Spring Break!

I just got back from Prague! It was great.

I'm now going to go into some detail about my vacation, but I have to warn you: the two friends I spent break with are named Kati and Katie. It can get rather confusing.

So Kati got in to Paris (from Boston) on Saturday. We spent a great three days together here, doing tons of touristy stuff, including some things I hadn't done before: la Tour de Montparnasse et l'Opera Garnier, both of which were incredible! Pictures of our few days in Paris together are here and here.

On Tuesday we hopped on a plane for Prague, and landed there around noon. Katie, who had flown there ahead of us, as her family lives in Prague for part of the year, met us at the airport with her mom, which was great. We then got a mini-tour of some of Prague on the ride to her house.

The view from the plane

That afternoon Katie took us down to the town and we walked around until we got sick of the rain and found a cafe. We saw some absolutely gorgeous buildings and a really cool mechanical clock that reminded me a lot of the one in Strasbourg. However, Katie said that it couldn't be made by the same man because the story is that this clockworker was blinded after he build the clock in Prague so that he could never make another, but he was so talented that he somehow got into the clock and screwed all the machinery up, just so they'd have to hire him back to fix it all.The clock in Old Town

Anyway, we then went out to dinner at one of Katie's favorite restaurants and then went to an old bar that she used to go to in high school. Katie wasn't feeling that great so we headed back relatively early, but Kati and I didn't mind-- we were pretty exhausted from our early flight.

The next day, Katie's cold was back in full force. Her parents had planned a nice evening out for us, so Katie decided to stay in and rest and Kati and I went out exploring on our own. We visited the Prague castle, the cathedral of St. Vitus, the Basilica of St. George, the Church of St. Nicholas and the Tin Cathedral. We got quite a bit accomplished! But then it started to rain, so we headed back to Katie's house, where we all got ready for the crazy nice dinner.

The Cathedral of St. Vitus

The car (the car?! Whaaat!) picked us up at 5:30. We were dropped off at l'Hotel de Paris, where we met Katie's dad in the lounge. We sat there for a good hour, drinking champagne and chatting with Katie's parents, which was really nice. Then we walked just around the corner to this absolutely gorgeous restaurant called Francouzska Restaurace, which was decorated in this gorgeous Art Deco style. And I tried escargot! Katie was ordering it, and she talked me into getting some myself and I must say, it was rather delish! I also tried chicken liver and was not such a fan. But the main course I ordered, some other chicken dish, was absolutely divine.

The inside of the restaurant.

We then headed back to Katie's house, where she heated up some Oplatky, delicious traditional Czech cookies and we watched The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming. I'd never even heard of this movie before, but it was fantastic! Anyway, we then we exhausted and completely stuffed, so we went to bed pretty early.

Katie with some Oplatky!

The next day, Katie was feeling much better so the three of us headed into town around noon. We walked around the opera house, we explored the old Jewish part of town and went inside the synagogue that is supposedly home to the golem. Then we wandered around and found a bakery that Katie's friend's family owns and we all went in and bought something to snack on.

Katie and Kati in front of the oldest synagogue in Prague.

We also found a candy shop that makes these intricate hard candies by hand. There were a few guys making some when we were there, so we stopped and watched for a while. It was really neat.

Making the crazy candies.

We then hit up St. Nicholas's Church #2. Yes, there are two of them. It's very, very confusing. Anyway, this one was much better than the first one, and THIS is the one that Mozart played in, which is very exciting. It was really gorgeous inside.

The organ in the Church of St. Nicholas

By this point, we were pretty hungry, so we stopped into a restaurant that served traditional Czech food. I order the roast duck, not expecting an ENTIRE duck to come out of the kitchen.

Before

I did a pretty good job though. And it was delicious! As were the bread dumplings. The beer I was not a huge fan of, but it was better than anything I've had in the States.

The remains! Delicious looking duck carcass.

After this, we headed back to Katie's house, where we relaxed and hung around until her mom called us down for appetizers and dinner. After eating the delicious fajitas and this magical hors d'oeuvre with philo dough she had made, we headed out for a night of dancing. Katie has always talked about this 7 story dance club in Praha, where each floor has a different theme, and we were pretty excited to finally see it for ourselves. Let's just say: the oldies floor was AWESOME. Katie made me (Kati kind of refused) try Becherovka, the Czech liquor, and absinthe. I at least could swallow the Becherovka. The absinthe was so harsh! It felt like that horrible "cherry" medication I took as a little girl. You know, the one that we realized a year or so ago that I was supposed to drink with 2 cups of water because it was so corosive? Yeah. Delicious.

Our big night out.

The dance club during the day. See all the floors?

Friday, we slept in, which was great. When we'd all woken up and gotten ready, we headed downtown again and just wandered. We stopped for lunch at a pizza place, met up with an aquaintance of Kati's mom for coffee, met Katie's parents for a beer at their favorite local place (they affectionately call it "Man Food", since all you can apparently get is unpasteurized beer, cabbage and really fatty pork) and then met up with Katie's high school friend for a few drinks.

Phew, that sounds exhausting! Fortunately, I'm not really tired, now that I'm back. And it definitely is good to be back. We left around 8:00 this morning and we got into Paris around 12:00. I didn't really get a chance to say goodbye to Kati and Katie since they had to run to catch their flight to Boston, which was kind of disappointing, as I'm not going to see Katie until the summer and I won't see Kati until next January. But it was really great to see both of them again, even if it was just for a short time. I was pretty homesick for BU while we were together, but now that I'm back in my room here, I'm just really excited for my internship on Monday.


Oh, p.s. more pictures of Prague are here and here.