PRAGUE!

Dear Friends and Family,

I arrived in Prague on Thursday after some brutal plane travel. Lee and I first flew to Boston, where we had a six hour lay over, which was improved greatly when we left the airport to explore Boston. Lee´s cousin Jamie attends Tufts and was kind enough to show us around Boston. We ventured to Quincy market to grab a quick dinner and then followed some of the Freedom Trail. We also found a bakery where we ate some Boston Cream Pie. While you would think that Boston Cream Pie is better in Boston, this was not the case. While back at the Boston airport Lee and I reunited with our friend Kathy Cooper, who lived with us at Stanford in Slav Dom but since she has recently graduated is going to the Philippines to work on water quality stuff (I think...). We then had a very luxurious flight on British Airlines (they even served wine with their dinners). However, the flight was still about 7 or 8 hours long and was a red-eye. After another six hour layover in London (which was even more brutal than the flight), we flew to Prague where I got my first stamp in my brand new passport!

After leaving the airport, we were well informed on what bus and metro to take to get to our hostel. Unfortunately, we were not as informed as to how to work the machine to get our bus- metro tickets. It took us approximately 30 minutes to get the tickets. First off, it only took change, and since we had only recently received any Czech currency, which was in cash, we could not get the tickets quite yet. Lee bravely went on search for change and returned victorious. While no one at the airport could break his bills for him, he did find a vending machine and received change after buying a chocolate wafer candy bar. Then, after struggling with figuring out which tickets to buy, we tried to put the coins in the machine. For some reason it did not like our coins. Eventually we received help from a fellow passenger who was WAY more familiar with the system. Strangely enough, he placed the same coin we had tried, but instead of being returned it took the coin! Maybe it just needed a Czech touch? After feeling victorious about finally getting tickets, we devoured the chocolate wafer candy bar, which at that moment, we felt we deserved.

We finally found our way through the metro system, making it to the appropriate stop without any major hiccups (although we did validate our tickets twice). When we came up the stairs from the metro, our first view was of a lit Prague Castle in the nighttime. It was gorgeous (also, don´t worry, there will be pictures later). To get to our hostel, we had to walk through the Old Town Square, which was amazing and I will have to write about later so I may do it justice. We finally made it to our hostel, where I almost immediatly fell asleep.

While I´ve been in Prague for a couple of days now, I think that I will have to finish writing about Prague until next time as I am about to have another Prague Adventure! Until next time.

Love,
Rosalie