Prague, Czech Republic
When I left Krakow, Poland, I didn't quite know where I was going to go next but I knew I had to be in Munich on March 20th. I decided to start making my way down that way so I chose to go to Prague for a few nights, and guess who I met up with in Prague... You guessed it right, everyone's favorite Canadian brewer, Liam!
I left Krakow at 9:15 in the morning using Flixbus after spending a good 4-5 nights with Liam and friends in Krakow.
I get to the bus station at 8:45am and was getting pretty nervous when the bus wasn't there come 9:10am, but I saw everyone else looking nervous too so I didn't feel so bad anymore. The bus finally arrived at 9:45am and I hop on for a 7 hour ride from Krakow to Prague. We made 3 stops along the way. I ended up taking about 3-4 little naps along the way as I listened to an audiobook (Vagabonding) on the way.
By this point in my trip I've listened to about all 12 of my audiobooks about 7 times each it seems like.
I am always in need of more audiobooks. The ride to Prague was gorgeous! There were so much more trees with leaves and rivers and grass and hills then there was in Poland. I loved the landscape. I get to Prague around 4:30pm and have to walk almost 2 miles with my backpacks to get to the hostel we were staying at (Sir Toby's Hostel) which I highly recommend.
The rooms were really big, but they had 3 story bunk beds instead of the normal 2 story bunk bed.
Their were also communal bathrooms for our room and one other room. We made it work though.
After checking in to the hostel, I hopped in the shower to clean all the bus stank off me from the last 7 hours. When I finished the shower I headed downstairs to the bar where they were giving out free pancakes and happy hour pricing on beer.
The only beer they had on tap was a pilsner, a wheat beer, and dark lager. I went with the dark lager. I paid about 2.5 USD for the bigger pint of the beer, great happy hour price for the size of the beer. I ended up getting three more of those and then one of the wheat beers. During that time I wrote half a blog post and introduced myself to about 3 different people. One of them was a girl who was born and raised in Sonoma County, Santa Rosa, area, which is the area I went to college in and lived for the last 8 years. She now lives in Portland and was traveling with her boyfriend who she met working on a farm for the last few months. By the time I finished as much of my blog post as I could I was tired/drunk so I had to call it a night as Liam was going to be arriving at the same hotel by 9:15am the following morning.
I wake up at 7:45am due to my internal clock being a bitch and I decide to finish the blog post from the previous night by editing and uploading all of my pictures. Liam shows up around 9:45 and by 10am we are out the door ready to explore the city.
We start by hopping on the tram to the city center to just sort of walk around and see what we can stumble upon. We start seeing some really cool buildings right away and were pretty hungry so we stopped at a little coffee shop and grab some little sandwiches.
For every 1 dollar it was about 20 crowns and the little sandwiches we bought cost about 45 crowns. Everything here was pretty cheap, not quite as cheap as Krakow, but still very cheap compared to Sonoma County and San Francisco. After about 2 hours of aimlessly walking around this gorgeous city we make it over to the river where we walked across Sir Charles Bridge which was pretty awesome! Many tourists were on this bridge. We ended up on the other side of the bridge (other side of the castle) and walked around town there. We found a "beer shop" that nobody was in. It was a bottle shop and so Liam and I bought 2 IPA's for 1.5 USD each for 22oz bottles.
We walked a little ways away to the river and cracked them there where we hung out for a half hour to an hour just talking, drinking this cheap, good IPA, and enjoying the river and all its majestic glory.
After the beers we walked across the next little bridge and were looking for a place to grab a bite to eat, a beer, and a place to piss. Naturally we start walking in to town and find a "Brewery" on the side of the road so we stop for a beer. This shaved head girl serves us without saying one word or any kind gesture.
The Czech Republic had the worst customer service I had ever seen in my life. She brings us two of the worst beers Liam and I have ever had.... I was so pissed. We left quickly after that beer to grab a bite at a shittier version of Taco Bell around the corner called Burrito Loco and paid 5 USD for a very shitty quesarito... Disappointing beer and then burrito!
We hop on the tram to head back to the hostel to take a nap before deciding to go out that night. By the time we woke up it was about 6:45pm and so we headed downstairs for happy hour to snag some beers before doing trivia with everyone down there at 8pm. We meet these two girls who were from Canada that we ended up becoming friends with and being on the same trivia team. The topic was 90's, something I thought I would be pretty good at... NOPE! We came in last place... Liam and I had been pounding beers and were ready to send it as he would say.
Come 10pm we head out this badass club/bar where we stayed from 10:45 until 2am. The bar was one of the most secretive places, no signs outside, pass a security guarded gate to enter, get a chip with the money you put on it up front and pay with the chip as you order your drinks downstairs. Their was a giant wolf hound just roaming around the bar, the owners, too. Everyone loved him including me. We went there with some 19 year old Irish kid we had just met at the hostel. He turned out to be really cool. Some hot blonde Czech chick came up to me and Liam and challenged us to fuseball so we accepted, we ended up hanging out with her and her friend all night until I had enough of them. I had a sandwich with my Irish friend and some young college girls from Arizona after getting my ass whooped on fuseball and then just jammed to the live music that was being played by this Latino looking guy. He jammed! He played songs like "La Bomba" "Mr. Jones" "Killing in the Name""Toxicity" and I was just jamming all night.
The Guitarist/singer kept asking for a beer or water and after 2 songs of no body getting him anything I finally went down and got the dude some water! He loved it.
After riding the high vibes all night, Liam, me, and the two crazy Czech chicks head to a bar not to far away for some more drinks and rock and roll. We leave that place alone, Liam, the Irish guy, and I. It was 5am this time and the trams were back on line so we hopped on the tram to get back to our hostel to pass out...
The next morning/day was rough. The Irish guy had left and Liam and I decided to man up and go walk around the see more of the city. We decide to hop on the tram to go to the castle and it was fucking glorious! The cathedral inside the castle was one of the nicest I've ever seen with their amazing stained glass and architecture.
We needed to go grab at least one craft beer in Prague so we stopped at this craft beer pub called the Craft Beer Museum or something like that where I tried Goulash for the first time and had an awesome IPA too, even though every Czech person needs to learn how to pour a proper beer because they give you about half the beer with head... I want more beer then head.
After that, we head to the store in an awesome 5 story mall we randomly stumbled across in the heart of old town where they had a supermarket on the bottom level, so we got some ground beef and bell peppers with pasta for dinner. We get back to our hostel at around 4pm and decide to take a nap until 7:15, when I woke up to go downstairs and start cooking. It took me almost 45 minutes to cook. By that time I was 2 beers deep and Liam had finally come downstairs from his longer nap, shower, and shower beer.
After eating, we started getting ready to go out again with the Canadian girls. Liam and I were still drained from the night before. We say screw it and decide to go to this other bar with them and some SHITTY Americans that came with us. They were in the same room as Liam and the Canadian girls. Young, obnoxious, east coast, daddy's sweet money, self-entitled bitches invited themselves along with us to this club/bar. They played hardcore house music and everyone was asking if we wanted to buy drugs, not quite my scene. After dancing my ridiculous ass off to that music for 20 minutes, I told everyone we're leaving to try to ditch these stupid Americans, but they caught on. We ended up just walking home to our hostel to pass out and live another day.
The next morning we woke up and had to leave Sir Toby's Hostel because a group of 120 people was checking in and their were no more rooms. I didn't want to end my time in Prague just yet so I booked 2 nights at another hostel closer to the castle, Liam only booked one night.
We make our way over to the other hostel and check in. We then hop on the tram and head to old town after taking our beloved naps and cooking pasta!
It was Friday night now and Liam and I really wanted to spend our possible last night together at that same club as the first night so we go there by ourselves.
I waited in line for 45 minutes while he went to take a piss and grab a kebab. We finally get in and we order a drink before heading to the dance floor for some more rock and role and good vibes. Liam and I sit on the main stage for everyone to see us. This one guy starts jamming in a language that wasn't English so it was sorta hard but I still liked the live music. When he got off stage this girl who you could tell was nervous came up and totally rocked it!
There was a tambourine right next to me so I started drumming it on beat with her and the makeshift drummer when I could. After doing that for two songs I decided to jump on stage and actually start jamming with them! This was the first time I had ever been on stage and jammed out in from of a live crowd, especially in a different country! I was feeling it until the same guy who originally started on guitar this night prompted me to get off because I sucked...
I think he was honestly just jealous and needed to be the center of attention... whatever, I had a good time for those two songs. We met some other girls that night but they couldn't hold a conversation so we decided leave this place at around 1:15am to walk home. We got to bed at a reasonable hour, but I had 4-5 beers at the bar/club and was full of cigarette smoke.
The next morning I woke up feeling real shitty and a super raspy voice. Liam had to leave this day. We met up with my Mexican friend we met at the bar at our hostel the prior night. We all walk up the street from our hostel to a monastery to grab a beer for St. Patricks Day. I was sooooooo upset with the service, or lack their of, and decided to NOT pay for a 4 dollar 8oz bottle of tap water and say fuck off... I was pissed. We get back to our hostel and just chill for an hour and a half until Liam had to head on out out to Berlin.
I said goodbye to my friend for what is really going to be the last time.
I head upstairs, feeling shitty and decide to watch some Rick and Morty before cooking some hot dogs, bell peppers, and rice. I bring the leftovers upstairs and get in my bed to watch the movie "Jason Bourne".
I wasn't feeling good and didn't want to do anything. I ended up watching some documentary about DMT before passing out at 11:15pm to have to get up at 5:30am to catch a 7:45am bus to Munich from Prague the next morning.
I had a blast in Prague and would totally reccommend everyone to go there but you have to stay away from the tourist traps of course!
Thank you for the read and contact me if you want to know anything about Prague, Czech Republic!
Cheers!
Ty Stevenson