An Adventurous Day in Prague

View from on the hill

Yesterday’s plan for the day pretty well went, “lets go this way and see what happens”. This worked out better at times than others, however, every twist and turn we took ended up being a good choice in the end. A group of five of us started the day by walking up Prague’s version of a mountain, in pursuit of the view that we would find at the top. At the top of this hill there is a structure that stands out from all of the other buildings of this part of Prague, as it is a building that was built to resemble the Eiffel tower. We climbed all of the stairs to the top and stared out in awe. From here we were able to see the entire city!

On the way back down we decided that instead of taking the trail we took to get up to the top, we would venture off a different way. We ended up looping off onto nearly every side trail and detour we could take, climbing into old buildings and up hillsides. There was one building we found that was especially interesting compared to the others. It was in fact the ruins of an old building rather than a building itself. It was a crumbling, graffiti covered building with trees and shrubs growing out of the foundation. A few of us decided to venture over the missing part of the fence to get a closer look. 

The building we found

We finally made it off the mountain, ate some lunch, and made our way to the National Theater to meet up with Dr. Powell, Dr. Brown, and the rest of the class to see an opera. We got off the train and started walking towards them, and upon reaching them found out that we were all a bit late, like three hours late. The opera had switched performance times and we had not realized this until it was too late. Because of this we got the rest of the afternoon until dinner to go explore. A group of us decided to go and try to find how to get to a little island park that we passed while going over a bridge. We made our way onto the island where we did a children’s rope course, watched geese and ducks, and where I managed to get myself stuck in a tree. Darek climbed up a tree and convinced me, someone who does not like heights, to climb up into the tree with him. I hesitated, but then thought why not, so up I went. I got up there and as soon as I looked down I realized that I had made a big mistake. I sat there and decided that they was no way I was climbed back down or jumping out of this tree. After a great deal of coaxing and being reminded that even though I kept saying that I would stay in the tree forever, I could not stay in the tree forever, I finally climbed back down. We decided that I should not climb up any more trees, so we made our way back to the city. 
Along the way we found a candy shop and decided to go in and look around. We all bought some candy and stepped outside to try it. I bit into a piece of chocolate, expecting to find a peanut or some caramel or something of the like inside it. This was not the case in the slightest. As soon as I bit into I regretted it instantly. I spit the abominable thing out into a napkin, then convinced two more people to try the lovely chocolate. We all came to the conclusion that we believe the horrid things were filled with something that was supposed to taste like vodka, or hand sanitizer. 

Me stuck in the tree

We still had a few hours until dinner, so we went back to the hostel for a few minutes, then three of us decided to go explore old town for awhile before going to dinner. We wandered the streets of old town, turning down the ones that looked interesting and were the least busy. We eventually found ourselves in a whole new section of the city. The buildings here were nearly all painted white, and the streets were deserted. Rather than turning back and going back where there would be more people than just the three of us on the streets, we kept going. We kept walking around and exploring this part of town until about an hour before our group dinner reservation, assuming that this would give us enough time to get to dinner, as we assumed that we had slowly been wandering in the direction of the restaurant. Rather than using google maps to make sure we were going the right way, we decided to try and get there on our own. We got to the river and started walking along it, but the further we went the less familiar it looked.

Abby, Liz, Jennica, and I

Eventually we broke down and looked at our phones, and found that we were over a mile in the wrong direction. We quickly turned around and started walking the other way, now going towards the restaurant. Once parts of the city that we recognized came into view we were smiling and laughing, happy that we had finally decided to look at our phones rather than walking forever in the wrong direction. We made it to the restaurant and were surprised to find ourselves the first ones there. Despite taking an adventure in the wrong direction, we made it, and even early. Yesterday was filled with many adventures, both big and small. Missing the opera was a bummer, however, had we been able to go we would have missed out on many crazy adventures that will make great memories and stories for the rest of our lives.