Praha

Pat, Justin, Grace Hastings, and I left for Praha, The Czech Republic, via Amsterdam on Thursday afternoon. We took a night train from Frankfurt and arrived in Praha a little after 8 am.

That morning, we took a four-hour walking tour of the city. It was very interesting, if not a little too long. One thing I have noticed about walking tours: they are all very nationalistic. Basically, the tour guide molds history to fit their points of view and to create the most interesting presentation... occasionally at the expense of fact. The city had a wonderful feel to it, even though it was littered with eastern European architecture.

Three of the four remaining friends who were meeting us in Prague were at our hostel when we got back from the tour. They took a bus from Liege, Belgium the previous night. Our fourth friend forgot his passport and made it all the way to the Czech border before getting yanked and then dropped off at the nearest train station. Bummer.

Friday night, the wine flowed like ... absinthe.

The next day we went to a massive outdoor-market-complex north of the city. It was filled with pretty much any designer name you can imagine ... and they were all real ... Still, it didn't stop us from picking up some ridiculously cheap clothing and souvenirs. This was the eastern Europe we expected to see. Run-down buildings, graffiti everywhere, 3 guys hanging out in a car with 3 flat tires and a broken window ...

Sunday morning we got on a train at 7am and got back to our rooms a little after 9pm.

Wednesday we leave for Berlin for two nights, then Athens for three nights. We get back early Monday morning.