Peace of Life

Prague was absolutely gorgeous. It actually reminded me a lot of the 'It's a Small World' ride at Disney. It almost did not seem like it was an actual real city. Our trip started around 8 pm on Thursday night with a 12 hour bus ride from Florence to Prague. Nothing actually happened during the day on Thursday, or not that I deem notable, or that I care to remember now…we went to school; that was about it. So 12 hour bus ride…not the most comfortable thing in the world. We watched part of Superbad, but then, since it was a burned DVD, it stopped working with the player in the bus…as you can imagine, I was NOT happy AT ALL!!! Then, we watched Man on Fire, which is actually a great, but sad and serious movie… I do recommend that you watch this movie. After that, it was Bourne Identity… this is where I passed out (sorry for anyone who I was on AIM or MSN with at the time, I was SO tired)…but I really wanted to watch the Bourne series, so I was kind of upset about that.

I think the roads were really bad because I woke up every time the driver stopped, but the stops were not always at rest stops… I was kind of upset because every time I looked out the window, there was all this snow on the ground, and I was not in the mood to be walking through snow all weekend. We finally made it to Prague around 8:30 am, Friday morning. We had about an hour and a half to freshen up, or whatever, before an optional walking tour of the city so that we could see where everything was. We walked to Old town square and the clock tower, then to Prague Castle which is also where a beautiful church (St. Vitus) is. After that, we walked some more, to a place called Bohemian Bagel for lunch, which was really good and I got more of the tuna that I have for some reason been craving ever since I got to Florence. We went to a pub after that, and had some drinks and relaxed. A few of us walked back to the hotel to relax after that. We met some girls from Binghampton and Buffalo, and some other schools, who were really cool. They're on the Lorenzo di Medici program. We ended up hanging out all weekend with them and we all had a really great time.

The six of us went out to dinner to a restaurant called Kogo, which was really good, and then went to a pub to meet the rest of the people on our trip. The bar was pretty smokey, so by the time we left, we reeked of cigarette smoke, which kind of grosses me out. That's the one thing about Europe that's disgusting: the amount of people who smoke and how they are ALWAYS smoking. It's pretty nasty, and the smell of smoke on people's clothing gives me migraines.

The next day, the six of us ate breakfast and then set out to explore Prague on our own. It was really really cold, which definitely sucked, but we had fun in spite of the fact that we could not feel any of our extremities for most of the day. We first walked again through Old Town Square and to St. Charles Bridge. Before this, we stopped at an outdoor market to see what they had. I bought a leather bracelet and a painting that I think I actually took a picture of what was painted on it later that day. We decided to go to the top of the tower thing at St. Charles Bridge. The views were amazing; you could literally see the whole city. It was gorgeous. We ended up walking through some sort of Czech festival near the bridge. We were not sure what they were celebrating. Yes, it was Valentines Day, but then we saw these people dressed up in random costumes, so it might have been some weird Czech Halloween like holiday or something. Whatever, Valentines Day is overrated anyway, so who cares.


We then walked to the Toy and Barbie museum, which we all loved. I found a lot of the old Barbies that I had played with at grandma's house when I was younger, and actually found some Barbies that Hayley and I played with. These Barbies had feet though, so I was kind of confused. I haven't seen a Barbie with feet in ages. They even had a Syracuse Cheerleader Barbie, which I thought was kind of cool…lie, I was really excited about that. I also found a lot of giraffes and zebras…which are basically, next to piggies, my favoritest animals in the world. I think I might have found a goat, but then I realized that I can't really tell the difference between a goat and a ram sometimes.

We went to the Jewish quarter next, but since it was Saturday (Shabbat), we could not go into any of the synagogues, or into the cemetery. I did take a picture of the cemetery though, through the gates. This cemetery is the most depressing thing I have ever seen; and not just because people are buried there. Since the ghettos were so small, the cemeteries had to be small too. The Jews lived in these ghettos for hundreds of years. In Prague, bodies were buried sometimes, twelve on top of each other because there were so many Jews and no where near enough room to bury them all in their own plots.

It was pretty cold by then, and we had had a really full day, so we speed walked, numbly, back to the hotel to relax for a few hours before going out with everyone that night. We ended up going to this five story club, which was so much fun! Each floor had different music. We started at the oldies/eighties floor, and were so excited when they played Mama Mia. We had been singing this all day, and when it came on, we were dancing like crazy, but that floor kind of reminded me of all the parents at Bar Mitzvahs…they also played the classic bar mitzvah Grease mix on that floor as well. Alright so Czech people…also cannot dance. Watching them was possibly the funnies thing ever…definitely a PMP moment for all of us…Even daddy dances better than they do…soo yeah…maybe it was because they were dancing to American music, but a lot of them had absolutely no rhythm, at all, what so ever…

We probably got a maximum of four hours of sleep that night, but we had insane amounts of fun at this club…seriously, I wish that all of yall could have been there…I think yall would have loved this place…yes, even you, parents and grandparents of mine..

We got up around 8 the next morning and ate breakfast and were back on the road by 9:30 for another 12 hour bus ride. These long bus rides actually work very well with the time difference…anyway, we all passed out as soon as we were on the road. Our first rest stop was in Germany, about 9 kilometers outside of Munich (I think that's what the sign said), so I broke my deal and paid to pee, but now I can say that I peed in Germany. We got back onto the bus and watched the last two Bourne films; I kind of passed out again; I was really tired. We then watched part of Knocked up, but it was also a burned DVD so it didn't work, and I was upset again, because I hadn't seen that movie yet, and I really wanted to! He put in The Illusionist and I passed out again and woke up about an hour and a half before we got back to Florence. That last part of the bus ride was brutal; we all just wanted to get off the damn bus already and it was taking FOREVERRRR!!! We ended up taking a cab back to the house and got there at about 20 till eleven. I was passed out in bed by 12:15; the earliest that I've been to bed in a while.

I haven't uploaded my pictures yet, but I will attach the links in tonight's update on today, which will probably be really short and boring.