Day 16 Last Day in Prague

 Today was our last day here in Prague. Tear.. because we loved it here. Today was completely different than yesterday too, it offers so much variety of things to do. We got our museum on by going to an INCREDIBLE  
Mucha exhibit:
We weren’t able to take photos inside, but his work looks similar to above.
An Art Nouveau GENIUS. He’s in my top 5 favorite dead artists list. A lot of the work that was displayed were his lithographs, some that were as tall as a wall. The detail and patterning he has, swoon. You better believe i’m bringing home a few posters.
 Mucha was also an interior/exterior designer as well as much more. After the museum we went to a building he designed.. as you can see displays his same style.
 After drewling over Mucha and his brilliance we went to the Hard Rock Cafe here in Prague. I love saying that. The coke had ICE AND FREE REFILLS. We haven’t got that once here yet. As well as had great music videos and made us feel at home. Seriously felt like we walked into Amurrrrica for about an hour, we luuuhhhhh Amurica….. And our ice and free refills.
 I’m forewarning you, we had a lot of photoshoots today.
 Heather (far right in green): “lets not jump and say we did”
favorite photo of the day.

 after lunch we sorta got lost for a minute, while we looked for the John Lennon wall as they call it
 But don’t worry we found more slack liners at a park we came across. officially slacklined in 3 countries. The count is on.
some things are just pure bliss..
 At this same park it runs right along the river, and last night when were out and about we saw a row of yellow lights in the distance from the other side of the river… today we found out they were actual little light-up penguin guys.
 WAY cooler than just lights.
the park had some interesting sculptures hanging around that were smoother than a babies bottom
Finally, after walking a couple circles right around the wall, we found it. Apparently there used to be a huge John Lennon face spray painted on this wall, it has been covered by other peoples graffiti since then, which is a pity, but it still had some interesting tags.
 love me some California pride.
 and quotes that people put on walls.
Some were good oldies by Anne Frank and other awesomes,
 others were stupid ones I wanted to scratch off with sharpie because it ruined the essence of the wall.
 uh.. LSU are you there? Geaux Tigers. This ones for the Phenalds and Rotolos. Notice the size of this eye compared to the homeless guy. Huge in the middle of this wall… in the Czech Republic LSU is being repped. I wish i could say i did this lovely piece, but someone beat me to it;D
 We weren’t meaning to seem total hippy today, it was just being handed to us.
So we had to roll with it.
 cheesy dreamer jump.
 we like eachother.. and this wall.
We also like Charles Bridge. Really awesome place to see both sides of Prague… and its awesome to do our friend Charles Steadman’s hand sign on this bridge, so he can see how much we like him too.
Gosh, Prague has a place in my heart too. We just get comfortable with the public transportation then have to leave. But Prague lived up to its expectations.  When you come to Europe, GO.TO.PRAGUE.
You’ll end up telling your grand kids about it.
Day 16 Last Day in Prague

Day 15 Prague by day and night

 Prague is known to be peoples favorite place in Europe. I wasn’t really sure why, but I was ready to see why today. We got into old town at around 11. (they call basically the center and/or oldest part of European towns “old town” usually.. thats what i’ve compiled the past couple weeks. Its a good way to remember directions, when you base things around where the Old town is). We were dragging along, waking up gets harder everyday. But we know if we push through we’ll get hyped with every new thing we encounter.
 so, of course we hopped in with a group for a free tour. The same company as the tour in Budapest, also did one here, so we decided to be loyal tourists to them. This one was 3 hours long, which is a little long for our taste, but it helped us to get pointed in the direction of the major places we wanted to see.
There was an LDS couple from Provo in our tour group that have been living in Munich the past year. We ended up chatting with them for a bit, and they heard we were from Utah State, and the wife automatically said, “oh you’re Aggies!” I don’t know why, but I LOVE when people say that. Its true, the pride is implanted in us, and we’re aggies for life, and everyone, even people in Prague, know it.
 I’ve said this one, and i’ll say it again, I want dreeeeeaaaaadddds.
If only I didnt have to shave my head after. There’s so many dread people in Europe, makes me want to do it even more.
 The Astronomical Clock.
It has the day, time, even the horoscopes according to the time of the year. Its lovely.
 Kinda stalked this wedding today for a minute. What would it be like to have your wedding photos taken through the cobble stoned streets of Prague. Talk about the dream. sheesh.
 The beautiful Aussi in our tour group. Cool cat.
 Heather and I. little meow.
 At one end of the Charles Bridge to the other side of Prague across the Danube River.
famous bridge.
 We saw so many people like this today. I don’t really understand why they kneel with their head down like this, but we saw a TON of them doing the same position today, not one of them looking up ever.
 This bridge was the hot spot of the day, it was packed! And like 10 stands of people doing caricature drawings for people, along with rows of souvenir stands, along the bridge. I wish it was completely empty and it was just me doing cartwheels, but i’m sure only Steven Spielberg could get something like that to happen for an action scene in a movie. Or maybe Nicholas Sparks for a kiss in the rain in a love scene in one of his books remade into a movie.
 I still seemed to elbow my way through the crowd to catch a shot without the top of peoples heads creepin in.
 There were statues all along the sides of the bridge.. when we walked up to this one, there was a line of people waiting to rub this part of the statue, as you can see its the only gold/clean part. They would sit and rub it for a good minute. Our guide told us that they believe that if you rub it, you will return to Prague.. and on the other side there was a gold dog and when rubbed it will help you find the love of your life. I thought about rubbing both of them, because I would really like both of those things to come true, but I really wasn’t digging the idea of getting a disease from the thousands of people who rub it a day in the process. no thanks.
 Me accepting the fact that I’m the least photogenic person alive, its fine.
 Stevie, Heather, Me, Kaitlyn, Katie, and Nicole.
 The old lady.. oh boy.
This lady actually has a story behind her.
As our tour guide was rambling about Baroque architecture I start to hear snickering behind me from people in the group, so I turn my head and this lady is poking this kid in our tour with her cane .. just kept jabbing at him over and over, then grabs his stomache. It was the weirdest thing. Then she walks over and grabs a water bottle out of the Aussi’s hand, and with a surprised face says, “uh, you can have it. “The whole time she just has this smart grin on her face, as if she was just messin around with everyone. I kid you not, she was as tall as my hips. And only the tour guide could speak to her so she said something, and got the water bottle back from her, and sort of nicely shewed her away. The lady never uttered a word, just got some kind of humor out of messing with almost our whole group. I guess earlier she was grabbing peoples arms for no reason. Old people, they can get away with anything.
 The beginning of baseball.
 Homeboy looks like Ryan Gosling, eh?
 The red roofs were a good change of scene from the rest of our trip so far.
 There were performers everywhere.
 We’re always starved by lunch time, although we did go on a 3 hour walking tour, which DRAINS YA! I hadn’t really had much pasta yet, and only found it appropriate, since i’m nearish to Italy. Tortellini with tomato cream sauce.
 We ate outside in delicious weather.
 We walked into a building, thinking it was the metro station, but soon found out it was just the local library, and I now have a brilliant idea as to what we can do with all my fathers books, make a massive sculpture. yes, great idea.
 I thought it was really fascinating.
 We went back to the place we’re staying for a couple hours to recoop before we went out for the night, because we have heard Prague is phenomenal at night.. So we got back out there right as the sun was setting. Bless our perfect timing.
 We got to go by the Dancing House. A famous building designed by the Canadian-American Architect, Frank Gehry. I remember seeing this in my interior design classes freshmen year of college before I changed over to Graphic Design. I always loved it.
 We caught it at an interesting time of the evening, when the lights were turned on around it, but the sun wasn’t set completely yet. It was originally called Fred and Ginger after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Initially to resemble a pair of dancers, with the curvy female on the left and the obvious square-like male on the right. Just Beautiful.
 I couldn’t believe this was real life.
 We happen to be fortunate enough to catch the bridge when the sky was still pink. I couldn’t seem to indulge enough. It was just breath taking.
 We basically sat there waiting for the sun to go down, and seeing all the transitions the city goes through at dusk.
 The lights slowing began to come on.
 loving the bokeh of the city.
(bokeh being when the lights are simplified into just circles when its not in focus)
 Prague is known for its night life in a sense, and we really began to see that, as we were about to head home, everyone was just getting started with their nights.
 Couldn’t have asked for better weather with any better of a view and atmosphere.
 And the bridge lights came on eventually and added a whole new effect to the view.
And the night life began.
This city will be on my list of places to return to. It has such history that I had no idea. We learned today that in the Old town square, there are 10 centuries worth of architecture in just that square alone. I’ve always been a history guru, so I love to devour these old cities and the history they hold. Something America just doesn’t have yet.
Day 15 Prague by day and night

Day 14 Train to Prague

 Excuse the poor quality of this post. But today was an in between day. We took a 7 hour train straight from Budapest to Prague. And there was a whole lot of this going on. In and out of sleep and a lot of heads bobbing. Which makes us have kinked necks now. But It was kind of nice to have a day to just sit finally.
 When we arrived, we headed to a local restaurant where we sat on sheep fur and the menu was basically just slabs of meat. Felt a lot like an Irish pub.
There was a band serenading the restaurant almost the whole time. A group of Italians in the corner loved it especially, they sang along to a lot of the songs.
 I feel like people here eat way too much bread, and i’m not even that much of a bread lover, I had to get some veggies. I ordered the mixed salad, which had no normal lettuce at all. It consisted of tomatoes, red & orange peppers, cabbage and cucumbers… it was heaven. Finally no more bread, bleh. I needed a body cleanse.
 Our all time favorite part of the night was when people actually got up and started dancing to the band.. before you know it, there was like 10 people breakin it down out there. We all were looking at eachother saying, “is this really happening, is this real life?” They were all over the age of 40 just about, I loved it.
 We couldn’t stop looking at them. It was the most entertaining dinner, because everyone in the whole place was involved, clapping, laughing or dancing. It was great.
 If you kept walking down this path for a bit, then you would hit the restaurant, it was way tucked back, It was definitely a local place to eat, no one has to know about it unless they were shown it.
 Das Loris.
This is the 4th time i’ve seen my name around.. Europe loves me.
Lastly, the old folk dancing.
That’s basically all we did for the day yesterday, a well needed restful day, even thought traveling by train for that many hours still exhausts you. Pumped for Prague, only heard the best about it.
Day 14 Train to Prague