Life
couldn’t get any better than this. I’m sitting on a train to Prague, the sun is
shining into the window that I have completely cracked open, and the weather is
beautiful. I was really dreading this seven hour train ride, but it has been
extremely peaceful and relaxing. I thought I was going to miss the train so
sprinting to the train was a bit of a hassle, but once I sat down and the train
started to move, the breeze and the sunshine just took me away. Right now I
have four more hours to go, but when I post this I’ll already be in Prague. The
rest of my friends are flying and will arrive around 4pm and then I will meet
them around 9pm.
Last
Sunday – the hike and roast was incredible! A group of about 20 of us hiked up
to the top of one of the Buda Hills and found a beautiful place to start a
fire. There was a fire pit with logs around it to sit on, and then beyond that
was a bunch of green grass that we could all just hang out on. Everyone brought
food and we just prepared it in the fire – some people brought huge pieces of
meat (gross), others brought sausage, bread, vegetables, etc. Anything you
could cook on a fire. Julia and I had sweet potatoes and they came out pretty
darn good! We cut them up into a bunch of little pieces and then I had brought
a red bell peppers so we split that and wrapped it all up in tin foil and stuck
it in the fire! We had so much fun up there that a group of six of us stayed
until 7pm. People slowly started to leave and we were the last ones there. We
haven’t had sun in so long so we wanted to enjoy being outside as long as we
could. This was probably one of my favorite days here – we all keep talking
about it nonstop and how we need to do it again!
On
Wednesday, Anna-Lena and I had to check out a hotel for an advertising project
we were doing. It was a really neat artsy, boutique hotel; it’s basically one
of our competitors for a new hotel that is opening in Budapest – we have to
come up with an advertising plan for this new hotel so we wanted to see what
our competition was like. The cool thing about this hotel was that it only had
11 bedrooms and they are very trustful of their guests, giving them sort of an
individual experience and a sense of freedom, or home away from home. They have
an “honesty bar” where guests can pour their own drinks, write down what they
got, and then pay for the drinks at the end of their stay. I thought that was a
very neat idea. The lady there was very informative and interested in our
project, which helped a lot because we were afraid we wouldn’t be let in.
Afterwards,
we sat outside on a restaurant patio and enjoyed the sunshine! We ordered
tequila sunrises and cheer’d to beautiful weather! Afterwards, I met up with
Frederique and Anthony and we went up to Margaret Island to have a picnic/hangout.
I brought some grapes up, and Frederique brought bread, cheese, and apples. She
also brought a bottle of wine without a bottle opener, so Anthony and our
friend Dany who met us up on the island a little after we got up there, walked
around asking everybody if they had a bottle opener. It was hilarious to watch
because there were a bunch of different groups of people just laying out in the
sun and all the groups overheard Dany and Anthony asking people if they had a
bottle opener so before they could even say anything, people were already
shaking their head no. haha eventually Anthony went up to a group of people and
a guy just pushed the corkscrew in with his thumb, so we didn’t get the
corkscrew out, but we got it into the bottle so we could pour wine out.
Success!
After
hanging out on the island for a while, I had to get back to the school for a
meeting with my project group and teacher. It was a short meeting discussing
our upcoming project. After that I rushed home and tried to eat dinner as fast
as I could – I had ten minutes before I had to meet back up with people to go
to an ice hockey game!
We
got to the hockey game and it turns out that six of the tickets were for the
right date, and eight of the tickets were for a previous date. Anthony and Dany
ordered the tickets all together, so we still aren’t sure how that happened. I
got lucky with a ticket for the right date, but eight others were turned away
at the door. The ones that got inside were able to get wristbands to go outside
and then get back in. We went outside and talked to the others and tried to
work out a plan. We weren’t going to go in because we felt bad that not
everyone could join, but they reassured us that we shouldn’t feel bad and that
we should enjoy the game. Five of the eight actually bought another ticket that
was a bit more expensive because they really wanted to see the game; they ended
up getting way better seats than we had anyway! The game was so much fun! I’ve
been to an Atlanta Thrashers game before, but it was such a long time ago. It
was exciting to see Hungary play Kazakhstan. There are six teams left in the
world championship, so this was definitely an exciting game to see! Hungary won
2-1! Even though I had no idea what the crowd was chanting, we pretended we knew
and went along with the cheers and hand-clapping! Anthony was super into the
game – he was chanting and jumping with the rest of the crowd and celebrating
with the Hungarians outside afterward. Coming from Canada, he was so excited to
see an ice hockey game and he was teaching Miguel and I all the rules! Afterward,
we all got on the metro bus and everyone on there was jumping up and down and
continuing to sing all the Hungary chants! The metro bus was literally bouncing
up and down; it was awesome! We went out afterward for a celebratory drink and
then I went home after about an hour, but I’m sure the others stayed out pretty
late. I needed to get up early to start packing for Prague because I hadn’t
packed anything yet.
--
Now
that I’ve been in Prague for a day… I LOVE IT! It’s like Budapest, but a whole
lot nicer! Today we did a free walking tour and our tour guide was incredible.
Best tour guide I’ve ever had. He never once bored me and his stories were
factual, historical, but interesting all at the same time. I learned a lot
about the Czech Republic and how it used to be Bohemia, etc. etc. I always knew
that I was Czech/Bohemian but I never really knew what it meant. Now, I have a
way better understanding of the Czech history. We saw Old Town Prague, New town
Prague, and the Jewish Quarter of Prague. That tour lasted from 11am until
2:30pm with a 40min lunch in between. It really was a fantastic tour and I’m so
glad we did it!
After
the tour we walked across the river to see the John Lennon wall – a graffiti wall
with Beatles lyrics and just other random graffiti. I saw a lot of things about
Boston – like “Pray for Boston” and “Boston Remembered” because of the recent
shootings there. Apparently the wall used to be a dedication by the Czechs to
John Lennon, but now it has turned more touristy and the wall is constantly
changing as new people add more artwork to it.
After
we saw the wall, we walked across the famous bridge – the Charles bridge. There
were a bunch of tourists and people selling things on the bridge. After that,
we decided to hit up a grocery store to buy dinner and now we are hanging out
in our hotel about to make dinner and get ready for the night. We are deciding
what we want to do, but there is a pub crawl organized by some people that we
could do and sounds pretty fun! There’s also a five story club – one of the
biggest in central Europe that would be fun to check out.
Prague
is beautiful. One of my favorite places I’ve visited so far! Tomorrow we will
do a tour of the Prague Castle! Oh and beer in Czech is some of the greatest in
the world – last night we went to a place that had 30 different Czech beers on
tap and in their menu they had paragraph descriptions about each beer – very interesting!
We
wish the weather here was warmer… in Budapest it’s supposed to be really sunny
and warm, but in Prague it has been overcast. It was supposed to rain today,
but thankfully it didn’t!
I’ll
most likely write another post on my train ride back to Budapest on Sunday!
Happy
weekend to all!
xx
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