Sam's Eurotrip

Sunday in Prague was dedicated to checking out the 2009 Czech Beer Festival, which was held at a fairgrounds-type place outside the city. We traded our korunas for Tolars, the special currency for the festival, and started to try out different Czech beers. Six huge tents were filled with different brands of beer and traditional Czech food, plus some live music and dancing. In all I think we each had about 3 liters of beer, ranging from sweet pale ales to chocolaty porters. Rob, Anna, and Megan actually rode a tilt-a-whirl ride towards the end of the experience. We managed to get separated on our way back, affording Rob and I a lot of worrying while Anna and Megan luckily encountered a San Franciscan named Johnny who showed them a good time around the city before we could all meet back up at the apartment. Which, speaking of the apartment, was so cool! It was a great choice for our last three nights in the Prague, located just a block from the main square, and we had a ton of space to spread out, cook, relax, whatever.

Anyway, Monday brought beautiful weather and a chance to visit the Prague Castle which is located at the top of the hill on the left bank of the river. The castle is a vast complex of old palace buildings, chapels, and gardens that surround the main cathedral. The inside of the cathedral was absolutely gorgeous with some of the prettiest stained glass I’d ever seen – see the photos below. We spent the whole afternoon perusing the complex – including a torture chamber, ha – and ended up exiting the castle grounds into the same park overlooking the city that we’d been at two days before. We prepared dinner at home before heading out to celebrate my BIRTHDAY! I took my first ever absinth shot, which is performed by filling a spoon with sugar, dipping it in the absinth, lighting it on fire until it caramelizes, then stirring it into the shot and throwing it back. It was, needless to say, strong. We hit one other bar, before which we got some fried cheese and a bottle of champagne. It was a great night even if some of us weren’t feeling so great in the morning!

Tuesday the 2^nd was spent doing a little bit more exploring on our last day in the city. Anna and Megan went to Bohemia Bagel with Johnny while Rob and I walked around, stopping into an awesome vintage bookstore on the left bank before finding some pizza and chilling on the river. We all met back at the apartment for some dinner before going on a pub crawl that Johnny manages. It was a lot of fun – everything was free for me since it was my birthday – though I called it an early night and got back to the apartment before midnight since we would be leaving the next morning.

We got up and packed up our things from the apartment this morning and hopped the metro to the train station in order to get on the train to Cesky Krumlov. It’s a small town in the extreme south of the Czech Republic known for its outdoor sports and incredible scenery, as the town is almost completely surrounded by an oxbow in the Vltava River. I’m actually on the train right now writing this, stopped briefly in Tábor, with about an hour left before we get to Cesky Krumlov. I’ll continue the adventure from there once we’ve gotten in and settled in our hostel!

Missing everyone back home and I hope the blog updates are keeping you entertained! A big (belated) happy birthday goes out to Ms. Maddie Spinks, with whom I actually got to share a birthday for about 6 hours – hers is the 1^st of June and with the time difference we were celebrating concurrently!

Until the next post,

Cheers,