Prague

Part I

We took another one of these free city walking tours today. Not too bad. Our guide was a pretty funny Irishman. He and I connected by quoting 'The IT Crowd,' a British comedy that only went two seasons.
Prague has a really interesting look and feel. It's history is amazing. I think my next trip is going to involve a number of Bohemian and Slavic countries. This area of the world with all of its mythical past and traditions is so intriguing to me. My new favorite character from history is Good King Wenceslas. Maybe I'll name a kid Wenceslas and call him or her 'Whence' for short. Good King Wenceslas Skinner.
I'm going to try and download some Czech music that I heard in the Museum of Communism (fittingly located behind Prague's largest McDonald's). The song I heard was a lot about the struggles living in and desires to be free during communism.

As it turned out, towards the end of WWII when the Russians along with the Americans and Brits started closing in on Prague, the city was ecstatic. However, even though the Americans were only an hour away, it had already been decided that the Russians, who were 4 days away, would liberate Prague. The Czechs fought with the Germans for 4 days until relief came. After Czech was liberated it began to be subject to Russian influence and became a communist state. There are a lot of Czech heroes that helped the cause of a free Czech people. Their leader Dubcek was influential in allowing greater expression in speech, a precursor to glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev.

Another hero was a 19 year old student who, poured gasoline on himself and burned himself near the university and national theater in protest of communism. He died 5 days later. One million people attended his funeral procession.

We had our first set of hostel roommates. Two girls going to Drexel, doing a study abroad in London. Some of their favorite parts of Prague, Absinthe and shots of mouthwash. They came home at 4am, just as I was going to bed (old habits die hard I suppose).

Part II

So we met a girl on one of our tours that is going to Budapest. We thought that sounded cool. So we're going to Budapest. In other news, I missed meeting up with my Prague Castle tour group because I was visiting the Oldest Synagogue in Prague (like I said, old habits die hard..visiting synagogues. Not being late, Mom. :)). So they left without me. I later met up with my buddy at the Dvorak concert at the Museum of natural history. In the mean time I found a free castle tour in the old town square from this Czech lady who sounded like she learned English by watching the evening news. Her intonation was so weird. It was like Chinese+Swedish spoken by Carol Mikitta. On my tour was a guy that plays basketball in the European league, along with his hottie Czech girlfriend who is also a basketball player. Interesting times in Prague.