Dogs of Prague...

We are home safe and sound! Thank you all for your comments on our blog! We looked forward to hearing from you every day! We miss Prague a lot, but it is good to be back home where the napkins, water, and bathrooms are free!



This post is dedicated to dogs in Prague...



They were everywhere!



This sign means that dogs can run freely in the park without a leash:





This one was patiently waiting outside the grocery for her owner and checking to see if she was almost done:





This one was hanging out at a tourist spot:





This one was just walking around the sqaure and being cute!





This one was also waiting outside the grocery store for her owner, but decided to sniff around:





This one is our favorite. He hung out in this spot on a daily basis next to our hostel.

Hello all, and welcome to our last blog post from Praha, Ceska Republika. We are very sad to say that we leave this coming Saturday, August 4 to return home to Louisville. The trip has been amazing - a truly life-changing experience for both of us - we've made some great friends, seen some of the most beautiful things in the entire world, and experienced a different culture first-hand. We are, however, just about ready to come home. We've spent the last few days "saying goodbye" to all of our favorite places and things and are about to spend our last day, Friday, taking a huge walk around the city. Here is a round-up of what's gone on in the past week:

On Monday, we went to a nice dinner with our friends Ken and Rachelle, at Cafe Monet. Jessica probably had the best time of all of us, saying that here salad was one of the best she'd ever had and also getting sung Celine Dion songs:


("Near, far, wherever you are...")

Afterwards, we went to a casino, just to try our luck with some 50 Kc (about $2.50) pieces. Surprisingly, we all won. On a 50Kc bet, Rachelle won 600 Kc ($30) in the slot machines. Jess + Zach won about 400 Kc on 50 Kc. Ken, capped off the night with a spin worth 4500 Kc ($225). Of course, he had already spent a little more than $200, so he came out about the same amount ahead as the rest of us.

Afterwards we went to karaoke at the Blind Eye in Zizkov where Jessica sang some No Doubt.

On Tuesday, we woke up for class and then took a walk around the Old Town part of the city, ate at Bohemia Bagel, and stopped into some glass stores. Zach bought Jessica a pair of Cubist-inspired earrings made by a check company, called BeldaFactory, that are super-neat, because we were going out with all of our friends for a live-it-up dinner before we left.

For dinner, we decided on a place called Cowboys, part of the Kampa Group (owners of all the nicest restaurants in Prauge). Zach made reservations early for the six of us - Melissa, Rachelle, Lizzie, Ken, Jessica, and Zach. It's a good thing he did, because a) it got incredibly crowded, and b) we got the best seats in the house. The restaurant is in a converted house in Mala Strana with brick arches inside and a porch backing up to the Prague castle on the roof. Being on a high hill in Mala Strana, you can see the entirety of Old Town from this vantage point. That's where we sat:


(from our seats)


(from balcony)


(from balcony)


(plaster cow)

Since it was live-it-up night, we decided to do so. Jess got a huge hamburger and french fries:


(mmmmm....)

Zach got a juicy steak:


(mmmm....)

We were at the restaurant for about 2 and a half hours and had such a great time we didn't want to leave when all of our food was gone. So we took the party to a few more bars afterwards, dancing the night away.

On Wednesday, we used the day to say "goodbye" to all of our favorite things...

Funny people:

(Moustache man, with cute baby in background)

Non-Stop Letna for all of your late-night needs:


Old Town around Charles University - there aren't as many tourists:






Old Town Square - beautiful beyond all reason, despite the tourist hordes:

(Astronomical Clock)


(AC)


(AC)


(Overdone Facades)


(House pictures - they used these to give street locations before addresses)


(Where they are doing restoration work on the Wenceslas Statue)


(The soaring steeples of Tyn Church)


(St. Nicholas Church)

Tyn Square:

(Entrance)


(Buildings)


(Tyn Church)


(Gateway to the courtyard)


(The gigantic windows of Tyn Church)


(Cafe Ebel, our favorite American-style coffehouse)

Our Hostel's Street:

(Creepy squirrel on school building)


(Our street sign)


(School of design across the way)


(Our corner recycling bins)


(View of hostel from outside)

We went to dinner at Fraktal, our favorite dinner spot, with Lizzie and another student on the trip, named Cap. We said goodbye to our favorite beer, Velkopovicky Kozel (or "Candy beer" as we call it).



Then, we started packing, studying for our exam on Thursday, and went to bed early.

Thursday, we had our exam and then spent the rest of the day getting a copy of The Economist (at the Globe, an English-language bookstore in SoNa where we also got good nachos in their cafe) and writing summaries of articles for our final class assignment. For dinner, we had a farewell dinner with the whole group at a huge Czech restaurant in Mala Strana (ZB, our director's, choice). To officially "say goodbye" to the Czech Republic, we got goulash, the tradition Czech beef-stew dish with dumplings. It wasn't that great, but hey, we had to get it.


(Goulash)

We came back right before it started to pour down rain, nixing our ideas to hang out in Letna Park for a little while. We decided to go to bed early and save our energies for today. As I write this, we are preparing to do one final walk through all our favorite parts of town, taking pictures along the way. We will eat at Beas, our favorite lunch spot and have dinner with Ken at Fraktal, one last time.

We leave in less than 24 hours, a sad fact, but one that we cannot avoid. These have been the best 5 weeks of our lives and we are so thankful for all of the support that you have given us in getting here - we couldn't have done it without you. We will see many of you very soon, others in not-so-long of time; we can't wait! We miss you all so much! We are so very thankful that we were able to have this experience and will remember it always.

Love,

Jess + Zach

So, after another weekend away from Prague, we are officially back in our hostel, safe and sound.

On Friday morning, our friend Ken, our teacher Melissa and the two of us left for a nice weekend in Cesky Krumlov. After a miraculously short bus ride (the four of us slept almost all the way there) we arrived at around eleven. We made the short walk into town and found our hotel after a bit of searching.


(Hotel Arcadie)

Zach's superior tour guide skills allowed him to get us a sweet room complete with CNN and a jacuzzi tub for pretty cheap. Because it was so early, we couldn't check in, so we ate at Pizzeria Uno, located inside the hotel lobby. After a short time, we were able to check in, and Melissa and Ken took a nap while we walked around town, finding the nooks and crannies we missed the first time around. After a few hours, Ken and Melissa woke up and we all got some Cola Lights from the Pizzeria (we kept the restaurant in business this weekend). We then walked around town looking for a place to eat and found a restaurant featuring rustic Czech cuisine. It was pretty delicious and from what we can tell, very authentic. Zach's fish dish was a fish, fried, whole from which he had to strip the fish from the bone. The eye was staring at him the whole time.


(Pizzeria Uno menu - nice to find an American restaurant here and there)


(Our lovely window and curtains)


(A bit of Engrish inside the window - what does that mean?)


(Rustic Czech restaurant)

After dinner we went to a small bar on the river with a working waterwheel and extremely loud rockabilly music playing. After a drink, we all moved to a small cocktail bar in a 15th century house with arched brick ceilings - extremely good surroundings. Finally, wanting a bit of food late at night, we ended up at the only place still serving at 1am, an odd, pirate-themed piano bar. All they had was grilled toast with cheese (something like an underdone grilled cheese). Not long after, we went back to the hotel and crashed.

We woke early Saturday to the ringing of church bells from the ancient cathedral across the street (they'd woken us every hour before that, as well) and ate light breakfast in the attic of our hotel. We then made reservations to go white water rafting later in the afternoon. Still hungry from the night before, we were all craving some American food, and just happened to find a great place called Papa's Living Restaurant. We all splurged - Jess got chicken wings and Zach got pork ribs, mmmmmmm.... The restaurant was right along the Vltava river that we'd be rafting down in short time, so we got to see the rafters out doing their thing while we were eating lunch, and preview uor afternoon plans. After lunch, we all went back to the hotel and hung out in Pizzeria Uno for a bit, just killing time 'til we left for rafting. We explored the cathedral a bit, and Jess almost broke her back, tripping while walking down the stairs. She caught herself on the rail and saved us all a trip to the emergency room.


(The cathedral)


(The cathedral and the scary stairs)

Finally, 4:00 rolled around and it was time for rafting. We got all ready and had a van drive us out to the start point, 5km from Cesky Krumlov. The first thing we realized upon getting in the water was that it wasn't going to be the most crazy of "white water" rafting trips. There were a few rapids, though, and we got to snake our way around the outside of the city - a wonderful view that we hadn't yet seen. Upon getting out of the water, we were greeted by a group of tux-and-evening-dress-clad British teens. They were apparently in the area playing a part in the Cesky Krumlov music festival, and were a youth orchestra from Britain. We watched their performance, a mix of classical pieces and some movie themes - a very good show.


(The fearless adventurers)


(The brave captain)


(The open waters ahead)

After the concert we got cleaned up and headed to Hotel Ruze, the classiest hotel in town, for drinks. Nobody was there yet, so it was kind of a bummer. We headed back to Papa's for dinner, as it had been so good for lunch, but unfortunately it didn't live up to its lunchtime promise. A bit disappointed and very tired, we walked back to the hotel and went to sleep. We woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and checked out. We were given a nice green bus for our trip home. 20 minutes in, the trip turned sour, though. Apparently our bus driver wanted a few extra bucks and decided to stop in every little town between Prague and Cesky Krumlov, filling the bus full of people so that the aisles were full of people standing. It was hot and the trip lasted an hour longer than it was supposed to (we think he stayed off the highway so as not to get pulled over and fined for having an unsafe number of people on the bus). Finally we reached our station and got off, took the metro home, and unpacked. When we reached our street, there were riot police everywhere and even a city tank-like vehicle had been deployed. There was a soccer match going on at the stadium at one end of our street. After getting to the hostel a small riot broke out with tons of chanting, but was broken up by the police quickly. We went to our favorite place - Fraktal Pub - for dinner with Ken and now we're going to sleep early to prepare for our last week here.


(Scary green bus)

All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend, and a great time with two of our friends.

We miss you lots and will see you soon!

Love,

Jess and Zach