Day 1 - June 27: Arriving in Prague

There were definite times on our overnight flight from JFK to Prague that I thought Dramamine and a deaf ear were no match for the boy screaming from night terrors in the row behind…but I prevailed!  We knew we had no choice but to stay awake all day once we landed to adjust to the 9-hour time change and were expecting it would be a huge challenge.  Somehow we all landed at 10:30 am Prague time feeling rested and ready for the day ahead!

Sculptures outside Mosaic House

I had arranged for a shuttle to take us to our hostel – Mosaic Hostel in the New City part of Prague (new in that it is only 600 years old).  The hostel is the first eco hotel in Prague (which I would come to discover means that the shower only runs for 15 seconds at a time).  It is a very artsy  and hip place full of young travelers and offering nightly activities.  We actually had a two-bunk, four-person room in their place across the street, Hostel Mingle, but it was too early to check in.

The girls immediately felt at home

So, we left our luggage at the hostel and headed out to explore on foot. First stop – lunch.  Wanting to immerse ourselves in the culture, we asked for an authentic Czech food recommendation at the hostel but quickly realized that vegetarian tea-totallers aren’t a great match for Czech cuisine.   I did my part by ordering some sort of “steak” covered in brown gravy. 

As we meandered our way from lunch to the Old City square, we passed a big Tesco supermarket. One of our favorite things to do when traveling is to walk the aisles of the local grocery stores as an insight into local culture. Lo and behold I found a white chocolate Magnum bar which are impossible to find in the US (I’ve looked often) and couldn’t resist.  Very soon after I learned that a Bohemian speciailty is something they call trdelnik – dough that is rolled and wrapped around a stick and then grilled and top with sugar and filled with ice cream.  I could absolutely be a part of this Czech cuisine!  Sadly, it would have to wait.

We knew we were getting close to Old City square as the number of tourists and people selling to tourists increased.  We were delighted that those people repeatedly approached us in Spanish rather than English! We've decided to talk Spanish to each other as much as possible, especially in public. It is somehow less intimidating to do it in Eastern Europe.

From Old City square we followed Rick Steve’s walking tour of Old City through the curvy narrow streets where each building is unique and cool.
Highlights included:

 the Astronomical Clock (seriously how did they know all that 700 years ago??)

the Powder Tower (marking the old entrance to the walled city

 and the Charles Bridge

We ended the tour crossing Charles Bridge.  At near the end of the bridge we went down to Kampa Island and over to the Little Quarter and the Lennon Wall – once a place of defiancelocals craving freedom and now a place where people still come to "imagine." 

Just after we got our pictures of the wall and were starting the longish walk back to our hostel, we got caught in a sudden surprising torrential downpour.  We had very conscientiously packed both raincoats and umbrellas but left all of that with our bags in the hostel.  Luckily there was a cab nearby and we were able to hop in.

We checked in at the hostel and were invited to join tonight’s activity – a rooftop party.  We decided to check it out on our way to dinner but, as Rachel so aptly noted, she and Julia were too young for it and, sadly, I was too old. 

Our due diligence paid to eating Czech food, we went to a vegetarian Indian buffet for dinner where you pay by the weight.  We hadn’t realized that we were there within an hour of closing so it was 40% off!  We all ate for a total of about $8! 

Rachel finally succumbed to her jet lag around 8 pm while Julia and I are still going pretty strong.  I think Rachel’s downfall though is less related to the how much sleep she got in transit but to the fact that she only got 2 hours of sleep the night before we left – last minute, late night packing after the Galaxy Earthquakes tie game at Stanford. Julia was talking about being wide awake but as I finish up this first day’s blog, both girls have fallen asleep in their bunks. A great first day!