One of the reasons I wanted to go to Prague was because everybody who has been won’t shut up about how amazing it is. Often when people talk a big game the real thing isn’t as good and I am here to tell you that PRAGUE IS AS GOOD AS EVERYBODY SAYS.

I forget who said it but somebody told me it’s like walking into a fairy tale and they were right. I had a stupid thought at one point while walking around: this place is just like Busch Gardens! but then I reminded myself, no, Busch Gardens is like THIS. 

Prague is a huge tourist destination, although we didn’t run into as many Americans as we may have thought – mostly Brits and some Aussies (in terms of “English first” tourists – obviously other nationalities as well!). It is a very tourist-friendly place where everybody speaks English. We practiced our basic Czech and insisted on using it but it was not even really necessary.

On the one hand it is a shame in a way to lose the language but on the other I think it’s so cool to that people from all over the world can communicate and enjoy themselves and this shared experience.

One random thing I feel like I want to note: everybody has tiny dogs there, no doubt because most people live in apartments, and we noticed that a lot of people walked with their dogs off-leash, even down REALLY busy streets. The dogs were fine but I’d be so scared of losing mine! Our Best Prague Dog Award went to this fat old pug we saw snorting and waddling down the street several paces behind its human.  I still think about that pug.

Anyway – day 1 – we arrived midday and crashed for a few hours; we were still pretty tired in the afternoon but wanted to get out there and see the sights.  Our hotel was only a few minutes walk from the square. It was a little overwhelming to come out of a tiny side street into this big, open, beautiful square!

We decided to keep our day plan-free and that’s how we ended up at Starbucks and the Apple Museum. Actually, it seems like Bren’s iPhone kept leading us back to the museum…very suspicious.

On our way back to the hotel we saw that the Prague Brass Ensemble was playing at St. Nicholas’ church. One thing I learned about my husband on this trip is that he loves brass ensembles, so we decided to attend.

The church, St. Nicholas, was, of course, crazy beautiful – there were helpful informational plaques to let us know that this was a Baroque church built in the 1700s, in the space that had previously been occupied by a Gothic church built in the 1200s. Although the ensemble was very good, we were so very tired. I started falling asleep but it was one of those weird “I’m asleep but also know I’m awake” half states, made weirder by the fact that the church organ was playing in my half-dream. I managed not to completely fall out of my chair or have a spooky hallucination brought on by the organ, so that’s good.

We headed back to our hotel and passed the F out!