This past weekend was my initiation into not really sleeping, as we headed to Prague on another trip with the school’s international network. I’ve raved about school trips before, which is weird because before this I hated anything involving a huge group. Museum trips, outings, anything like that, so the idea of heading to a foreign country with a huge group seemed terrible. I hate being coralled around with unruly kids, but considering everyone signed up for this trip because they wanted to visit Prague was reassuring. Besides, the Holland weekend changed my mind, and considering the trip didn’t involve any planning on my part, I was pumped to see Prague.
The scary thing is, we signed up for this trip in February, which seems like a lifetime ago, and I kept thinking, “Oh, Prague is in the middle of March, that’s so far away.” Welp, now I’m home from Prague and I’ve realized that I am halfway done with my semester…whoa.
We left Amsterdam Thursday night (after my roommate and I rushed home from our dance class, showered, changed, and threw a few more things into our suitcase before heading out), and I was not excited about the prospect of being on a bus for nearly 12 hours. However, everyone settled down and fell asleep, including myself- and I never fall asleep on planes, buses, etc. It’s nearly impossible, but when you’re stuck somewhere until 9 am the next morning you might as well try!
We arrived in Prague early Friday morning, dropped our things off at the hostel, and immediately hit the road. We started off with seeing the astronomical clock in the Old Town Square, which puts on a ‘show’ every hour. We were already warned that this was an overrated tourist attraction, so it didn’t disappoint us too badly- basically the clock starts chiming and a few tiny figures emerge, some things move, and then it’s over. I suppose its worth seeing since Prague doesn’t have as many famous sites as other cities, but don’t rearrange your day around it.
For our last day in Prague, we had pretty much exhausted everything there is to see; Prague is lovely to visit for a weekend but I don’t think I would want to study abroad there, as there doesn’t seem to be too many sites. Obviously you discover more once you live somewhere, but you can feel accomplished as if you’ve done everything in just a couple of days.
But, we still wanted to climb to the top of the astronomical clock (yeah, that one). Now, I don’t really have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a HUGE fear of falling from high places, so being near the edge freaks me out. Balconies are usually fine, but anything glass-bottomed is a no-go.
I’ve climbed the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and you stand on a massive roof when you reach the top, so I figured I’d be fine climbing the tower. Little did I know that when you reach the top, there is a large indoor room, and when you go outside, you are standing on a very narrow (think 2 feet wide at most) walkway that wraps around the tower, with a barely-to-my-waist stone balcony blocking you from falling. NOT what I was expecting. However, it provided probably the most amazing 360 degree view of the city that you could ask for, so I stuck it out for the photo op because hey, a blogger’s gotta do what a blogger’s gotta do.
