Prague (& Week Three)

Well, Monday - Thursday of my third week in Budapest was pretty uneventful. We did a scavenger hunt in our Hungarian class one afternoon where we actually had to go out and use our Hungarian. It wasn't as exciting as scavenger hunts normally are . . . But our class won best photo for our picture of "a cute dog" - it was really Haley using the snapchat dog filter :) Thursday, I graduated from the course and have since hung my certificate in my room. 80 hours of Hungarian language class has officially been completed! Olivia and I went out to celebrate at a local waffle café:

Now on to the more exciting part of the week: Prague!

At the Astronomical Clock

Friday morning six of us took the 7 hour train ride from Budapest to Prague. The train ride actually went by surprisingly fast. Upon arrival in Prague, we checked in at our hotel, found out that they have a complimentary breakfast every morning, and then headed out the door so I could get to mass on time. I recently started a list of all the languages I have attended mass in and I'm looking forward to being able to grow this list. We then ate at a nice restaurant that had very delicious food (Café Louvre). Olivia and I split the home-made potato gnocchi with salmon. 😋 The six of us then enjoyed the evening checking out Old Town, Charles Bridge, and other parts of the city. 

Saturday was a crazy day full of walking and sightseeing. I was so thankful that we had beautiful weather - sunny, but not too hot. Here is what Olivia and I were able to accomplish:

• Enjoyed that complimentary breakfast at the hotel at 7:45 AM
• Went off  to explore Vyšehard, an old castle ruin area and the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul (pictured below on the left). This was one of my favorite parts of the day - the temperature was perfect, we had time to meander and explore, and there were almost no one else present! We spent about an hour there, but easily could have spent more.

• Walked through the Náplavka Farmer's Market and looked at all the delicious sweets they were selling (but didn't buy any)
• Visited the massive Toy Store my travel buddies had found when I was at mass - they had a slide and were playing classic Disney Channel music. It was perfect. Below is a picture of me with the teddy bear and princess who great people at the front door!

• We shared a quiche with salmon  and spinach before meeting up with our other travel buddies for a free walking tour
• Visited some churches and found out some history about some random buildings and streets. Apparently street names used to indicate to people what types of stores were on each street. For example a street with lots of bakeries would have been called bakery or bread street (or something along those lines).
• Quickly realized that I did not like walking tours and would rather explore on my own
• Saw a church with the walking tour
• Olivia thankfully was okay splitting from the group with me, so we left the group and took many pictures at old town
• Went and saw the Jewish quarters an cemeteries, which was closed since it was Saturday
• Headed up to Prague Castle and saw the gorgeous St. Vitus cathedral. I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of people in the church walking around and taking pictures; it made the space feel less sacred, but the beauty of this church was breath-taking.

Nový Svět

• Walked down a cute little side street, Nový Svět, and found a really cute café. Unfortunately, they didn't have any food and that is what Olivia and I needed most. We headed back to the main area and found a place to eat.

• Walked by the Strahov Monastery, but didn't pay to see the library inside
• Walked up to the Petrin tower (a mini Eiffel tower) and explored in the park around it
• Saw the Infant Jesus of Prague
• Took many pictures by the Lennon Wall

• Walked across the Charles Bridge
• Stopped by this super cute stationary store, Papelote, that I read about on one of my Pinterest pins. All their stationary is made from environmentally friendly material and is a store any stationary-fanatic would love. Olivia and I each picked up a notebook as a souvenir from the weekend.
• Sat by the river for a while and enjoyed the view
• Grabbed a super yummy salad with goat cheese, rucola, cranberries and walnuts. Since Olivia and I had a large late lunch, we weren’t super hungry for a large dinner and decided to share the salad. I'm pretty sure our waiter hated us for just ordering a salad and splitting it, but whatever.
• Had some ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries
• Met back up with our other travel buddies and headed back to the hotel

We all then enjoyed 5-6 hours of sleep before getting up for our train ride back to Budapest (after first enjoying another wonderful breakfast at the hotel of course).

Currently, I'm writing this on the train with 6 hours to go. We will arrive back in Budapest around 2 this afternoon, allowing us plenty time to prep for the first day of classes tomorrow!

Overall, Prague was a beautiful city and a place I highly recommend others to visit. It blows my mind that three weeks ago I was in the states and this weekend I took a 7 hour train ride to a new country with five others I did not know three weeks ago for less than $150! I can tell this semester is going to be one for the books.

I'm excited for classes to start up tomorrow and to finally figure out how I want to arrange my schedule. I plan to take a salsa dance class just for the heck of it, so I'm really excited for that to start the following week. I'll give an update on classes at the end of the week and hopefully an update on my living accommodations as well. :)

Szia,

Ashley

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