Friday, January 7, 2011

Prague, Czech Republic

I haven't posted in what seems like forever. A lot has happened in the last few months. I will try to backtrack sometime and actually have saved drafts I need to post but in this post I will focus on what I feel has been the best thing that has happened to me in the last few months- travel.


Since as long as I could remember I have been obssesed with traveling and seeing the world first hand. In fact, my dream is to take a few years off and just travel. For many years this dream was just that...a dream. Being here in Abu Dhabi has made my dream a reality.

In November, I got to travel to Jordan (and shhh Jerusalem). Unfortunately, I misplaced my SD card with these pictures and will have to backtrack someday when I find it.

This post will focus on my most recent trip- Czech Republic. :D

Our trip began with an overnight stay in Dubai because flights are cheaper from Dubai than Abu Dhabi. We spent some time at the Dubai Mall which is an immense mall. Nathan bought himself a new digital camera and I bought a new SD card because I had misplaced mine.


We caught an early morning flight to Kiev, Ukraine which provided our connecting flight to Prague, Czech Republic. Nathan and I boarded the plane in our Abu Dhabi clothes and were shocked to discover that upon arrival at Kiev, we had to dismount directly on the terminal. It was freezing and for the first time I saw snow! Granted, it was already on the ground and not too impressive, but I was totally excited anyways. Getting off the plane to go catch the next plane was no problem because the process was quick. The real issue was waiting to board the next plane in the freezing cold. As a slow line progressed up the side of the airplane, my ears were so cold that I thought I had caused permanent damage. I just kept shivering and slowly was becoming disoriented. It made me appreciate the Abu Dhabi sunshine.

We're smiling on the outside only


We flew through an airline called Aerosvit, which we have renamed Aeroshit. Poor Nathan didn’t fit in the seats (he’s 6’3 or so). The seat reached his shoulders and his knees were jammed against the seat in front of him. He had to suffer as a teenager kept trying to adjust his seat. I was confortable though (since I’m normal sized, haha). The ticket was only $500 so I couldn’t complain. 

My first glimpse at Prague


We arrived in Prague at around 6pm and it was already completely dark. I was jumping up and down getting out of the airport because there were little bits of snow in the air (I think it's a snow flurry). Everything was covered in snow and looked so beautiful! We caught an express shuttle from the airport and were dropped off near a train terminal. Nathan has a worse sense of direction than I do (which is quite shocking) and much to my protest and dismay we caught a really expensive taxi to our hotel. I bitched and moaned the whole time because we got taken for fools. The driver drove us around in a circle and we arrived at our hotel 5 minutes after getting on. I could have done better walking…but then again…I also had some rest on the plane while Nathan was just uncomfortable the entire time. I tried to forget the whole incident but just stayed angry the whole night because I'm just like that. (one of my many character flaws  :P)
view from the river
 I got over it the next day. We got up early and had an amazing breakfast. We loaded up because we knew it would be a long day.
bundled up

We started our walk by heading towards the river. The river led to the Prague Castle. Along the way we saw awesome graffiti. I feel that the graffiti in this city is the best I’ve seen anywhere. It suits the city. We thought we found the famed St. Andrews Bridge and headed to the Jewish quarters of Josefov. We checked out the amazing architecture and stopped by the Franz Kafka cafĂ© to have some Irish coffee. Yum! Coffee and Baileys are always a winning combination.
 We did not do much in Josefov besides just walk around and take in the architecture. It was our first real look at the typical architecture of Prague. In Josefov there are is a Jewish museum and also a few synagogues. The museum is composed of artifacts taken from Jewish families by the Nazis to create a museum for an extinct race. It turned my stomach and I wanted to have a lighter day so I decided to skip out. There is also a town nearby called Terezin of important significance to Jews because it served as a concentration camp that was played off to be a sanctuary for the Jews almost till the end of the war.  Sick.


At the park :)

After Josefov, we headed back towards the “St. Andrew’s Bridge” and walked into a park that was spacious and filled with lots of snow for me to play with. I made a snow angel, helped put a snowman back together, kicked down the snowman, and threw a snowball at Nathan. I also had a flipping genius idea to sled down a hill with our inflatable seat cushions. We climbed up a mini hill that some bad ass little kids were skiing down and I prepared for take off. Weeeeeeeeeeee. The first attempt was a complete success. Nathan came down and even went over a snow built ramp and hurt his booty. I went down again to get a picture. This time though I accidently opened up my legs and all the snow came rushing to my face. I was laughing and crying. I couldn’t feel my face or open my eyes. It was incredibly painful but soooo worth the experience (and awesomely hilarious pictures!). It made my mascara smudge though and I looked a little beat up the rest of the day.

We hung around the park for a bit and played on a swing. It was so sweet. I felt so deliriously happy to have Nathan to snuggle with in the cold weather. He’s so cuddly. Lol. We eventually made our way to the Prague Castle which looms high above the city.

It's nice to be able to kiss in public!

From afar the castle does not look very impressive but when you get closer you realize how massive and impressive it is. The Prague Castle is what I’ve dreamed castled to look like. It’s like the Beauty and the Beast castle. I loved it. When I go back to Prague, I’ll pay to go inside. For this trip we were trying to keep costs down and settled from admiring from a distance while sipping our delicious hot wine.

On our way back out of the castle we discovered the real St. Andrew's Bridge. It is such an amazing bridge. There are a bunch of immense statues dating back to the Baroque era. The bridge was filled with people. Trombones and trumpets were playing Christmas songs from on top of the entrance to the city at the end of the bridge, there was a bridge band jamming (with a upright bass!), and many sketch artists. My favorite moment at the bridge was listening to a blind man playing music on the bridge (the name of the instrument escapes me). Nathan and I paused and listened for a few minutes and gave him a tip. It was such beautiful music. I felt so blessed to be experiencing something so wonderful.

We made our long journey back to the hotel on foot, settled into our cozy beds and fell into a deep sleep even though it was only 6pm! We were exhausted from a long day of walking but both had such an amazing time.

Sunset view of the Castle. Just beautiful.

This is only day one of the adventure. I will break this trip up into a few posts. Also, I bought a nice new camera a Nikon D90, from which I'll just make a picture post later.