Day Nineteen: PRAGUE

It’s a challenge for me to fit all of this day into one post, but I’m going to attempt it. Prepare to have your mind spinning, blood pumping, heart full, and feet aching–or maybe that’s just me after managing to fit 30,000 steps of Prague into one day.

Since breakfast isn’t really done in Salamanca, I haven’t had a real, hearty breakfast since I left the states. The first thing on our to-do list today was to find a nice place to have breakfast, and we hit the jackpot. Cafefin is an adorable cafe with lots of windows, plants, and cozy atmosphere. It was a nice shelter from the early morning chill, and the food was outstanding. I was completely satisfied with my day just because of this place. I got coconut oatmeal with blueberries, bananas, and peanut butter and a caffe latte. The wait for the food is on average forty minutes, but once we got it it was obvious that the emphasis there is on quality. I would choose that over convenience any day.

The other thing I love about this city is that people read everywhere. It is SO nice to see people getting on the metro or tram or sitting at the cafe reading a book or a newspaper. If I just don’t speak, I think I could blend in here.

After breakfast we walked around and did some sightseeing on our own. We looked at some of the beautiful buildings near us and then walked across the Charles Bridge to Old Town.

In Old Town, we paid for access to see the Old Royal Palace, a history exhibit of Prague called “The Story of Prague Castle,” the Basilica of St. George, Golden Lane, St. Vitus’s Cathedral, and Rosenberg Palace. I couldn’t take pictures inside of most of these without a photography license, but I was allowed to take a few. My favorite of these exhibits was the Rosenberg Palace because it had the rooms set up with furniture and artifacts as they would’ve been, and I loved seeing how life used to be there.

For other meals during the day, I had Wiener schnitzel and a common Czech dessert (maybe in that order or maybe not…)

At the end of the day, we had planned to check out a few places, but our plans changed and we ended up taking the most beautiful evening walk by the river. We ended up at the Lennon Wall, which was the other thing I was really hoping to do here, and then walked back along the Charles Bridge where, surprise, they were filming for a Spider-Man movie! We didn’t see anything too exciting, but we walked past all of their filming equipment and saw the huge lights around the bridge. I didn’t take pictures, but it happened, I promise. While we were walking I had a moment where I thought, “wow, this is actually my life.” It’s so crazy to me to think that I’m not in school right now. I’m not working. I’m actually just enjoying and making the most of life. That’s a concept people don’t often think is possible, but it’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.