclaw, Poland for only about $12, so we bought those bus tickets and decided we'd catch a train to Krakow from there. On the way to Kutna Hora, we fucked up our trains like 4 times so it took us a few hours to get there. When we got there, we went and looked at The Bone Church, which is named that because its interior is made entirely of human bones. It was pretty awesome but also really strange to think that I was basically standing in a glorified grave. Upstairs there was a guestbook where someone had signed it "This Place Cray- Kanye and Jay Z" which made me laugh a lot (and still does). We headed back to Prague after a quick stop of ice cream and had dinner with Jakes friend Eloise and watched "Anchorman" because she had never seen it before. We had some vodka and decided to go to some clubs. We started at Cross Club, which was this really strange industrialized hippie/dub step place that was set up like the worlds most absurd maze. I got lost roughly a dozen times. We stayed for a while because we had paid to get in, but it was definitely not my style of a place to be. We moved on to a regular dance club that had way less people so was way more fun. I spent the night laughing at Jake breakdancing and breakdance fighting with strangers, dancing hysterically with Dan, and trying to not bump into the many couples furiously making out on the dance floor. We left when the bar closed which was when the sun was coming up and started making our way home. While we were waiting for our tram, Dan and I kept dancing to songs that he was making up as he went, like "down the rooooooad theres a McDonalds, I wonder if theres anyone at the McDonaldsssss" and I could not stop laughing because this went on for nearly a half an hour. I still think its funny. Then we got back to Jakes, grabbed our shit, said goodbye to Dan and tried to convince him to meet us in Brussels, and hopped on our bus to Wroclaw!
