Wow, what a weekend.  Although it started off a little rocky, it was smooth sailing soon after.  The rough part was using the train system to get to the Czech Republic.  A couple days before we left, we called Euro Rail to buy our train tickets.  When we started our journey to Prague, we realized the information regarding the trains and connections we had to take that Euro Rail gave us was not correct.  Luckily, when we got off at Aachen, we approached a young lady who kindly guided us on which trains to take and she even got on the next train with us to tell us where to go! Luckily we were in sleeping cars, so I was able to get some rest before we had a full day on Friday. 

         After fourteen long hours, we finally made it to the city of Prague.  I thought it was something of a miracle that we were able to find our way there, but none the less we made it.  Before arriving in Prague, I didn't know what the city was like but I've only heard great things about it from my family friend's past experience there while he was studying abroad there.  After we got off the train we walked into the city center of the Old town square.  The first thing I noticed about the old town square and the city itself was the unbelievable building structure, architecture and all of the different arrangement of colors of the buildings.  All of them had a unique and detailed layout which made the setup of the building seem very organized and clean looking.  I also admired the beautiful towers and museums in the old town square and throughout the city as well.

        We then wandered around the city, going to different tourist locations.  To get to some of the sites we had in mind, we had to cross the famous Charles Bridge, which was an amazing site to see.  Other than the mass amounts of people on the bridge, the view of the city and the lake from the bridge was unbelievable.  I had never seen something like it; it was almost like something out of a movie and it didn't seem real.  We visited the Lennon Wall, which was one of the sites I had always wanted to visit and also went up by the Prague castle that overlooked the city.  The next day was filled with water activities as we went on a boat tour that toured us around the lake and on the more adventurous side, after the tour, we went in the water in blow-up hamster balls, which was hilarious and it was a lot harder than it looked.  Later on in the day, we went to Letna Park which was a small hard to find area that had beer vendors and also overlooked the city like by the Prague castle, but this view was on a much broader scale as we were able to see the lake, the bridges and the structure of the city.

         While navigating through the city and doing a handful of activities, there were culture and lifestyle differences I noticed that differed from past trips. The first thing I noticed was that there were barely any people on bikes, which came as a surprise to me.  After being in Maastricht, Berlin and Amsterdam I got a sense that biking played a dominant role as means of transportation but coming to Prague I realized that wasn't the case for all countries or cities.   Everyone either seemed to be walking or driving their cars to get around, but most people seemed to get around by foot.  After I picked up on that, I noticed the mass amounts of tourists in the city, which made me, think of being in New York and it became difficult to get around the city at times. I did not think that the city of Prague would be filled will tourists, but none the less I was able to get used to it, especially growing up in New York City.  Similar to New York City, there was an abundance of homeless people on the streets and on the Charles Bridge.  I couldn't help but to notice the way in which they begged for money as the majority of them were in a downwards position with their hands and head on the ground praying.  Coming from New York and being bombarded and confronted by homeless people asking for spare change, this was very eye opening to see.  Almost every homeless person also had a dog, which being a passionate dog lover, I couldn't help but feel pity.  Also while touring the city I was able to converse with people and I noticed how most of them, if not all, were able to speak English.  Compared to Berlin, where half of the people that I talked to couldn't converse in English, this came as a pleasant surprise to me.

          Overall, this trip was one of my favorite places I've visited.  The beauty of the city and the endless sites to see and activities to do was unbelievable. I hope one day, I will have the luxury of visiting Prague again.