Last Night In Berlin
Me, Arthur, Linea and Thomas (people I met at the hostel) all went to a jazz bar called B Flat! It was really cool and Thomas really tried (they all tried but he actually went up and talked to the trumpeter) to get me to sing! I didn't because I was catching a cold and I realized I hate singing in front of people unless I'm prepared for it. I need to always be prepared. UGH. But anyways that night showed me how easy it would've been for me to just go up and sing. I feel I could actually live in Berlin, despite the language barrier. But now I'm all the more excited for LA, which is where I have more or less definitely decided on living. We then went to this artsy beach bar place - I think it was Squatters?? Anyways, the point is I had to leave at 8 am the next morning and I only slept 2 hours that night.
Terezhin
If any 1 thing has been making me feel better about busabout, it is the day trips included in between the stops! I didn't get to go to the Sachau Concentration Camp while in Berlin, so I was pretty depressed about it, only to find that Terezhin, a "photo stop" was also a concentration camp! The guided tour was horrible, as the guide looked really bored the whole time, but I was excited to see a concentration camp in person! I had read about them since the 3rd grade and all, so it was interesting to see what it really looked like.
Prague
So as I mentioned in the title, I hated Prague on my first night. Basically the bus dropped us off in a hostel in the middle of nowhere. I was thinking I would take the metro to my hostel as I had had only 2 hours of sleep and did NOT want to carry my bags 3-5 miles to my hostel. . . Well, as the hostel was in the middle of nowhere, it turned out, NO one around spoke English. When I was finally able to mime out "BANKA" (which is what I had been saying?!?!?!), NO one knew where an ATM was. We had also been warned not to use a cab b/c they WILL rip you off and potentially kidnap and kill you. So I decided to walk towards my hostel in the hopes of walking by an ATM or something.
When I finally found one, GO FIGURE, the machines don't accept large bills and NOTHING was open. Also, as that hostel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere is past the train station, there were a LOT of dead ends not shown on the map (meaning I had to walk in circles for hours), so I walked around with my bags crying for 3 and a 1/2 hours. Oh yes, and we had also been warned the Bohemian sense of humor. I don't remember what it is, but it definitely consists of laughing at the really tired and lost looking tourist and not helping. Afterwards, I understood it's that Prague is really easy to figure out so they thought it was silly that I was freaking out. But if you had to walk for hours just trying to get to your hostel, only getting to more dead ends, you would be flipping out too. But I blame busabout for that. Anyways I finally found it and just went to bed.
The next day I headed to the Astronomical Clock which was. . . I have to say, very underwhelming. . . someone's eyes got taken out for making that?!?!?! (So that he wouldn't be able to make something that beautiful again.) So I was even more pissed that I had decided to make Prague one of my longer stops.
Then I headed to the Castle, on the way passing by the Prague Metronome, which WAS impressive, and potentially the most gorgeous building I had ever seen in my life hidden in the mountain the metronome was on (which I found out later was the Hanavsky Pavillion, and not very impressive close up actually. . .). So anyways, dramatically, as I made my way over to the castle, just as I saw it, I heard the most beautiful music I had ever heard in my LIFE. I really mean that. Then the Castle came into view. That when I couldn't help it. Despite the fact that I had more or less decided I hated the city and that the people were mean, I fell in love with Prague. There's something odd about the atmosphere - where I could feel why people have been inspired to create amazing things there. It's as Kafka said, "this little mother's got claws". Literally, I felt the cold I had caught in Berlin disappear at that moment.
Yes, so then the street musicians playing the gorgeous music started singing to it and kind of ruined it, but I watched the changing of the guard and then went all around the gardens south of the Castle and explored. I don't know, that atmosphere also pretty much makes you hungry 24/7 and feel like you just want to run around the city naked. It's very seductive. I don't know it was really weird. Sort of as if you need some void in yourself filled in. I just felt like I was constantly in need. ANYWAYS so then I went to the Charles Bridge which was WAY too crowded. But it was so weird b/c I ran into one of the kids from the busabout on the bridge (and I haven't gotten to the weirdest it's a small world part yet)! Then some random Ukrainian guy started talking to me ( I had dirt and grass all over my shirt from lying in the grass) so I practiced my Russian with him. Actually I practiced my Russian a few times and people more or less understood me!! Like I would speak to them in Russian and they would practice their English on me!
So anyways I headed back towards my hostel and on the way admired the Dancing House (so cool looking!) when I heard someone screaming my name. Thinking it might be one of the busabout people, I didn't think it was too odd. Then I see ANJ running towards me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you who don't know, Anj is one my friends who I worked with in the Law Quad in Michigan - and I had COMPLETELY forgotten she was in Prague!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So yes everyone, we live in a small SMALL world. In fact I found out she worked at the Pub Crawl that is connected with busabout that I almost went on! She was in a hurry so I planned on going to the Pub Crawl the next day.
After that, I headed to Vsengard, which is a park/garden to the south of the city, where I heard the best view of the city is (it WAS and was also the least touristy place I went the whole time AND my favorite part of Prague!). I noticed there was a huge cemetery there, similar to Pere LaChaise so I looked around when I noticed the name "Antonin". So I thought to myself. . . Antonin? Antonin Dvorak? He was Czech, wasn't he? Dvorak is my second favorite classical composer after Tchaikovsky in case you didn't know. So I went to the list of people buried there thinking, hey, I wonder if maybe he's buried here? AND HE WAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO I ran over to his grave like a crazy person and found it! I just sat and gaped at it for God knows how long. But that pretty much made me even MORE obsessed with Prague.
Anyways the next day I more or less took it easy since I had pretty much seen everything and went to find Anj that night. The people at the Pub Crawl were super nice and told me Anj was working at the Latin Arts Bar (working 2 jobs again! Just like in Michigan), so I went and saw her!!! This was where I had absinthe (which btw hits you really quickly!) the right way with the sugar and fire and all! I stayed for a really long time catching up and talking with people at the bar (and also had Czech beer, which is actually really different from other beers! It tastes good and refreshing! I usually hate beer!). Then cursed myself for staying out so late AGAIN on the night I was leaving and slept for 3 hours before I headed off to Cesky Krumlov.
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