Are You Fun and Flexible? Czech!

Way back in September, we signed up for the Andy Steves Weekend Student Adventures tour of Prague.  It was hard to believe it was finally time for our Czech adventure to begin! 

The tour began Friday morning so Caroline, Kathryn, Anne, Jill, and I flew into the Czech Republic Thursday night.  Our hostel, Mosaic House, was one of the nicest hostels we’d ever (and probably will ever) stay in.  It was really more like a hotel that just happened to have 8 beds in each room.  The shower was awesome—it had a fancy drain and a rain nozzle.  We were pretty tired that night so we ate at Belushi’s, the restaurant connected to the hostel, and got burgers. 

Because the tour guide, Andy Steves, was a ND grad, there were a lot of other ND Rome kids who signed up for the tour as well so our room mates ended up being three of the guys in our group.  They weren’t bad room mates for the weekend but we all appreciated our regular room mates a lot more!  When we signed up for the tour one of the questions was, are you fun and flexible?  Turns out we are! 

Friday morning we met at Old Town Square at the Astronomical Clock.  The Clock is really old and famous.  It was made by the clockmaker Mikulas of Kadan in 1410.  It’s famous for its astronomical dial representing the position of the Sun and Moon in the sky as well as for its “Walk of the Apostles”, figures that move across the face of the clock when it chimes every hour.  There are also four figures on the sides of the clock that represent four things that were despised at the time o fthe clock’s making.  First is a figure representing Vanity, who admires himself in a mirror, next is a Jew holding a bag of gold representing greed or usury, Death is represented as a skeleton that rings a bell when the clock strikes, and finally the infidel Turk wears a turban.  It’s pretty exciting when the clock chimes on the hour; people gather in the square to watch the Apostles march across the top of the clock and when the clock is finished chiming, trumpeters play a song from the top of the tower.  There is a Czech legend that says that once the clock was finished, the king had the clockmaker blinded so that another town couldn’t hire him to build an even more magnificent clock.  One day, however, the clock needed to be repaired so the king told the clockmaker to fix the clock.  The clockmaker was so bitter that he destroyed the clock by wrenching his own arm in the gears.  Yikes!

Our day continued with an amazing lunch at a restaurant called Lokal where we had Apple cider, traditional Goulash and Dumplings, sauerkrawt and sausage, and some kind of cream cookie.  Goulash may sound nasty and it may not look like the greatest dish in the world but it’s really really yummy (an filling).

Ghouls and goulash!

We then took a walking tour of the city, taking in Old Town Square, the Old university (where the first anatomical dissection took place), the Concert Hall, dozens of Churches and monuments, and a panoramic view of the Charles Bridge and the Vltava river.

We then went to the Communist Museum, which was mainly a collection of old things from the 1950s soooo we peaced out for half an hour and went shopping across the street.  I guess we got points off for missing out on some culture but oh well!

Next on the agenda was a trip to Prague’s smallest brewery, U Fleku, founded in 1499!  The dark beer is famous for its strength and we all enjoyed complimentary pints with our dinner.  I can’t lie the lecture on how the beer was brewed was pretty dull but it was fun to eat dinner in such an old restaurant.  Jill and I split roast beef with croquettes and fried cheese (yikes!) with tartar sauce.  For desert we had apple streudal.  During dinner a duo of an accordian-player and a Flutist played and sang some Czech music for us, including Anne’s favorite by Smetna!

That night we went to a Czech bar to hang out for a bit with the Tour group.  Czech people like to smoke a lot (and not everything they smoke is legal in America) so we left. 

Saturday morning we began the day at Bohemian Bagel for a taste of home!  It had been so long since I’d tasted a bagel!  Yum. 

Then we began another walking tour of the city, this time focused on the other side of the River.  We went to Prague Castle where the Prime Minister of Prague resides and we saw the famous Church of Saint Nicholas.

I get by with a little help from my friends!

We also saw the Lenon Wall, a long wall covered completely in graffiti, which people decorated pre-1989 to express their discontent with Communist rule.  Our guide gave us spray paint so we could leave our mark on Prague, which was pretty fun!

The highlight of the day was the private tour of the Lobkovwitz Palace where we were greeted by the 15 year old Lobkovwitz Prince.  We toured the family’s museum and then had tea (yep, tea) with the Prince. 

Despite his young(er) age, we couldn’t stop making jokes about marrying the Prince of Prague.  It was decided that Kathryn’s Prague wedding colors would be Magenta and Aqumarine. 

But seriously it was interesting to talk to the Prince, who explained that there aren’t really princes anymore but if there were he would be one.  His English was really good although he’d never gone to school abroad.  He also shared another version of the Astronomical Clock Tower legend with us: apparently, the clockmaker stuck himself in the gears, not just his arm, thus putting an end to both his life and that of the clock’s!     

The rest of the day/ night was ours so we wandered around, did some shopping, and went back to old town square.  Instead of eating at a sit-down restaurant, we thought it would be fun to sample the different street foods.  I got a hot-dog and a Tredlink, a type of pastry that’s wrapped around a wooden stick and spun over a fire.  So good!  Mulled wine turned out to be not so great though; but overall, Czech food was great!  The best part was how lit up the square was.  This gothic church in the square (which seriously resembles Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Disneyland) was lit up with Blue lights (so that it looked even more like it had popped out of a fairytale). 

That night we watched part of the ND game against Utah (we won!) and Jill, Anne, me and some St. Mary’s girls decided to Czech (check haha) out a nightclub.  The club turned out to be pretty creepy so we found an Irish Pub, the Dubliners, where there was a live band playing American music.  We had a blast singing and dancing along with Czech people, who knew the songs just as well as we did.  On the way home, we happened to walk by a Karyoke bar and had to stop and sing a song.  The DJ was so nice and even though it was closing time, he let us sing the last song.  We wanted to sing a song everyone would like so he recommended the Spice Girls “wannabe”, which everyone knew!

The next day was our last in Prague so we said goodbye to Old Town Square and headed home.