Prague

This post is a little late in coming so it may be a little longer than usual. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Our departure from Berlin was smooth and easy. The train ride was tremendous. Very scenic and breathtaking throughout, with much of it following a river and mountains on the left hand side, it reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie for some odd reason. Probably the part in the last one where he is fleeing with his dad from the castle and the baddies.

Moving on, upon arrival we met up with Rob at the train station. I just want to say first off that Rob has been awesome in every way since we got here. In addition to putting us up in his place he's showed us around, taken us out to dinner and to party, and just basically been real cool and chill. It's so nice to stay at an apartment for a couple days where you don't have to worry about random people being around and getting into your stuff and other similar crap that you take for granted when you're not traveling. Rob if you ever want to come back to the States for a bar crawl through Oakland then let me know. After pick-up we went back to Rob's to drop off our things. He lives about 20-30 minutes outside the heart of Prague in a nice little area that is quiet but still fairly heavily populated. We took a bus back into the city around 4 prepared for a long night of debauchery. Our expectations were met in full.

We walked around the city center for a while seeing some of the more popular tourist spots. Prague is definitely my favorite city so far. In terms of its appearance I found it almost flawless. No wasted space, no buildings seeming out of place, everything just beautiful. It was jam packed with people in some of the busier areas, but I think that is to be expected. Nater posted some of the pictures from when we were walking around.

We wanted to watch the ManU-Chelsea game, but all the sports bars were packed so we settled on a different restaurant-pub type place. I got beef tenderloin with bread dumplings and cranberry sauce. It was delicious. Great vegetable gravy to soak the bread in. Also served as a perfect pre-game meal. I got a red bull as well because I was beat and didnt sleep on the train.

The plan was to meet up with some of Rob's friends from basketball at a bar they like to hang out at so we headed in that direction. We got there before they did and had a few beers while talking about how few Americans travel and how much they miss out on because of it. [sidebar] There seems to be a general consensus in Europe, and probably elsewhere, that American ignorance towards foreign affairs as well as cultural ignorance stems from a certain native selfishness and inability or lack of desire altogether to experience new things. It's hard to argue when only 20% of Americans have passports, and you have to wonder how many of those are just so people can go to Canada over the weekend to get bombed with the new rules coming into effect [end sidebar].

The wheat beer flowed freely before and after Rob's friends showed up. There ended up being 10 of us altogether so things got a little loud and rowdy. There was an obvious language barrier as Nate and I knew zero words of Czech/Slovakian before we got here, but most of them understood our English so we made due. They made us take a series of four shots that are common here. Absinthe was involved. The one guy, Jirka, kept buying us shots anytime we called him Georgie. Shortly after I had a second meal of California chicken, Georgie-boy sent me to the WC with another shot of Absinthe. Many thanks George.

We had a few more brews then paid and left for a club. Everything is pretty cheap here because the dollar and Euro transfer favorably to Czech crowns. For example my big meal was only like 7 bucks and only like 11 or 12 after we threw in two beers and the redbull. 5 of us went to the club and it was hilarious walking in because Nate and I are fairly average sized and obviously not Czech and the three guys we went with were all 6'7"+. The one guy Petr is almost a 'footer. Refer to the picture in Nate's post for a laugh.

The music at the club was hilarious; the cheesiest of 80s pop blasted through speakers and into the gyrating hips and pulsing hormones of the crowd. I was hoping for Sandstorm but, alas, no dice. Me and Nate would have pwned with that beat. It was good times though. The rum and coke was good and came quickly. We ended up leaving at 3:30. We got a sausage dog at a stand outside. I didnt taste anything except for the mustard slathered all over it. We got a cab back to Rob's. By the time we got inside the sun was coming up.