Prague

Arrived in Prague on Thursday afternoon with Clare, Lauren and Cara. We hopped on a bus at the airport, hopped off at a trainstation in the Lesser Town (no offense), hopped on a subway under the Vltava River, and finally surfaced about five minutes from our hostel. The walk from the subway stop to the hostel took us through Old Town Square, ruled by two enormous churches, the larger of which is called Tyn and has two huge belltowers. The smaller of these churches is home to the Astronomical Clock, an amazing bit of fifteenth-century engineering that simultaneously tells time, the relative positions of the sun and moon, the time of sunrise and sunset that day, the zodiac month and probably some other stuff too.

(not my picture)

The other buildings of the old square are mostly shops and restaurants. It felt like we were walking through the cover photo of an architecture textbook. To get to our hostel, we wound around behind the Tyn church, ducked down a narrow cobblestone street, and hooked a left into a small complex of bar, vegetarian restaurant, spa, bookstore and hostel. At first it was disconcerting that the website we used to book the place proclaimed 'Excellent Location' as the place's lone claim to fame, but it really is an amazing place to be. We're less than ten minutes from just about everything in Prague 1/Old Town, and it would only take about fifteen to cross the Charles Bridge into Lesser Town.

We spent the evening strolling around aimlessly, sipping mulled wine and taking pictures. Dusk is a particularly beautiful time in this city. After winding around so much that we got lost and couldn't find our way back to the restaurant that had caught our collective eye, we stopped into a bookstore and got directions from a less-than-confident clerk who spoke pretty good english. On the way back to the Tyn church area, Lauren's appetite got the better of her and she hauled us into an expensive-looking restaurant. It turned out to be a great find. All four of us had a huge plate of pasta, alcohol and an appetizer for the equivalent of ten dollars apiece. What's more, it was phenomenal food. From there we found our way back and stopped in a very expensive but very cool bar and had cocktails and cigars and everything but a footrub from the waitress. Incredibly classy place, called Bar & Books, and claiming to have an operation in New York as well. Definitely worth tracking down, East-coast folk, especially if you've got someone to romance.

Our second day was committed to a four-hour walking tour, a nap, and an expensive night of drinking that ended at a 5-story club at six in the morning. Woof. I am still pretty damn exhausted as I write this. We met two Navy guys in our hostel who are on leave for a little while, and at the club we met a posse of Irishmen on vacation. It turned out to be an incredibly fun night. We may try to find the Irish crowd again tomorrow as they've invited us to a pub called Rocky O'Reilly's to watch Ireland play France in rugby. Sounds good to me...