View beautiful churches? CHECK. Eat great food and drink amazing beer? CHECK. Spend an awesome weekend in Prague? CZECH.

This was written after the weekend of 2/14/09-2/16/09. I want to apologize to everyone (read: my mom) who reads this, I'm going to start posting more. I should have a few more posts over the next couples of days.

I awoke Saturday morning in Parsberg, a town about six miles from Hohenfels, which is where the nearest train station is located. The art teach, Mark, a man in his early thirties had let me spend the night at his house so that I could make the short trip into town to catch my train. After spending two long weekends on post, I decided that I needed to go somewhere. Anywhere. The other student teachers, Sara and Alison, seniors from Northern Arizona University, were heading to Paris. They invited me to join, but they were taking a half-day on Friday to catch a plane and I am trying to save my sick (read: vacation) days because I only have three. I knew all week that I want to go on a trip, especially since I had a three-day weekend because of President’s Day. For some reason I could not make my mind up—apparently I’ve been dating a certain someone for too long…only kidding…kinda. After much deliberation, I ended up in Prague.
Upon arrival, I began exploring (read: was lost) in Prague for about an hour I final made it to my hostel. I wasn’t too proud to ask for directions, I just enjoy walking around cities and trying to find my own way. Eventually, I gave up and asked a couple of cops for directions. When I finally made it to my room, I was greeted by two Canadians. Nice enough guys, we talked for 20 minutes or so then parted ways, after deciding to grab a beer that night. I decided to walk though the streets of Prague and eventually made it to the Charles Bridge to take in the Pražský hrad (Prague Castle) at dusk. Beautiful. ( Here are some pictures. Warning: I’m no Sam Weinstein or anything).
I awoke the next morning to plan my day. With a guidebook in one hand and a city map in the other, I began circling destinations I wanted to visit. My list included the bridge and palace I had seen the night before and churches. A lot of churches. If you’ve never been to Prague, they have a lot of churches.
I wasn’t sure which to visit so I began reading the history of many of these churches in my Lonely Planet travel book. After compiling a short list, I began to think about breakfast. That’s when it hit me… After spending a large part of my morning planning which churches I wanted to visit I remembered that it was Sunday and I needed to go to mass. Yikes. I ran down a flight of stairs to a small room with three computers. After a quick Google search and a word with the guy at the front desk and I was off and running (literally). I made it to mass before the first reading. It takes a real genius to plan an entire day visiting various churches without realizing he needs to go to church.
Speaking of geniuses. After a jam-packed day in Praha including (who-da-thunk-it?) a classical musical performance by Czech Republic's National Museum Chamber Ensemble I headed back to the hostel to meet up with my friends from the Great White North. We headed to a local pub to have a few Pilsner Urquells and Budweisers. No, not that Budweiser. This one. Did you know that the name “Budweiser” was stolen from a Czech Beer? There’s your fun fact of the day.
Back to the story. Well, we were arguing about which is a superior sport: hockey or baseball, American/Canadian politics and which is the “The Office”: UK or US. (The answers? Baseball, America over Canada and the UK Office. Sorry, these are the facts). So as we as we are conversing about these important topics we interrupted by two men. They hear us speaking English and ask where we are from. I tell them that I am from Kansas and that these guys are from Canada. “Kansas!” one exclaimed, “no way” in frat speak. These valedictorians were sophomores at Kansas State studying in Prague. We talked about home and the KU/KSU basketball game that happening as we spoke somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic. The two sat down and began to tell us a story from the previous day. Apparently, after a night of drinking they, a pair of finance majors, decided that they needed to make a small business transaction. They talked to the bartender who sent them a few blocks away to one of his “friends”. Here, the two men spent $100 on cocaine. Well, they thought they did. In fact, they bought $100 of salt. Wow. You stay classy, K-State.