Wednesday, March 6th. Prague

Woke up in my top bunk, feeling super weirded out by the fact that I woke up in a top bunk. How old am I? Lol.

Staying in hostels has been fun but when I do this trip again I definitely gotta get hotel rooms.

No breakfast today. We're getting straight to the shits! No plan, just gonna venture out and get lost in this wonderful city.
That's one of the great things about cities like Prague. The main part of the city isn't that big, so you can easily get lost and not really feel lost. Especially when the city has physical borders, like a river cutting through. If you get lost, just find your way to the river and work your way back to wherever it is you need to go!

I headed back towards Charles Bridge. Only this time I wanted to cross the bridge directly to the north of Charles Bridge. I got there and seeing that area again, only this time in the morning, was wild. Such a beautiful place. I chilled on the bridge for like half an hour before crossing.

I made my way towards the Prague Castle but came across a cool little park at the base of the hill. Chilled there for a little bit and made my way up the stairs that lead up to the castle. Those stairs are no joke lol.

Finally made my way in to the castle. It was dope! More of what I came to expect. Cool architecture, cool cobblestone streets, just dope. But nothing too out of the ordinary for these European cities. I didn't care to go inside or up the tower at St. Vitus Cathedral. I'm of the belief that once you see any of these European churches, you've more or less seen them all. The first few times are super cool, but eventually you become numb to them.

There's exceptions of course. La Sagrada Familia, Notre Dame, and St. Peter's Basilica come to mind. But I didn't think I'd get as much from seeing the inside of this castle and cathedral as I would from exploring more.

I stopped by a Starbucks to get some bottled water. One bad thing about Prague is it feels like money exchange and mini markets are scams. I withdrew $40 worth of Czech currency last night and there was an ATM fee of like $6.50. Apparently mini markets also overcharge for everything. So weird for a tourist like myself. The 1 liter water bottle from Starbucks ended up costing around $4. I figured that if I was going to be overcharged for water, I might as well spend it at an American owned business, right? Lol. MURRCA.

My plan was to head back towards the hostel, leave my external battery pack to charge, and grab some food from that burger place I wasn't able to go to last night.

On the way back, however, I ran into a cool little mini festival at the bottom of Charles Bridge. I got a small bowl with some weird pasta/potato thing with sausage in it as well as some beer. While scarfing that down, I realized that I might not come back to this side of the river and I hadn't yet gone to Petrin Hill.

So I sucked it up and started to head in that direction. I found another park right by the river and chilled for a bit. Chillin is starting to become a recurring theme here lol.

Petrin Hill is pretty high up and I had to pretty much walk back up the hill that I had just come down from. Half way up the hill was yet another dope park. I found a spot with a good view, laid down, and watched the clouds for like 45 minutes.

This is the part where good music comes into play. You can't just play your regular poppy, Top 40 joints. Imagine getting here and playing "Buy You A Drank." Lollll.

Nah, you gotta get into your atmospheric, moody vibe. Today's music choice was one of my favorite albums, Beach House's "Teen Dream."

I probably would have been content to spend the rest of the afternoon at that spot but I still hadn't actually made it to Petrin Hill yet, lol. So off I went.

I hadn't gone more than 100 yards before this group of three girls stopped me. They were friendly travelers, just wanting to say hi, ask where I was going, and keep me company. It was two German girls and a Pole.

Before you get any thoughts, I found out that these girls were 16 and 17 years old. R. Kelly is in the news cycle right now so I'm too scared to even try to make a joke about these girls, lolllllll.

But these young girls were super friendly! We hung out, got to the top of Petrin Hill, and went to the top of the tower. Turns out they're friends from school and they're here on holiday. Apparently kids as young as 15 just up and travel around Europe with no parental supervision. That tripped me tf out.

We came back down from Petrin Hill and went our separate ways. Shout out to the homies Selene, Corra, and Elena! On my way back to the hostel I found two sports bars that looked like prospective spots to go to for the champions league games later that night.

I got back to the hostel and at this point I was EXHAUSTED. It was only 5:30 but I had walked and hiked soooo much. I later was notified by my Fitbit that I had climbed 100 floors that day. I was super content to just hang out and relax for a while. I chilled in a common area of my hostel for a bit before I would go to that burger place that I wasn't able to go to the night prior.

Some Asian girl from some random Asian country (can't remember which) came into the common area and sat down. We struck up a conversation and I told her how I was going to the burger place and a sports bar afterwards and she should come join. She said she had just eaten but she might be down to come watch the games. She told me to come get her from her hostel room before I went to the game. It was lit!

So I bid her adieu (lol) and started heading downstairs. This tall German guy was walking down the stairs with me and said he overheard that I was trying to watch the champions league games. He had watched the champions league games the night prior at a small bar right in front of our hostel. We decided we would watch the night's games together. It was lit! I was slowly building a SQUAD.

So me and the homie Tom went to the burger place and of course it was full again. We decided to check out another spot that my sister recommended named Lokal. Lokal was only a block away so it was perfect. It was this huge dining hall that served local Czech food.

They sat us down at a table with a woman and man who seemed friendly. They were German as well (lots of Germans come to Prague for small trips, apparently). We struck up conversations and swapped traveling stories. They recommended some places for my trip to Munich. Shout out to them too, damnit!

Tom and I finished our meals and headed back to the hostel. We would rest for a little bit before heading out to the sports bars. I went to see if Asian girl homie wanted to come with but I couldn't find her. Fuck it, her loss!

Tom and I checked a couple of bars, all of which ended up not having any more seats. We finally landed at this Irish pub in Old Town. We got a good two person table with direct views of both games. It was super lit! I was soooo happy because it was the first time I had gotten to watch soccer games in Europe with another soccer fan who actually followed the sport.

Thankfully both games were entertaining. Two giants faced off between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United and two lesser teams face off between Roma-Porto. There was a table of Italian Roma fans next to us and most of the other people in the bar seemed to be rooting for Manchester United. It was a tremendous atmosphere. This was exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for when I planned this trip.

Both games were fun, entertaining, and slightly controversial. A perfect trinity for neutrals like myself. I was hoping Roma would win and they didn't, but it's fine.

By the time Tom and I got back to the hostel it was pretty late, like 12:30. I would have to wake up, shower, and check out, and get to the train station before my FlixBus arrived at 10:45AM. To make matters worse, Tom and I noticed that one of the two showers available on our floor went out of service that day.

So I made an executive decision and showered at 1:30AM. I couldn't risk waking up and having to wait for the one shower that was available on our floor. I showered and wasn't able to fall asleep until 2:30AM.