Prague in Pictures

Hey all! I am almost finished switching from Flickr to Picasa, but I am still trying to figure out the privacy settings so it is easier for people to navigate, hopefully I'll be able to post some links soon. I did finish uploading all of my pictures from Prague, and I wanted to share some of them here. I think the best way to do this is to repost what I wrote about Prague before, but with more detail and the photos added in. So without further ado...

Last weekend was one of the best so far! Thursday (6/11) was another holiday, so Wednesday night I met Greg in Prague, and we had a blast. Wednesday night we just wandered around, trying to figure out the crazy Czech streets.

We found this giant chair to take a break in:


Prague is a strange city, because the Old Town is gorgeous, the most impressive collection of architecture I have ever seen, but it is so overrun with tacky tourism everywhere. It's like Disneyland for Eurotravelers. There is a ton to see and do though, and we tried to fit in as much as possible. Thursday we visited the National Museum, a natural history museum with an incredibly large collection of minerals, animal specimens, and archaeological finds.

The museum:


We also got in a fair amount of shopping on the main shopping drag before heading back to the Old Town and checking out the view from the Old Town Hall Tower.

The tower:


The view, with the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn:


Thursday night after dinner we found the Lennon wall, a stretch of concrete wall that has been a canvas for graffiti since the 80's. People mostly leave tributes to John Lennon and thoughts about peace, love and togetherness, but other people use the wall as a place to air political grievances.

A section of the wall:


Friday rained on and off all day, and we went to the zoo and botanical gardens. The zoo was amazing! It is the #7 zoo in the world, and it showed. The enclosures were amazingly designed, and the cool weather meant most of the animals were up and active, even interacting with the guests.

The giraffes were amazing:


And this tiger was having a great time with lunch:


The botanical gardens were breathtaking, especially the meticulously designed Japanese Garden and the tropical greenhouse. I got a lot of use out of my camera's digital macro taking closeups of incredible flowers.

These were taken in the Japanese Garden:



While these were inside the greenhouse:



Saturday we decided to do the standard tourism things, and took a free walking tour of Prague given by New Europe, a great tourism company for college-aged backpackers. We walked through the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, ending up by the river.

In the Jewish Quarter, with our guide in red:


Prague Castle from the river:


We also hiked up to Prague Castle, which was more exciting to see from a distance than to actually visit, especially since the main attraction, St. Vitus' Cathedral, was closed.

The palace gates:


We did find a great little cafe to eat dinner in, and chatted with some Americans there who work in a hotel near the Palace. Saturday night we went on a Pub Crawl and had a great time hanging out with other young travelers. Sunday we kicked back, Greg left in the early afternoon and I did some last minute sight-seeing, visited the Alphonse Mucha Museum and then lazed away the afternoon with a book by the river.

My grassy retreat:


I enjoyed one last goulash that evening before catching my ride home at 8, and slept most of the way home! To see more of the pictures I took (this is just a small sample) you can check out the whole album:

Apologies all around, this will be a real catch up!

So it's been a few weeks (again) since I updated. I am going to try to prevent this from happening again by giving the short version of all that has happened in the past few weeks, right now, and then hopefully I can do little updates more frequently.

A few weekends ago, I went to Frankfurt for the CDS Orientation, and I had a lot of fun! Greg and I met up Thursday to explore the city and settle into our surprisingly nice Red Light District hostel. We kicked off Friday with a visit to the Main Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Frankfurt, which awarded us with some spectacular views. I'll try to come back and add some photos later. We also took a quick peek in the Altstadt (old city) before heading off to the orientation. The Friday afternoon presentation was all about bureaucracy and the 'first days in Germany', and I nearly died of boredom, since my first days in Germany had been three weeks previous. Luckily they let us out with enough time to go do something worthwhile, and a group of us UofM kids went and hung out by the Main River before heading to a great little bar district for mead and beer. The Friday morning orientation presentations were too early (9AM...I am so glad I wasn't jetlagged like everyone else! For them it felt like 3AM), and almost more painful than the first day. We did a Q&A while we waited for our cultural trainer to arrive. Yes, cultural trainer. After 10 years of German classes, the last thing I needed was an enthusiastic man telling me all about the cultural stereotypes of Germans and Americans. I made a lot of paper cranes. Then most of the kids took off to their various internship locations. I wasn't heading out until later, and Greg was staying an extra night, so we headed to an art museum and saw a great exhibit of Michelangelo sketches...truly amazing. The train ride back was long, and I was glad I had Sunday to recuperate.

The next week was pretty normal, settling in and going to work, but that weekend was the start of Bergkirchweih (or just Berg), the second largest German folk festival after Oktoberfest. It was held in the north of Erlangen, and Greg came to visit and check it out with me. He arrived Friday night, and we met up with some of my coworkers Saturday night and had way too much fun! We drank a few liters of good local beer, danced and sang, and then headed to a nightclub where one of my coworkers' friends was DJing. We danced until the heat and beer got to be too much, and then headed home. Greg took off early on Sunday for Dublin, and I kicked back for the rest of the day.

The next week I got to try out my German health insurance. What started out as a minor sore throat attributed to too much singing Saturday night developed into a stabbing, throbbing pain that prevented me from sleeping Tuesday night, so I took Wednesday off and walked to the local doctor's office. The experience was great, I didn't wait long, he promptly diagnosed me with a virus and prescribed some numbing lozenges and plenty of tea and sleep, and it didn't cost me a penny. I picked up the lozenges on my way home, and spent the rest of the day in bed. I went to work the next day, but I was still pretty sick, and my boss told me not to come in the next day. I spent most of the weekend in bed and ate a lot of soup. By Monday I was feeling well enough to go back to work, and to head to the last day of Berg with my coworkers that evening.

This past weekend was one of the best so far! Thursday was another holiday, so Wednesday night I met Greg in Prague, and we had a blast. Wednesday night we just wandered around, trying to figure out the crazy Czech streets. Prague is a strange city, because the Old Town is gorgeous, the most impressive collection of architecture I have ever seen, but it is so overrun with tacky tourism everywhere. It's like Disneyland for Eurotravelers. There is a ton to see and do though, and we tried to fit in as much as possible. Thursday we visited the National Museum, a natural history museum with an incredibly large collection of minerals, animal specimens, and archaeological finds. We also got in a fair amount of shopping on the main shopping drag. Friday rained on and off all day, and we went to the zoo and botanical gardens. The zoo was amazing! It is the #7 zoo in the world, and it showed. The enclosures were amazingly designed, and the cool weather meant most of the animals were up and active, even interacting with the guests. The botanical gardens were breathtaking, especially the meticulously designed Japanese Garden and the tropical greenhouse. I got a lot of use out of my camera's digital macro taking closeups of incredible flowers. Saturday we decided to do the standard tourism things, and took a free walking tour of Prague given by New Europe, a great tourism company for college-aged backpackers. We also hiked up to Prague Castle, which was more exciting to see from a distance than to actually visit, especially since the main attraction, St. Vitus' Cathedral, was closed. We did find a great little cafe to eat dinner in, and chatted with some Americans there who work in a hotel near the Palace. Saturday night we went on a Pub Crawl and had a great time hanging out with other young travelers. Sunday we kicked back, Greg left in the early afternoon and I visited the Alphonse Mucha Museum and then lazed away the afternoon with a book by the river until my ride picked me up at 8.

So now I am really, truly caught up. I am going to try to go back through this post and add some photos, and I am trying to switch from Flickr to Picasa to avoid upload limits, so hopefully I will soon have a more comprehensive online photo album to share. Until next time!