Praha!

Yesterday morning Hillary, Karen, and I crammed into Karen's two door Honda for the five hour drive from Wattenheim to the heart of Prague.

After stopping at McDonald's for lunch and a few Esso gas stations to fill up, we got our first glances of the Czech country side, some of Plzen from the highway, and Prague.

The first glimpses of Prague were reticent of the old world Eastern Bloc. Large gray buildings built like ambiguous boring prisons began popping up in groups along the highway as we moved toward the city. Apparently, when the city was first built, it was not intended to grow to its current size, or really any size worthy of noting. This fact becomes extremely apparent as the cars all crawl in line toward the city on the one road to enter from the west.

As the Eastern Bloc housing began to break up, we saw our first sights of what looked like any other American city- dirty, crowded, cold (think New York). This freaked me out. Luckily, as we pushed more toward the river, we saw the fabled old century architecture that everyone had been raving about. We found the Hotel and dropped off our bags, bundling up for the frigid night ahead of us.

We hopped in a taxi and got a real quick taste of what Czech driving is all about. All stick shift; no courtesy. Getting out at Winceslas Square, we headed to T-Mobile to get our cell phones. Jan, the man working helped us change the language settings (thank goodness) and adjust our phones to work in Prague.

Heading in the cold, we walked through old town square for a view of the famous astronomical clock. Snapping a few pictures, the sun began to drop, and the temperature did as well. Down to below -11 degrees Celsius (about 5 Fahrenheit). The three of us trekked across the Charles Bridge taking in views of the famous Prague Castle and Mala Strana district between vaporized breaths in the freezing air.

I always used to make fun of my dad for having a big nose. Often, after runs, he would be dripping snot from the end of it because his nose was so numb to the feeling. I guess what goes around comes around. Genetics certainly had it out for me as I realized about 10 minutes into our walk that my nose, thank you McDaniel family, was too far from my face to stay warm, and was leaking like a faucet all down my new jacket. Gross I know, but it was THAT cold.

We crossed over the bridge and walked to Anglo-American University (where Hillary and I will be studying this semester). The University is located perfectly about 500 meters (check out that metric system use!) from the foot of the bridge, which is an incredibly beautiful location. I cannot wait to start studying there on monday!

From the school, we headed back across the river into a pub to grab an appetizer. We had a "Czech" sampler plate- and I tried everything on the plate. It included some black forest ham, salami, cheese covered with carmelized onion, bruschetta (i loved it, even though it had tomatoes), some form of pepperoni type meat, some peppered cream cheese stuff,  and rye bread (never again). We left the pub after warming up and tried to find some real dinner. As we walked back toward the old town square, we met a man standing outside advertising his restaurant. Karen jokingly said, "I will eat here if you give me a discount." The man replied with "It's a deal!" and led us into the building.

Tucked away in the heart of old town, we were led town two flights of stairs underground, into this beautiful converted wine cellar that was now an Italian restaurant. I ordered penne carbonara (only 149 CZK- about 7 dollars for a huge bowl of pasta). When we were done eating, the check was presented... With a 5% discount, as promised. For three of us to eat, the check came to something in the ball park of $15 USD including a huge carafe of water.

The taxi had us home in no time. Hillary and I uploaded the photos from Karen's camera and watched Czech news (none of which could we understand) before heading to sleep, getting ready to move in to our apartments and meet our roommates the next day!

*** I realized in writing this, that I totally missed our last day/night in Wattenheim. Please