Fourth of July!

Hello everyone!

Happy Fourth of July! It is strange being in Prague on the Fourth of July. We miss the BBQs, sparklers, fireworks, etc. Today, Prague is "business as usual".

Yesterday we wrote a very lengthy entry on our blog back at the hostel. Unfortunately as we were writing our closing sentence the computer froze up and deleted our entry. We were quite mad at the computer. So, from now on we will only use the computer at our favorite local internet cafe.

Yesterday was our "relaxing" day. Instead of walking for hours upon hours exploring we decided to take it easy by visiting only one part of the city called Josefov. This part of town has the high-end stores (such as Hugo Boss, Lacoste, etc.). It was formerly the Jewish Ghetto in Prague. While the shops were nice to look at, our budget will not allow us to spend 2000 US dollars on a pair of shoes or 1000 on a purse. For lunch we picked up some bread at the local grocery store and chowed down on peanut butter sandwiches and our new favorite potato chip, "Chipsy" (paprika flavor). For dinner we went to a pizza place in the neighborhood where we each ordered our own large pizza and surprisingly ate every bite. We were very proud of getting a lot of food at a relatively nice place for under 15 US dollars.

Today, we went to class (as usual) and then decided to visit a few touristy places in Sona (the US expatriate part of town).
We saw:

(Entrance to Vysehrad - a park/church/castle that sits on a HUGE hill)


(view from the top of the hill/park)


(more view)


(more view!)


(the Church)

(more view!!!!)


(Zach!)

While we were at the park we were frightened by a loud voice speaking over an intercom which was broadcasted all over the city. The were speaking in Czech (of course) and we didn't understand or know what was happening or what this voice was saying. Shortly after he stopped talking all the bells from the Churches began to ring and a tornado siren type sound began echoing through the park. We were startled and a bit scared that something was seriously wrong but we noticed that everyone else in the park was completely calm so we figured it was no emergency. We think it was just a test to warn the community for tornadoes? bombs?...we're not really sure.

After going to the park we went to "The Dancing Building":


This building was designed by Frank Gehry. After our visit to the building we began searching for a statue that we never found. A bit frustrated we went on to the next thing on our list which was supposed to be "a masterpiece of functional architecture" but was really just a crappy square building that looked like any American office building. Once again let-down, we began searching for the restaurant on the river where we had been looking forward to eating...

CLOSED!?

We were bummed so we sat down on a bench and decided to look for another place to eat from our Lonely Planet book. Just our luck, it began to pour down rain. We sat a few minutes to wait it out since we had only brought one umbrella. The weather was horrible - about 62 degrees and raining. After the rain let up (or so we thought) we began to walk over a bridge back to another part of town. About halfway over the bridge Jess noticed that she was no longer wearing the camera bag.

CRAP!

She had left it on the bench we had been sitting on back by the restaurant that was closed. Thank goodness Zach is a good runner because he sprinted back across the bridge in the pouring down rain back to the river to the specific bench where we had been sitting and found it. whew!! Both of us soaked, hungry, and frustrated we grabbed the closest subway back to the part of town where our hostel is and changed our clothes. After such an "eventful" day we decided that we would just walk to a pizzeria and eat some more pizza instead of trying to find some place to eat downtown. Now we are dry, the weather is beautiful, and we have full bellies. We are a lot more happy and more "with it" than before. Hooo ray!

To celebrate the fourth of July we are going to a Mexican Restaurant in the American part of town in the Czech Republic. Maybe they will give us free COCA-COLA LIGHTS! We are missing the US as we sit here in the internet cafe and listen to bad American pop music from the 80's (very popular here).

We love you very much and hope you all have a great 4th!

-jess + zach