On to happier news: last weekend I went to Prague! And it was beautiful. Not only was I so excited to go because I had never been to the Czech Republic before, but also because I was meeting up with two of my best friends from Kenyon who are both studying abroad in Florence.
Getting into Prague early Friday morning, I met up with my friends at our hostel and from there, we decided to not waste anytime before exploring the city. And as soon as we stepped foot outside of our hostel, we saw some beautiful statues. There was an amazing statue right outside of our hostel. I don't know if it's famous or not, but we took a picture anyway just because it was so beautiful.
And here I am walking around Old Town Square in front of the town hall's famous astronomical clock.
A cool statue in Old Town.
Before starting on any other sites, I was determined to visit the Josefov, the former Jewish ghetto that contains six synagogues, a town hall, and a remarkable medieval cemetery. I don't know what I was really expecting to see at the Jewish cemetery, but what I did see was both horrifying and truly amazing. Established in the fifteenth century, the cemetery was in use until 1787, by which time there were an estimated 100,000 people buried there, one on top of the other, six palms apart, and as many as twelve layers deep. With so many numbers of visitors, the graves themselves have been roped off to help protect them. It was scary and horrifying to see how many graves there were, almost serving as a constant reminder of inhuman overcrowding, even in death. Although I was saddened and in shock when I first entered the cemetery, I am very glad that I have witnessed and experienced a part of Jewish history. I think all of my friends and I were shocked that people could actually treat other human beings' bodies like that, even after death. Although we stayed and walked around the entire cemetery, there was no getting used to the site of seeing so many graves smushed on top of each other and cramped together so closely. It was a truly horrific site, but if in Prague, I do think it is very important to check it out, jewish or not.
Then we decided to walk along the river. From where we were standing, we were able to look across the river and see the parliament building as well as Prague's Castle.
The Parliament building.
After stopping for some lunch at Bohemian Bagel, my friends and I decided to cross Prague's famous Charles Bridge, and walk up to the top of Prague Castle.
Once we crossed the famous bridge, we realized that the other part of town was even more beautiful than where we had just come from so being the tourists that we are, we decided that we had to take a picture.
While walking up the hill to the Castle, we became fatigued and very tired, realizing that our bodies could use some ice cream in order to raise our blood sugar for the rest of the climb. So after being lazy and eating ice cream, we decided to continue on the steep, uphill walk to conquer Prague Castle.
And let me tell you...the walk was SO worth it. Because the castle was on top of a hill, we were able to see the entire city of Prague. And the city was even more beautiful by overlooking it from the castle. Take a look for yourself:
And as I have mentioned in previous blog posts, I feel right at home while visiting castles. But Prague Castle in particular was the most homey of them all. Not only because it was gorgeous, big, and beautiful, but also because it was PINK! One of my favorite colors! It's as if this castle was built for me!
And Prague Castle also had a darker, more gothic look to it besides the Pink Palace. Take a look:
And here we are sitting outside the palace doors.
And here we are taking another rest outside of the palace.
After a full day of walking around the city, we decided that we needed to kick back and relax. So as we were walking back to our hostel, we stumbled upon a little place called Bed Lounge. Because we were exhausted and needed to rest our feet, we decided to go in due to the fact that this place's name had the word Bed in it.
And it was awesome. Luckily for us it was happy hour so all of the drinks were half the price. And the seating arrangement was like nothing I had experienced before. Let's just say it's called Bed Lounge for a reason. Upon going in, they make you take off your shoes before jumping on a bed to drink your drink. Throwing off my Uggs as fast as I could, I jumped up onto the bed, ordered a pina colada and let my feet rest peacefully.
After Bed Lounge, we decided to get some local Czech dinner (all I ordered was pasta, but I guess that's a local food there...) After dinner, we went back to our hostel and changed our clothes in order to be nighttime ready to hit Prague's nightlife.
There was some kind of fog machine that we thought was cool.
Even though I had so much fun going out and dancing with my friends, I soon found out that I had made the right choice in not studying abroad in the Czech Republic. The guys were gross and I literally had to shake my finger at them and yell "NO" in order for them to understand that I wouldn't let them grope me on the dance floor. After a fun night out, we decided to head back to our Hostel at a reasonable time in order to get a good nights sleep to explore the city the next day.
The next day started off great. We decided to go back to Bohemian Bagel for some brunch, and one of my friends actually ended up running into an old friend from high school. Neither of them knew that the other was going to be in Prague for the weekend...small world after all.
After brunch we decided that we would head into the city center for a nice walk, and then try and find the famous (John) Lennon Wall. Getting lost while trying to find the Lennon Wall, we ended up crossing back over the Charles Bridge, and finding the most picturesque background.
Still searching for the Lennon Wall, we decided to take a break and go shopping in some cute boutiques. But little did we know that Prague is either filled with very, VERY high end shops, or tiny, cheap thrift stores. So although I found a beautiful dress and a funky sweater, I knew that deep down it would not be okay to spend over 400 dollars while shopping in Prague...no matter how cute the dress was. So after putting the amazing dress back up on the hanger, I left the store quickly before I had an urge to swipe my credit card.
Back on track to search for the Lennon Wall, we ended up stumbling on a giant, naked baby statue right in the middle of the city. Thinking that this was both awesome but also very strange, I got in line to take a picture with the faceless, giant baby.
Note: Yes, I am canoodling his butt.
After spending some time with the naked baby, we finally made our way to the Lennon Wall. And it was amazing!! The Wall is dedicated to all of the Beatles, but specifically to John Lennon himself. If I knew the backstory of this wall, I would definitely post it here on this blog. But because I have no idea why this wall exists and why it's mainly attributed to John Lennon rather than all of the other Beatles, well, you will have to do a google search and find the answers...
The wall was filled with so much color and life and my friends and I even wrote our name on the wall so that all can see that we were there!
After the Lennon Wall, we decided to go to Wenceslas Square, the more modern hub of Prague. In hopes of finding some moderately priced stores, we had no luck and soon gave up on the shopping scene. All four of our stomaches grumbling, I spotted the first Chinese food restaurant that I have seen the entire year that I had been abroad. Craving some Chinese food, I showed my friends what I had seen. And because their taste buds had been lacking the flavors of Chinese since they have been abroad as well, we all decided that we should sit down for our first Chinese food dinner in months. Bad idea. Don't eat Chinese food in Prague...especially if the exchange rate is equivalent to about 3 dollars for a beef dish. But luckily, I ordered a vegetable noodle dish, while my friend Kate was the only one with the beef.
As we were paying the bill, Kate mentioned that her stomach was starting to hurt a little. But because our stomachs haven't been used to Chinese food for a while, I told her that is was totally normal and that she had to feel better in an hour because after all, we had a pub crawl to get to.
We ended up taking a taxi home because Kate's stomach pains continued to grow. And when she leaned her head into my lap in the taxi, I knew that something was really wrong.
Once we got to the hostel, Kate went straight to her bed to lie down. Still thinking she was going to be okay, my other friend and I kept talking up the pub crawl to try and give her something to look forward to for later that night. Let me just skip to the chase and inform you that we did NOT make it to the pub crawl because within five minutes of being back in our hostel, Kate was violently throwing up. Because the throw up wouldn't stop coming, two of my friends went to the market to go buy water when I stayed in the hostel with Kate, telling her that everything would be okay. I don't want to be too graphic here, but let's just say with food poisoning, it's not just throw up that comes out of your body...
After a full thirty minutes of violently throwing up and it showing no sign of ceasing, I picked up the phone and called Kate's mom back in America. I told Kate's mom everything and her mom calmly told me to get Kate to a doctor. So there we were, four American girls, (one very sick), calling a taxi to take us to the Emergency Room in Eastern Europe. However, the taxi did not drop us off directly in front of the Emergency Room and of course there were no signs that indicated any type of Hospital nearby. Every time we tried to ask someone for help, they simply responded in Czech that they did not know how to speak English. Meanwhile, Kate was still throwing up this entire time and very badly needed to get a shot to stop the vomiting.
Seeing how much pain she was in, I dropped my purse and ran around the courtyard to try and find the Emergency Room. Finally I found someone who spoke English and he pointed me towards the ER. Without checking it out first, I ran back and got Kate, and the four of us entered the ER.
I am being completely honest when I say this: this didn't look like any Emergency Room I had ever seen before in my entire life, and if you know me and all of my medical history, you know I have been to a lot of Emergency Rooms/Hospitals. But this was different. It looked like an old, abandon mental institution. FOR REAL.
Not knowing what to do, we finally found a nurse that spoke English. But of course, Kate wanted to leave as soon as we stepped foot in there and to be perfectly honest, I didn't blame her. But my friends and I pretended like it was all good in order for her to feel safe in a dirty, old, creepy hospital.
The nurses did a blood test on Kate and found that she did indeed have poison in her. But rather than give her a shot and IV right away, they said that they had to wait until the poison left her body the natural way: through throwing up and other bodily functions...
And since this place was the most ghetto thing I have ever seen, the closest bathroom was on the other side of the building. Poor Kate had to keep getting up from bed and walk all the way across the building, until finally she said she was just going to stay in the bathroom until all of her throw up was out.
When she was in the bathroom still vomiting, in rolled an overweight man on a stretcher handcuffed to the bed, with a bloody face and no pants.
Are you kidding me?, was all that kept running through my mind. And because this place didn't seem like a real hospital (I don't know what this place was), they cleaned this man up in the hallway, making us watch the entire thing. (There was no waiting room, just a hallway with stretchers all around.) They finally got the man cleaned up and the police escorted him back to their car. Who knows what happened with pantless man, and I was certainly not going to start asking questions.
Finally, Kate started throwing up less and less and they injected a HUGE shot into her which made the throw up stop all together. They then put her on an IV drip and soon enough, we were out of there.
Kate was still sick that night, but so much better than before. Just so you know, she is perfectly fine now, but never has any interest in eating beef Chinese food again...not even in America...
Note to everyone who just read this post: DO NOT eat cheap Chinese food in Prague. Not smart. I don't know what we were thinking, but it just seemed so perfect at the time.
I made it back to England safely Monday morning and just finished my last week of classes at Exeter! I am done with my Junior year!! So strange!
I now have a month of Spring break (but I only have one paper due in May) so I am basically done with the school year. This year has gone by so fast and although I am done with classes, I am not nearly done with all of my traveling. Tomorrow I leave for Ireland and I will be there for nine days! The only bummer is that I am not meeting any of my friends, but instead I am going with the Kenyon-Exeter group. It should be a lot of fun, but a different kind of trip than if I were to meet up with my close friends. When I get back from Ireland, my parents are coming to visit!!!! I am so excited. They are coming for about two weeks and we are staying in Exeter for a little, then going to Bath, London, Rome, and Florence!! From Italy I am ditching them to go to Greece with my friends and they are going to Pisa to see the leaning tower of Pisa and then back to London. I can't wait for all of the traveling that is coming up and I will post about Ireland as soon as I get back.
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