PRAHA

So I finally made it to Prague, Czech Republic. Last year I had a flight booked and was ready to go mentally but not physically up for weathering the freezing cold of the Czech Republic. This trip was different from a lot of the other trips I've been taking since I've been living in Europe because I stayed with locals. Hana and Jeremy were kind enough to let me crash in their guest room. Lucky for me they are awesome hosts and really good and fun people.

We got in pretty late Thursday night but walked into the aftermath of a dinner party. Fortunately there was good homemade salsa left and good company. Everyone we met at the little shindig was really cool. Nice first impression of the city.

First day in Praha
had to get in the touristy stuff and get lost a little bit...

I thought this art work described perfectly the post-communism feel of Prague...

For some reason there is a dancing woman in the window of this building...just thought it was interesting...

Welcome to Charles Bridge. This is the place that connects the old town with the new and there is a crazy amount of action on this bridge. We spent most of the afternoon just trying to stop staring at things, people and shopping of course.

You´re supposed to rub this statue and get good luck. Maybe it worked...Not sure but I feel pretty lucky ;)

I thought this was so cute and I figured since they were strolling down the middle of Charles Bridge I could feel okay about snapping a few pictures of them and not be shy about it, they weren´t.

We finally made our way across the bridge...

After touring around the castle area and all around Old Town we stopped for lunch. I wanted to have some traditional Czech food. Dumplings and mystery meat were on the menu. When I went to use the bathroom I almost killed myself trying to get down the stairs because there were little irons lining the stairs. I thought it was bizarre but they were kinda cute.




After a day of being super tourists we headed to the nearby town of Nymburk which is about 45 minutes outside of Prague. We went in a big group to get Czechican (an Allisonism for Mexican a la Czech) for dinner and headed to a concert.

Our host, Jeremy was celebrating his cumpleaños and we went with a group of his friends to a reggae concert of a group that goes by the name "United Flavor". The lead singer is a Spanish woman and the lead guy is Jamaican I believe. They tore it up in this little tiny creep-o town in the Czech Republich. I was surpsised that so many people were so into Spanish reggae in the Czech Republic but they were DOWN.

I'm famous!
Okay so many I'M not famous but U.S. culture sure is. These two 'tots' and I call them tots because they could almost be my children were out at the concert that Friday night, and they LOVED U.S. everything! They just pretty much stood next to us smiling and telling us how great our country was even though they've probably never been out of Nymberk.

Here's our crew. It was a great time.

Here's the view of of the window of our extra, super creeped out "hotel" room. I felt like we were living a movie. There were several references made of the movie Hostel when we saw the place we were staying. Being the one Black person, in probably all Nymburk I of course was a little worried for my safety since in the scary movies the black person always dies first. :)


Before we got back on our train to head back to Prague we scoped out this newspaper article. It along with at least five others was about the Obama's. Michelle Obamová...that's my girl. I believe the article was about whether or not she was doing too much as a first lady or what a role of a First Lady is. Either way The Obama's were all over.

Back to being a tourist. One of my fav new friends was Glen. He is from Indiana but is becoming one of the locals in Praha and he went out to do some sightseeing with us for the day.

they have some extremely fast and extremely steep elevators...but the little grandmas were keeping up...

We went to this place called Vysherad which is a fortress that sits up on a hill in Prague with a cemetery, a really beautiful church and a great view of the city.

Here I am with Glen hanging out, overlooking the city.

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures inside this really beautiful church but hopefully the door at least gives you an idea as to what it looks like on the inside. I must admit, I'm a little over churches in the sense that all the churches I've visited in Europe tend to look so very much alike. This one was unlike any other church I'd ever visited in Europe and it was spectacular.

Old Town Square.

Really beautiful synagogue in Prague.

Of course, knowing me...I must finish a trip with food. These were some cheese stuffed fried things that are very Czech. I unfortunately didn't order them and hated myself for it but took a picture of my friends plate so you can see how delicious it was. I know it doesn't look super tasty but trust me. Fried cheese is the way to go in Czech Republic.

It was really great having a mix of the touristy and the local experience. I obviously speak no Czech and don't look one bit like a Czech person but I got to meet really cool people and see a beautiful city from different perspectives.