Spontaneous Trip to Prague Part 1: Pre-First Excursion

So like, crazy story. I was sitting in my jams in Ed's apartment on the Monday morning before I was to return to Japan (which was the following Saturday). I was czeching Facebook and saw that my friends Mike and Dana had czeched in at the Amsterdam airport. And I was like, shit, man. Amsterdam is right across the ol' channel. So I sent them a message being like, what are you doing in Amsterdam? I'm right across the ol' channel in Brighton. And they were like, actually we're just on a layover on our way to Prague. And I was like, hey, we could go over there and hang out with you. And they were like, yeah. And so Ed and I did a bunch of quick intaanetto lisaachi, booked ourselves a cheap flight and a cheap hotel, and were on a plane that VERY EVENING, to return Thursday.

I'm really glad to know that my "czech" homophony pun has FINALLY paid off, after maybe more than a decade using it.

If you are confused about why this is working, find Prague on a map.

Anyway, although our hotel was really weird, because it was in some old building that also had things like a restaurant (not associated with the hotel) and a dentist's office in it, and our room was in kind of a different part of the building from where the rest of the hotel was, I did not bother to take any pictures of it, because it was all pretty dull. Actually, the hotel was also weird because you had to buzz at the front door to get in, like in apartment buildings. This is perhaps because there are so many separate businesses in the same building. My point here is that I won't be boring you with hotel photos this time.

Right.

So after breakfast, our first point of business was to meet up with Mike and Dana, whom I hadn't seen for over three years, so that was a cool thing. Ed and I hadn't had time to do any research on what to actually do in Prague, so we were hoping the others would have a game plan set up. Luckily, they did. But that is for NEXT TIME.

Before we met up with them, Ed and I ran around and took a few pictures of the area around our hotel, which was in Old Town.

Behind us here is the famous astronomical clock. It was put up in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock that is still working, according to Wikipedia. You can look it up if you want to know more about this fascinating piece of history.

Here's a video from later that night of the hourly blah it puts on. It's funny because presumably every waking hour, you can see a big crowd of people gather as early as fifteen minutes before the hour strikes, anticipating the show. But it's totally not worth the wait.

 The astronomical clock is in Old Town Square, which is where the next few shots were taken.

I've developed this funny habit of making ugly faces when Ed is trying to take a selfie--but he never knows it until after the shot is taken. Bwah ha ha.

This Gothic church is called the Church of Mother of God before Tyn. Jeez.

The statue in the background here is the Jan Hus Memorial. He was like a priest, philosopher, and reformer and such. Wikipedia makes it sound as though the reason he was eventually burned at the stake was merely because he believed that Catholic mass should be presented in the local language, rather than in Latin, but I imagine there was more to the story. Good ol' Catholic leaders.

Here's us walking to the train station. Notice how like all the buildings are old and pretty in this town.

We had to kill some time before our train, so we explored the grounds of the station and found this statue honoring President Woodrow Wilson. We were pretty confused as to why there would be a statue of an American president in Prague, and especially why so many of the donors were from various American families and organizations, as acknowledged on the plaques. But apparently this statue was originally put up in 1928 because Wilson was instrumental in getting Czechoslovakia's independence. Then the Nazis tore it down in 1941. Those guys. The statue was put pack up a couple years ago by the American Friends of the Czech Republic, and I guess they have strands running all over the U.S., where they got their donations.

 I don't remember what was going on here, but evidently it was very funny.

And here's just a funny video.

So next time I'll talk about where we actually went on the train.