Been a little preoccupied the past couple weeks so I apologize for the lack of recent posts.
Has been a crazy couple weeks though!
From touring the ancient castles of Prague to watching a European champions league match in the very city in which it was being played. I should start at the beginning though...
Made the decision a couple weeks ago that it is important to travel AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, so I am determined to go somewhere every weekend. Got the next couple weeks planned out pretty well so far.
First stop on my new agenda was Prague!! or Praha in Czech language.
Four of us, Michelle, Sofie, Thomas, and myself left at 8am Friday morning in Sofie's car. It was around a 3 hour drive on the autobahn....which yes does have a speed-limit....when your passing by a city =p
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| Not between the cities though!! =) |
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| Welcome to the Czech Republic!! |
After spending an hour trying to park we finally found a place on the other side of the river that we could park for 2 days. So we parked the car and hiked back to the hostel we were staying in "advantage Hostel" Which was really nice considering it only cost 30 euros for the weeknd....even came with a continental breakfast!!
So I tried some traditional Czech Republic food Goulash for lunch....gotta say it taste just as good as it looks....and for those who dont think that looks good, it taste amazing!
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| Saw the famous Astrological Clock in the town square!! |
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| Genuine Gargoyles off of St. Vitrus Cathedral |
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| 2, 5, and 20 krowns |
2000= 80'ish Euro
Spent Friday mainly just looking around the city and exploring the streets. Spent a lot of time walking around the city.....emphasize on the walking part....so much walking...
Decided to get an all day sub ticket for our next day. =)
Started our Saturday morning with a free tour of the city! of course by Free tour I mean highly anticipated tips at the end of it.....was a reaaaaallly good tour though so I definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Prague. I got to see a lot of the historical parts of the city and found out some pretty interesting stuff! Like for instance the astrological clock was built by a genius clock builder back in the 1300's who was way ahead of his time. The current mayor was really determined to keep the details of how it was built a secret so the city could keep its prized clock to itself so he blinded and cut out the tongue of the builder so he couldn't build the same clock for another city....Its ok though the builder got his revenge... He jumped into the mechanism of the clock and broke it for 300 years until someone else was finally able to rebuild the complex clockwork.
Seems like a rather gory story but trust me when i say it was one of the less violent of the many stories of Prague's past. The city has seen a lot of blood shed. Fortunately though most of the old buildings have survived the years and created beautiful historical city!
Just a few of the images from Prague. I love in last one how you can see old buildings and cathedrals across the city and sky scrapers in the distance. Kinda shows how the city has grown but held on to a lot of its ancient heritage.
Anyway though Prague was not just all sight seeing. We decided it was also important to see the night life of the city before heading back the next day. We had heard tale of a legendary night club in the area and like any college student exploring the world....we had to check it out.
So this turned out not to just be any legendary night club....This is the largest music club in central Europe!! There were five floors that each were playing a different style of music...From the oldies floor to the hip hop floor they had it all!!
After a looong and loud night we finally made it back to our room...the next morning. Dont worry family readers, I am always cautious and stayed in our group for the most part. =)
Anyway since the club was right on the river I was able to snap a beautiful pic of Prague Castle at night! and by the way the two pics looking out over the city....taken from top of the castle walls =D
1. Prague Castle is the largest castle in Europe....really seems more like a small town with big walls.
2. Budweiser is actually a czech beer....NOT AMERICAN!! I didnt believe it at first either, sadly its true
On the bright side it only cost 1 euro for half a liter!!
Prague was GREAT but I really need to sum it up, it was not my only adventure in the past 2 weeks.....
So Prague is
1. BEAUTIFUL
2. Fairly Cheap
3. and Just go there its awesome
SO IN OTHER NEWS.... Bayern-Munchen made it to the European Champions League in football "soccer" in American.
Not Only was this like the superbowl of European Football....
Not ONLY was my country and regional team playing in it.....
But to top it off it was being played IN MUNCHEN (aka Munich)
So naturally I could not miss this...
The train left the station from ingolstadt at around 3 packed with about 30 foreign exchange students that I knew 20 or so German students I knew, and a train load of fans. The train reacted like a snowball....we were the first stop and it just kept collecting more people as we went, until people were literally standing in the isles and sitting on the stairs of our double decker train. We arrive in Munich an hour later and instantly loose half of our group to the immense crowds of people storming the platform.
We are now down to 13 and are determined to find somewhere to sit down and watch the game. We had heard of the public viewing in the English Garden....which is like the central park of Munich, and public viewing in the fields that host Octoberfest...
Unfortunately these both required tickets that had been sold out for weeks.
So we went exploring. It was truelly bewildering to see the mass amounts of crazed fans swarming the streets like a bee hive. Everybody with there own trajectory but all with the same goal... Where to watch the game? Pamphlets, bags, cups, and thousands of broken bottles lay strewn about the streets.
Actually saw the police moving the crowd out of town square so it could be swept, only to see it back to the same an hour later....
The feeling was of absolute ecstaticness everywhere! Yeah there was trash everywhere and yeah there were insane crowds, but no one cared! It was GREAT!
And of course there were the hooligans.....I did not witness any violent defenders of there teams but did see quite a few shouting matches between tables. You could hear cheers echoing across the entire city!
BAYERN....BAYERN...BAYERN...BAYERN!!
So anyway..after about 3 hours of wondering the city we finally found an Irish pub named "Kennedies" Where we actually managed to get a front bench seat in front of a TV!!! and we only had to show up 2 and a half hours before the game started to get these seats. haha, was well worth it though. The bar was packed when we got there, we just got lucky.
So at this point our group had shrank to 7 but we were determined to stay together. A few had gone off in pursuit of a TV in other directions before we found the one we were at, and a few just met up with other friends.
We sat and had a some good o'l game day wings and beer's while we waited until finally the game began....
NOW, I dont want to get into the details of the game to much, but to sum it up we went into penalty shots with a score of 1-1.....and we lost ='(
Chelsea Fans were dancing on the tables everywhere, and the Bayern fans were silent. =(
So we walk back to the train station in silence.
Fortunately when we arrived at the train we met up with a 2 other friends that we had not seen since the train station in Ingolstadt. Me and a friend stopped to talk while the other 5 got on the train....not thinking it would fill up to fast considering the station was still pretty quite.
However 5 minutes later that had quickly changed. We still had 15 minutes till the train left and all the seats were already taken!!
However.....we still had not gotten on board yet because we were waiting on one other person to meet up with us. 5 minutes later we begin seeing that the front cars were reaaaaally crammed to the door with people so we begin walking down the rest of the train looking for a door that didnt look like a wall!
We finally get to the very last car and realize we should have gotten on 10 minutes earlier.... The door is a SOLID wall of people. Not just crowded but packed to the point that people could not move. My three friends got on first and more or less sucked me into the crowd. I couldnt fit more then 1 foot at first but my friends were able to slowly pull me into the car.
Was midnight and the next train didnt leave until 5am that morning so after a 20 minute delay from overcrowding we had somehow managed to work our way to the stairs, (still couldnt turn or move) and the train took off for ingolstadt.
Gotta say that train ride was definitely one for my record books...Wow thats all I can say to it is Wow
OVERALL though... The entire game day experience was a blast! Unfortunately I dont have any pics to show you from it, sorry =/ just gonna have to use your imagination on this one.
So It is now 2am on a Tuesday night. I started this blog on Sunday and I really think I may be partially ADD.......nah back to the summery
Leaving for Cyprus tomorrow at 7pm for a week of vacation. School is having a mid semester break so I decided to join some friends on the beach for a week.
Cyprus is suppose to have beautiful 80 degree weather and is located in the Mediterranean close to the cost of Turkey and Greece.
I promise I wont leave this one to the imagination and will bring plenty of pictures back!
Wrapping up for the night though, its bedtime =)
Till we meet again
Auf wedersehen, Goodnight!
