Czech it out! We're in Prague!

Oh Bohemia!

We arrived in Prague 2 days ago. We bid our dear Vaclav goodbye after the overnight train then found our ELF, the hostel we're staying in, and enjoyed a lazy morning waiting 'til check-in time. After relaxing for a bit, and finally getting some beds to throw our shit on, we showered and took off downtown to partake in a Free NewEurope Tour.

Justin was our guide and Kjels said that he was the best she's had yet. Clean your minds please; it's just that she's been on a lot of the NewEurope's free tours and she said he was the most knowledgable and the most energetic. In addition to the wonders provided by the tour, we experienced our own miracle, by again seeing our friend Justin (from Georgia). We first met Justin on the train from Verona to Munich a couple of weeks ago. We saw him again, two days later, at the Munich train station and then once more at Neuschwanstein! We've decided that we were are destined to be great friends because fate keeps bringing us back together. This however, would still not be the last time we would cross paths. The tour was only supposed to be 3 hours, and it was close to 5. All's well though, because we learned soooo much. I couldn't handle the plethora of knowledge so about 10 minutes in I had to start taking notes. Here's some excerpts:

• A force of only 30,000 Czechs successfully pushed out 900,000 Nazi troops in the final days of WWII but have never gotten full credit for it because days later, the Soviet "Liberation" began and they claimed the success for themselves.
• Salutary Czech words sound dirty when spelled out in English phonetics. (i.e. dick-y means hello)
• The clock in Prague's Old Town Square is animated similarly to the infamous Glockenspiel of Munich. It also holds the title of Europe's "Second-most-overrated-tourist-attraction" following the aforementioned Glockenspiel.
• It's A LOT of fun to cheer to the Prague "glockenspiel" while surrounded by a crowd of first-time viewers. Their first inclination is to feel let down, but when others (us) are cheering fanatically they feel like their excitement should mirror ours. Seconds later, the confusion really sets in.
• The picturesque Prague Castle took over a century to complete. It was began in 870 AD and was completed in the 1929.
• The Cathedral attatched to the Castle has images of all the master-masons from the job, including the 20's attire all the way down through the medival times and beyond.
• The entire film "Eurotrip" was filmed in Prague, even though the plot-line includes visits in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Bratislava. We saw the "Louvre."
• There are over 30 statues lining the signature St. Charles Bridge.
• There's a John Lennon tribute wall on a street just off the St. Charles bridge, which was began in the 1980's following his asassination. At that time, Czechloslovakia was still under Soviet rule, the wall was white-washed every day but would miraculously appear re-colored every morning.
• Right beside the wall is a neiborhood square that has been used in a number of "bad" movies, such as: Mission Impossible, XXX, Van Helsing, and The Oman.
• David Cerny is a Czech contemporary and very controversial artist. He was actually commissioned to create a mural for a wall in the EU Headquarters. When his masterpiece was unveiled, it successfully lived up to his reputation. The painting was of a map depicting an image of each of the worst stereotypes of each country within its boundaries. For example, Bulgaria was a giant toilet and France simply had a huge banner across it that read "On Strike". It must have been a hoot. The really kicker was though that of course, Germany was represented with a huge swastika made our of an autobahn, and thus... the fun ended.
• We saw a fountain-statue of Cerny's. It was of twn men facing each other, moving, and peeing... on an outline of the Czech Republic. The best part about this was that beside the fountain there was a plaques with a phone number on it. One could send a text message to that number and the statues will pee out your message. For example, "Hi Mom. We're in Prague. It's great." :D

So much more was learned but those are the highlights of our first day.

Our second day in Prague was very laid back. We slept in, had breakfast, took advantage of the free internet, then finally made our way back to the city center. Refer to bullet 4. We searched and searched for a Happy Hour but settled on cheap beer instead. After a reasonably priced meal of Fish n' Chips, we sat in the Old Town Square and made our own fun. We greeted passersby, and were successful enough to gain 2 new friends--an Aussie and a kid from New Mexico (who ended up buying us beer). Around this time, we saw our buddy Justin yet again. Yay! Sadly, he couldn't hang around because he was actively participating in a pub-crawl. Then we turned in for the night and now here we are.
We're leaving for Berlin, since Poland is now out of the picture. :(
So wish us luck.
Much love!