One Lady in London: The Homeland- Prague

Okay, not really the homeland, but close enough. When my parents were here, Luke and I somehow got asking about our heritage and how much of what nationality we got from different sides of the family. I knew there was some Czech, Irish and mutt in there, but after this discussion learned I am roughly 3/8 Czech, 1/4 Irish, 1/8 Scottish, 1/8 Danish, and 1/8 Welsh. So, since Prague is in the Czech Republic, and of all of them I am mostly Czech, I jokingly referred to it as the homeland during the trip. After visiting, I can happily say I am so proud to be Czech. I absolutely adored Praha!

The city itself is breathtaking. I think what set it apart from others for me is that it is so traditional old Europe. Old, intricate buildings, quaint winding city streets, red rooftops, and such a charming feel. The city itself is pretty small, we walked from one side to the other multiple times, but it was just as beautiful the third and fourth times as it was the first. I was told by others that Prague is one of those places you have to see, and I had honestly never even thought about it until I got here and Ariel proposed it, but I am so glad I went. One of my favorite cities.

Aside from the charm and character, my other favorite thing about Prague was the currency: Czech Koruna. The exchange rate when we left was 1 pound to 28 Koruna. LOVE IT. A very welcomed relief from the 1 pound = 1.6 USD. That being said, I was really curious how much money to take out. Euros are close enough to pounds and dollars, but in the Czech Republic, it's a completely different scale. A bottle of water for example is around 20 koruna, a good dinner around 200, so that kind of threw me off a bit not knowing how much I'd really need. I ended up taking only 50 pounds, so 1500 koruna out, having no idea of whether or not I'd spent it all. It worked out perfectly, at the end of our 3 night trip, I had only 43 koruna, or like 2 USD remaining. Perfect.

And let me tell you, we ate and bought well for that small amount. It was fantastic. Prime example: for my birthday, my parents deposited money into my bank account with the directions of "use it to buy something nice for yourself as a memory of your time abroad" aka not for food or airfare, even though I'd be happy to use it for those reasons as well. I had briefly looked for things on my past trips, but nothing really grabbed me, and I didn't want just some touristy souvenir, I have enough pictures and memories of the places I've been. I wanted it to be something that I really would use, enjoy, and appreciate. After discovering Prague was as cheap as it was after our first dinner which consisted of a Pilsner (Czech's national beer) a huge salad, and stuffed plate of pasta totaled only 150 koruna (roughly 5 pounds) I though this might be a good place to look for something to spend that money on. Fun fact about Prague: apparently they have an abundance of garnets in the area, so garnet jewelry is sold everywhere at really cheap prices. Fun fact about Katie: my birthstone is the garnet. I am now the proud owner of the first real piece of jewelry I've bought myself- a silver banded, 4 stone garnet ring. Thanks Mom and Dad! The price for this bling: a few thousand koruna, which equaled 55 USD. I kid you not. Prague is heaven, and the Czech koruna are it's angels.

And now, without further adieu, Prague.

We were there on Easter, so all the trees in the town were decorated in ribbons to celebrate!

Prague's pastry: trdelnik- basically a spiral cinnamon sugar pretzel

The astronomical clock in the center of the town square. Not really sure exactly how it works, but something about how it moves the hands by phases of the sun or something funky and sciencey like that. The reason my description of it is so crappy? Our tour guide gave us a crappy description. Why was that? Apparently, only the creator of the clock and one other knew how it worked, so the creator cut the tongue off the other person who knew so that word never got out how exactly it worked. Czechs are violent people, as you'll learn later on another picture.

Prague "castle" which is really a cathedral (the big black thing) and seven other buildings. No actual castle.

Kafka statue- he was an odd, odd man.

More about violent Czechs. Our tour guide stopped us outside of a small church and told us what we thought was a legend about. Supposedly a long time ago, a man came into the church attempting to steal money out of the offertory which was kept next to a statue. As he put his hand in the plate to steal it, God instantly turned him into stone to punish him. An angel came down to set the man free, turned him back from stone to human, but as a punishment chopped off his hand for stealing. The man ran out of the church, and for years people were terrified to go into the church because of this. Our guide then informed us that the church kept the hand there as a warning to others. We thought this was a joke. He told us to go inside and see for ourselves. Here is said hand- mummified and hanging from the ceiling.

Inside of the church. It was actually really cool inside, super ornate, but after seeing the hand, we bolted out of there.

Arguably, the best meal I've had in my entire life. Those who know me know that I am not a very adventurous eater. I have gotten better though abroad, and wanted to keep in going in Prague. 3 of us went out to eat, and decided to get the same thing (coincidentally) off of the "czech specialities" section of the menu. Here she is: a HUGE piece of fried chicken, the most amazing potato puree (cause it sounds fancier than mashed potatoes) and cucumber salad. Not actually very adventurous, but I'm patting myself on the back for taking a tiny chance and eating traditional Czech food. Seriously though, absolutely amazing. Don't know what they did to it, but it was the best chicken and mashed potatoes I've ever had.

The Charles Bridge

Hannah, Ariel and I with Essette- a girl we met from our hostel traveling solo who is actually studying in London this semester and we have a ton of mutual friends with.