Greetings from Praha! The beautiful city of Prague, the capitol of the Czech Republic!
Holy cow. This city is extraordinary, magical, stunning! No wonder it's known as "the gem of Eastern Europe." At every corner, every street, every bridge, or every park bench, there is something unique and aesthetically pleasing to the eye in this city. The architecture is other-worldly. The canals, the parks, the monuments.....I could go on and on raving about the beauty of this place!
I think I'm truly becoming an adult as weird as that sounds (I know you're all thinking, "yeah right Dani...we know how you really are"). But no really! I booked this flight all by myself, took my bus to Cadorna Station in Milan, took the Malpensa express, changed planes in Zurich, took a bus from the Prague airport to a metro station, took the metro to the city center, then navigated my way to the hostel where I am staying tonight, and I explored the city all day today. An d I did it all BY MYSELF. And I felt totally natural doing it. I'm a little proud of this as you can tell. But tomorrow morning I'm meeting my wonderful friend from back home, Caitlin, who's studying in Budapest, and we will explore Prague more together (though it can be cool to explore solo, it's always more fun with good company!).
My favorite part of my first day in Prague was wandering in one of it's majestic parks. I crossed a canal bridge, not the famous Charles Street Bridge (I went there later), but one of Prague's many bridges to this park that's located on a hilltop. From this park are scenic panorama views of the city (the vantage points where most popular postcard photos of Prague are taken from). Since autumn is in full force here, my personally favorite season, the park just blew me away. My camera photos do not do it justice. The trees where all yellow, orange, and red, the grass a lush green, and it was that time in the afternoon when the sun is beginning to set and is casting shadows on the ground. Fall leaves where on the ground everywhere (reminding me of the fall on the beautiful Whitworth campus). The ground was damp and that fresh scent of clean air and crispness was everywhere.People were leisurely walking dogs or sitting on park benches. The park has many winding pathways that all have sweeping views of the city, the river with the great canals. It was simply to die for and it was a much needed change from the mugginess and grime of Milan.
After exploring the park, I walked across the Charles Street Bridge, walked back, saw the city center and Old Town, and eventually after much walking, I took a break at a coffee shop after purchasing a really neat Prague postcard that I'm sending to my family.
Some friends that I had met up with at Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, are studying in Prague (but they are traveling this weekend so I was unable to meet up with them) warned me about Czech people. They are very quiet and soft spoken, very casually dressed (a nice change from the pretentiousness of Milanese fashion), and well, a little bit cold. I don't mean to say that they're flat out rude or anything, but let's just say I was warned. And yes, I encountered some very rude people today, startlingly rude actually, but a few people seemed genuinely friendly as well. So I guess it's hard to categorize the friendliness of an entire country. One street artist czech woman I met was very nice along the Charles Street Bridge and I bought a piece of art from her (the Charles Street Bridge has lot's of cheap, good street art).
The hostel I'm at is very nice and located right in central Old Town Square. Not bad. I'm waking up very early tomorrow to meet Caitlin and though I'm sure she'll be exhausted, we're going to have a very full day. We'll probably see the park (again for me, but I don't mind at all), walk the bridge, see Old Town, and hopefully some sweet looking cathedrals and Prague Castle!
My second Praha installment is in the making....so until then, ciao ciao!
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