Here we go - Prague first

I've never done a public journal thing like this, so I am a bit confused as to how I should approach it.

I've now been in Europe for three and a half weeks, and it is marvelous to say the least. I won't bother recapping the last 3 weeks in London, so I'm going to jump ahead and lay down some text about my weekend trip to Prague.

What an extraordinary city! - a place that is shrouded in a mystic air even on the clearest day. Golden spires dot the skies everywhere you look in the main city, and the architecture has a beautiful coherence that London lacks due to the rebuilding after WW II bombing. Unfortunately, we arrived on a weekend that happened to fall in one of the coldest winter blasts that Europe has felt in decades. -10 degrees Celsius was about average for evenings, and late nights were bitter chill. But we prevailed, and managed to really milk all that we could from the 4 day stay, thanks to the hospitality of the Boathouse Hostel right on the Vltava River, south of the main city of Praha.

The Czech Republic, which is on the Czech Crown as currency, is extremely cheap in contrast to the UK. We ate a delicious meal of duck, appetizers, and many beers for under 15 dollars. Woh. The traditional Czech food is Germanic in essence - lots of thick sauces, ptato dumplings, and such. One of my favorite parts of the city's layout is the sidewalk design...every sidewalk is made up of a mosaic style interlay, with lovely dark blues and whites and reds. The women in Prague are beyond beautiful, and the beer in the country surpasses any other place I've been to...we even drank amber ales in a monastery (part converted restaurant) that were hand-brewed by the monks! Very Righteous Indeed. Dankness! We met an interesting jovial character named Joel, from Seattle, who added his goofy bird-walk, thoughts on his unemployed 30-year old status as an Eastern European traveler, and his booming laugh. An enjoyable guy, i thought.

You can still feel the presence of the Soviet communist rule, especially in the outer parts of the city, like near our hostel. These are not necessarily the most aesthetically beautiful areas, but sometimes graffitied tram-stops, chilled smoke-stacks, and concrete slums are just as valuable to the traveller.

We (I guess i should fill you in on 'we' - Alex, Matt, Rob, and Mike, and me, P) also visited the old fort and WW II concentration camp of Terezin, about an hour long bus ride from Praha. Terezin is the sort of place where you don't smile if you're in a picture being taken. Haunting, and terrible. However, a tasty goulash after the tour lifted out spirits, if not our sluggish stomachs.

OK, I'll try to write less of a log next time, and more on thoughts.