Blog from Prague, Day One

Greetings from Praha! We arrived this morning at 8:45 AM local time after an eight and a half our flight from Atlanta. I think I got a total of one hour of sleep during the entire flight so much of today has gone by in a blur, but I still think this is a magical city. I didn't sleep well because of the following reasons:

1. Child screaming (who sounded curiously like a dentist drill) for much of the evening.
2. The size of the seat (necessitating me trying to fold into a pretzel like shape for the night).
3. The noisy Czech passengers in the rows behind us.
4. Our in flight "meal".

This is not an exhaustive list, but let's just say I don't sleep well on flights. We did come back to the hotel today for a quick nap in the middle of the afternoon and we are going to turn in early tonight. This coupled with the four beers we had with dinner and lunch will probably help me get a good night's sleep.


We are staying at the "Green Garland Pension" which is just a few blocks away from just about everything we want to see. We can walk in minutes to the Charles Bridge, the Old Town Square, numerous churches, and many different tourist sites. The room is spacious, clean, and the host is awesome. We were greeted by Jana, our wonderful host, who let us check in early and gave us a lot of great information to get started today. Tomorrow we will take a four hour guided walk of the city with our guide, Mischa. I can't wait!



Today we spent most of our time getting our bearings. We wandered around the Old Town seeing the Square, the Astronomical Clock, four churches, the Charles Bridge, and we took in an exhibition of works by Salvador Dali. We also had two fabulous meals: one at a small pub that has a Budweiser sign out front (the Czech version, not the American), and another at the Restaurant Mlejnice. The food here is awesome - lots of meat and potatoes - and the beer, oh the beer.


Let's take a moment to talk beer. So I read a statistic that the Czech Republic is the number one per capita country for beer consumption in the world. It's not hard to believe when you realize that: a. beer is available everywhere and b. it's dirt cheap. A half liter of beer costs the equivalent of $2.00 at a restaurant and you can get it for as cheap as $2.00 for TWO half liters. We stopped at a bar called the Tiger on our way back to the hotel. I ordered two half liters, gave the bartender 100 kc and I got 50 kc back in change. That's awesome. Maybe I won't want to go back home after this!

The people in Prague are awesome. I was worried about the language barrier when we came to town but most everybody speaks at least a little English. Kaia and I have both used our severely limited Czech in a couple of situations but we've been using English most of the time because everybody anticipates it. We are hoping to throw in a bit more Czech, just to get some practice, as the weeks go by but it's been remarkably easy to get around and talk with people. And everybody has been very nice.


It was a successful day one. Now we are ready to turn in for the night. We the muted noise of jazz coming from a bar a couple of blocks away, and the sounds of conversation from a restaurant near our hotel to lull us to sleep. We start tomorrow at 9:00 AM with our tour. I can't wait to get a more in depth view of the city and explore the sites that we have glanced at today. Dobrou Noc!