23-June: Füssen->Freiburg

We woke to a beautiful day in Füssen… would have been nice if it was like that the day before when we were out looking at the castles.  We had to get up early to prepare for our 6hr train ride and be at the station at 10am.  We stopped at a grocery store to get some snacks and then went across the street to a bakery for breakfast.  It was very good, Meghan got a Berliner (raspberry jelly filled donut), and I got a vanilla filled pastry thing.  We then headed to the train station to wait.  Luckily, there are only two platforms for passengers in Füssen, and only about 1 train comes by an hour, so we didn’t have to worry about figuring out where to be.  Something also very nice about all (or at least all we’ve seen) of the trains in Germany, is that you can look online or at one of the sheets posted at the train station, and it tells you everything you need to know: arrival/departure time, track, all stops, train type and number.  It is very nice, especially on our way to Freiburg.  We had to change trains twice, but I had looked at the trip ahead of time online, and got the information we needed to change trains.  It may not seem like a big deal, but when the ICE (InterCityExpress) trains come by smaller stations, they may only sit there for a minute or less.  If you don’t get on, you get left.

We grabbed some lunch on the train, I told Meghan to surprise me when she went to buy food, and I sat with our bags.  She came back with full grain sandwiches… literally, full pieces of grain held together with a little bit of bread.  Each pack had 3 little sandwiches, one of each, salami, ham, and gouda cheese.

Finally, we arrived in Freiburg… our vacation from the vacation.  We have 5 days in Freiburg, and only a few must see things.  This will be the place for us to relax, take it easy, and recover.  It has been a very long trip, lots of fun and we’ve seen some incredible things, but we are exhausted.

For dinner, we went to a Mexican restaurant that has happy hour 24/7!  The food was good, and the World Cup game was too.  We watched the last half of England beating Slovenia, 1-0.  Afterwards, we walked around some.  We went through a small park and around Altstadt (old, downtown part of Freiburg).

We headed to a park to watch the Germany-Ghana match, but because Germany was playing it was very crowded.  We didn’t feel like standing the whole game, so came back to the hotel to watch the first half and planned to head out to the park for the second half.  We never made it back out there… for the one, the game wasn’t very good, Germany was playing awful, and secondly, we were tired.  Germany won, 1-0.  Our hotel is located very centrally in the city, we were expecting a big crowd and lots of chaos like we experienced in Berlin, but there wasn’t any of that.  A few car horns and some people yelling, but nothing crazy.

22-June: Train ride to Füssen and the Castles

We left Budapest around 9pm on a 9hr night train to München...  It was a very rough ride.  The cabin had 6 beds, because we booked in advance, we had the permanent top bunks (the other 2 rows folded into beds from seats).  We had 3 Hungarians in our cabin that talked for a few hours, so we weren’t able to sleep then.  Neither of us slept much after that, a mix between the train noise and bumps along the way and anxiety, the trains around Budapest and Eastern Europe are known for having lots of theft problems.

We arrived in München around 6am and left shortly after to Buchloe, changed trains there towards our final destination, Füssen.  It was a cold, wet day… not the best for seeing the castles, but it was our only day there, so we made the best of it.  We were fortunate that the fog backed away some and we could see the beautiful Alps.  The train ride into the city was very nice.  We rode through a few small German towns in this rural area with small rolling hills.  Then, sort of all of a sudden, the Alps pop up, seemingly out of nowhere.

We arrived in Füssen around 9am and headed straight for the hostel to drop off our luggage.  The hostel we booked has 3 separate locations in the city, 2 separate hostels and 1 set of apartments.  We were told that we had been moved to the apartments, a little nicer and with our own shower and toilet!! We don’t have to share anymore like in Budapest!  The apartments were a little bit further outside the city center.  But, the city is only about 1km from one side to the other, and the main shopping/eating area covers only a few small streets.  So, it was not a problem.  The people that ran the hostel were very kind, and told us to drop our bags off where we were at (the main hostel) and they would take them and put them in our room at the apartments.

Next, we hopped on the bus and rode a few miles to the castles.  We bought tickets and headed to Schloss Hohenschwangau (Schloss = Castle).  They have the castle tour set up to be very efficient for when there can be 6000 tourists a day... maybe a little too efficient for us.  When you buy tickets, you are given a meeting time for a guided tour.  You are only allowed to go through with the guide, leaving little time to sit and look at the interior.  We were disappointed in this, especially for the price.  We prefer to take our time, look at a lot of the little details, and see the things most people tend to miss.

It was a “20 minute” hike up to the castle (took us less than 5).  We waited around in the courtyard for our guided tour.  It was very nice, a couple fountains, lots of flower gardens, a great view, but many tourists.  Inside the castle, there were pictures and sculptures and all sorts of decorations themed around swans (schwan = swan, makes sense...  The swan is the noble animal and symbol for this region dating back to the middle ages).  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside either castle =(.

After the tour, we took a hike up to the main attraction, Schloss Neuschwanstein (New Swan Stone Castle).  It looked very far away from below in the city, but we took the hiking route anyways (the map said ~45 minute hike, but after the last one, we assumed this one was vastly exaggerated as well).  We were able to avoid some tourists, by taking the more difficult route, rather than walking along the road.  It was a very pleasant hike, but much shorter than we expected.

At the castle, there was a magnificent view of the Alps, the valley below, and the surrounding region.  It is no surprise that the castle was built in its location at the base of the Alps solely for the view.  We took the tour of the castle, and it was wild… the entire place seemed to come straight out of a fairy tale.  Every wall was painted with pictures of fairy tales from Richard Wagner operas and fanciful depictions of history of the region.  It was interesting to see that out of all the battle scenes on the walls, there was not a single drop of blood painted.

The castle looks much smaller in person, partly because it was built into the mountain and how the pictures you see are taken from the front.  Also, it was only a vacation home for the King.  We learned that Neuschwanstein was actually never completed.  It was under construction for 17 years and halted immediately upon the death of the King.  King Ludwig II was declared mentally unfit to rule and the next day sent to a castle near München, where he and his physician were found dead after taking a walk around a nearby lake.  The death is still a mystery… but he was probably killed by a mob of angry peasants, or at least that’s what we think =).

Nearby to the castle was a bridge over the gorge, we hiked there and took some pictures, it had a wonderful view of the castle (as you can see from the pictures).  We took the long way back to the city and waited for the bus to get back to Füssen.  We were very tired and stinky after riding on trains all night and walking around all day, so we went to the hotel, took showers and then headed out into the city to find something to eat.

We stopped inside a medieval themed restaurant to get dinner, because Meghan was craving some schnitzel!  It was nice to be back in Germany, where we can go through the entire meal without having to speak in English to the waiter/waitress.  Meghan ordered the schnitzel with fries, and I got trout with a baked potato.  We then realized that everyone wears a bib to eat here, brought to you by the waiter… so we donned the appropriate attire and waited for our food.  When the food arrived, I was shocked to find out that the baked potato came wrapped in tin foil… in the shape of a swan!  And, the fish came with the head and tail on (which Meghan hated, but I just found amusing)!  The food was excellent, somewhat expensive, but at least they made up for it with having good pleasant service and little extras to make the meal more enjoyable (such as the swan potato).

After dinner, we walked around Füssen some and stopped into a café to get coffee… but decided since we were very tired, lacking in sleep, and had to get up early to leave to get ice cream instead!  All of the little ice cream places here are actually gelato, very very good stuff, with all kinds of flavors.  Meghan went simple and got chocolate, but I had the pistachio flavor.  And, of course, it was excellent as well (and very cheap, 0.90€ a scoop, including waffle cone!).  Then, we headed back to the hotel and slept like rocks.

21-June: 3rd Day in Budapest...night train to Füssen

Something to say about the night before, at the Brazil-Ivory Coast World Cup match.  Some stinky old lady comes around near the end of all the public viewings of the world cup near our hostel, she picks up bottles and cans to recycle and get money for.  She also brings her dog with her... while she was busy bugging people, asking for their bottle, the dog was taking a poop.  Keep in mind that this is in the middle of a large crowd of people all staring at a huge screen, with minutes to go in the match.  We happened to look in her direction (mostly because she was blocking our view of the screen) and saw her turn around and step directly into a fresh, steaming pile of dog poop!!!  We got a huge laugh out of that, and missed a couple minutes of the game, but it was worth it.

Our last day in Budapest started off with a small breakfast of bread with jams, nice and simple.  We headed straight for the Hungarian Parliament building... only to find out that it wasn't open for public tours that day because of official business going on.  We were pretty bummed out, we had put it off until the last day and missed out.  It is one of the oldest and largest Parliament buildings in Europe and the largest building in Hungary.  We then decided to head to the central market... and it also started to rain.  Every time we go out with an umbrella, we get clear skies, but when we forget it, it always seems to rain.

The central market hall has tons of little stalls on 2 floors.  Meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables and various spices on ground level and a lot of tourist goods and a lineup of food stands on the next.  I (Tres) bought some spices that we used at dinner in the hostel.  I thought they were pretty good so decided to take some home, it is actually the first thing we've bought to take home!  We don't have any other souvenirs, except for pictures/video and our memories.  For lunch we had some "Hungarian" hamburgers, they were different.  Full of spices, very tasty, but a little too peppery for our tasty.  It was a change though, and we're always willing to try different things (well... I am, maybe not Meghan).

Next, we headed out towards a park where a lot of the baths are located, just to see what they were like.  We got there by metro and decided to slowly walk back to the city center.  Saw some interesting things.  There was a castle looking thing off the road a bit, so we ventured towards it.  It was the Hungarian Agricultural Museum, in the shape of a castle, with large front gate, moat, and all.  We decided not to go in because we can get all the agriculture we want at NC State!

Heading towards the center more, we passed by Hero's Square, originally built in 1896 for the millennium celebration of Hungary.  Damaged in WWII and  rebuilt afterward.  A Hungarian Prime Minister was re-buried there, who was executed for treason in 1958, for opposing the Soviet invasion during the failed Hungarian Revolution in 1956.  We left there to go get coffee!!! Meghan was starting to have withdrawals.  We also watched the end of the Portugal and North Korea World Cup match (7-0!).

We finished up our walk towards the center of the city near St. Stephens Basilica and some of the main tourist areas in Budapest.  We were looking for some pizza for dinner, didn't find much where we were at, so took the metro out to where we passed a pizza restaurant earlier that day.  It was an Italian/fancy shmancy kind of place, the pizza was very good, but expensive.  We finished up dinner with some more coffee (cappuccinos and milchkaffee have become our favorite drink), and headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head out.

Oh, yeah... and we stopped at the park near the hostel so I could play in the interactive fountain.  it is a wall of water squirting up in a rectangle shape on the ground.  When you step near the water, that area turns off.

20-June: 2nd Day in Budapest

Since we had a late night out last night (or at least late for us old folks) it's no surprise that we slept in until at least 11am this morning =) So of course we missed breakfast, again, but hey, it was already time for lunch! Meghan's been dying to have Chinese to make up for the bad experience in Prague, so we walked literally 1 minute around the corner of our hostel to one of the best Chinese places in town (according to reviews). When we got there, it was jam packed with people, so we got our food to go (or "take away" as they say here) and went to watch the Slovakia-Portugal game in a park nearby. They have a public showing of every game on a huge screen. It may sound like we watch a LOT of soccer, but Tres wanted me to emphasize that we don't catch all of the games..and the one's we do watch, we only watch about 30 or so minutes of it. We haven't even watched one FULL game!

Anyhow, that game stunk because both Slovakia and Portugal play like high schoolers...so we left after we finished our food. The food, on the other hand, was awesome! At least the meat was...I don't think people have the hang of "fried rice" over here in Europe...they just fry it in butter with an egg and cabbage and call it fried....no soy sauce or nothing!!! YUCK!

After we returned our Coke bottles to the restaurant, we went to Margaret Island which is an island in the middle of the Danube River. It was a nice break away from the close/dense city area. There was a huge fountain there that was synchronized with a selection of classical compositions which would play every 10 or so minutes. It was interesting to watch, except for the fact that it was fenced off AND two stinky old ladies sat down on the same bench next to us to converse about their location on the map...and they kept scooting us over trying to get us off the bench. I think we've figured out that, while the French may be the rudest group of people in Europe, Hungarians/Slovakians/East Europeans follow close behind.

Our adventures in the park led to another soccer game...New Zealand and Italy. Italy played like a bunch of pansies getting "hurt" all the time and getting a free shot...or "penalty" kick even though there was no penalty... at a goal due to a crap-called injury... We left after half time to get some food, once again, and to escape the mosquitoes...yes, Hungary has mosquitoes and they are annoying! When we were walking back towards the metro, we passed by a Turkish restaurant and both of us immediately stopped and decided that döners were to be had for dinner! We haven't had them in a while and they were both cheap and familiar foods. However...both of our döners were not appetizing. Tres got beef and Meghan got chicken, yet we could tell that both had been setting out/cooking for a while, making the meat hard. Plus, there was a load of purple cabbage on them (which neither of us like) and they used tortilla shells. Who in the world would use tortilla shells for a Turkish/German meal?!?!? We were very unhappy, but ice cream made everything better.

Now we're about to head out to watch the Brazil-Ivory Coast game, which should be great for Brazil and fun to watch another country go down =) We'll post some stuff tomorrow hopefully before we leave for Füssen. Both of us are WAY ready to get back to Germany. We won't get internet in Füssen so we may not post as often but we'll try when we can!

19-June: 1st Day in Budapest

Today we didn't have breakfast... so we were really hungry by the time we headed out.  We looked in the guidebook for a good place to eat and found a cheap crêperie (under US$3.50 for 3 crepes).  They were ok, what you would expect for that price, but it got us going for the day.  This was on our way to the old part of Budapest, on the Buda side.  The city used to be two, Buda on the West side of the Danube River, and Pest on the East.  The main attractions on the Buda side are within the fortress of Buda Castle and the museums and sights inside.

We went inside the Budapest Labyrinth.  It was interesting, some of it was kinda cheesy, and there was a modern art exhibit towards the end.  There was a fountain that constantly poured wine, though they suggested visitors not try the wine.

After that, we had a nice little snack of bread, a giant cinnamon roll thing, and Kinder Buenos (awesome chocolate bars). We were able to watch some of the game between Ghana and Australia but we didn't watch too much of it. After about 20 minutes of the game, we decided to leave and check out the House of Terror which was on the other side of the Danube. Once we got there, we found out that the museum was closed until 6pm due to an event called "Night at the Museums". This cool event was a once-a-year ordeal for Budapest wherein a lot of museums are open from 6pm until 2am and people can purchase a wrist band (which was the price of entry to one museum) and go to as many as they would like. Also included was transportation to and from the different museums via the city metro, tram, or bus lines. So we headed back to the hostel since it was not 6pm yet and ate dinner with our host.

Dinner was awesome! It was a potato stew, Meghan made the mistake of calling it a soup and the host kind of flipped out. The stew was exactly like the one Meghan's mom makes at home -- with potatoes, butter, onions and water, except Alex (our host) added flour and sour cream. These two ingredients definitely made the stew thick and it was amazing! We also had boiled eggs as a side dish.

As soon as dinner was finished and we washed the dishes (because the host cooked), we headed back to the House of Terror and purchased our wrist band. That place was packed! It was insane trying to get through the museum and we kept going backwards into the rooms so we went backwards through the time line. Meghan had already seen it and it didn't bother Tres that we were out of order, but overall we enjoyed it. After finishing up there, we went to the Underground Railway Museum which showcases the original plans and antique train cars which were used in Budapest. The city opened up it's metro line in 1896, which makes it the oldest metro line on the continent and the second oldest in the world (after London in 1863). This museum was not as packed and was quite pleasant to walk through, but much smaller.

After we finished up with it, we decided it was late and time to head back to the hostel. On the way, we stopped by the Chain Bridge and sat on the bank of the river to enjoy the view for a bit. It's really pretty at night. We didn't stay there too long, however, because we were both pooped....so around 1:30am we called it a night and headed in.

18-June: Prague->Budapest

We got up earlier than usual (8am) today to pack, eat breakfast, and head to the train station to leave Prague.  It actually worked out very well for us that the day had awful weather.  We had a 7 hour train ride, so the weather didn't bother us at all.  I forgot to plug in the computer to charge the night before and my iPod battery was low too, so we had a lot of nothing to do on the train.  There are many stops between Prague and Budapest, we had a vast array of characters to share our compartment with (another 6 seat compartment).  Between Bratislava and some other small Slovakian town, we had a group of 4 men sit with us... it was kind of sketchy, they were talking about politics the whole time (from what we understood, it was all in Slovakian), and one guy spoke very good English too us, he was also carrying around 2 cell phones, and used both of them at various times during the trip.

We pulled into Budapest and immediately started heading towards the hostel.  It was a 2km walk, but didn't seem too bad, mostly because we had better directions.  When we found the place, we saw a sign on the door to call the apartment number using the dial pad... so we did, and it rang... and rang... no answer.  We tried again, same thing.  Then some people walked into the building, they let us in and pointed us in the right direction, we walked to the front door of the hostel and... it was locked.  We were beginning to get very worried.

Next, we waited around a minute and then decided to go find something to eat and come back later.  We walked around the corner to look at the menu of a Chinese restaurant and then, when we were about to head off to find an ATM, we were flagged down by a young man, he was the host at the hostel we had reserved.  Turned out that he was nearby at some apartments that can be booked through the hostel.  We were pleasantly surprised when he asked if we were hungry and said he would be cooking dinner soon.

At dinner we found out that 3 other Americans were staying there, and they were all from UNC!  Dinner looked very strange, it was pasta with some odd looking sauce.  We were both hesitant to try it, but it was actually pretty good.  It was nice to have a home cooked meal for a change, even though it was odd.  I think we're in for an experience here in Budapest.

17-June: 3rd Day in Prague

Today started out as an adventure into the Jewish Quarters of town.  We decided not to see the sights, partly because we’ve seen quite a few churches and museums, and partly because they were charging a lot.  So we made our way around the backside and found a door with a small window to get a sneak peak at the old cemetery.  Tombstones are piled all around and lack any sort of organizations, or so it seems… until you realize that they are like that because in some places there are people buried up to 12 deep, stacked one on top of the other.

The weather was supposed to be cloudy and possibly showers in the afternoon… lucky for us, it was hot and sunny!  We’ve figured out that we’re going to have to try and find a local weather station to get forecasts… we’ve tried weather.com and BBC, but neither has been very good.

We stopped by the astronomical clock to watch it chime on the hour and see the skeletal Death character empty his hourglass and watch the procession of apostles with the rest of the tourists… then headed out to a less ventured part of town, the newer side of town (still pretty old, established in 1348).  We couldn’t find anywhere that sounded appetizing for lunch, so decided to just grab something in a grocery store.  We got quite a few things: a 1.5L bottle of water, bag of chips, 3 bananas, a piece of käsebrötchen (a piece of bread with melted cheese on top, very good), and 2 dessert pudding cups (with whip cream =), of course).  All of that was less than US$3!  We went to a nearby park to sit and enjoy our feast as we watched all the people walking through and the dogs playing.

Next, we took a long walk towards Vyšehrad, an old fortress in the southern part of the city.  It was once used by the Romans and was the location of the original castle in Prague.  The view from the fortress was very nice.  From the north side, you could a lot of the “new town” Prague and even some parts of the wall that once went around the city.  From the south side, there was a beautiful view of the Vltava River that runs through Prague.

We walked around a good portion of the fortress, along the wall, seeing most of the sights, but made sure to just stop and lay in the grass under some trees.  That was very nice and relaxing.  It was such a nice part of the city, yet there were very few tourists there compared to the old town part of Prague.  We found out about this part of town through the guidebook I have. 

After a relaxing afternoon, we had plans for eating a nice dinner at the place we ate our first day in Prague.  We took the metro into town from the fortress and came out on a road where Meghan heard there was a good bakery.  We stopped inside and got a chocolate croissant thing, we were planning on saving it for later that evening, but couldn’t resist taking a bite.  It was very good, as we had expected.

It was still a little early to go eat and there was a world cup match on a big screen in the middle of the old town square, so we sat down and watched the last 15 minutes of the game.  Greece beat Nigeria 2 to 1.

Dinner was excellent; Meghan had turkey medallions with grilled apples and a fantastic cheese sauce, with fried potatoes, I had rump steak with grilled tomatoes and pesto sauce, with fried potatoes.  For dessert we had straciatella ice cream with caramel and honey, followed by two awesome cups of hot chocolate.  We noticed at dinner that most of the time in the US, we’ll go out to eat and never have room for dessert, but most of the places we’ve been to here have been perfectly portioned for us.

To end the night, we went back to the hotel and watched Mexico beat France in the World Cup match (2 to 1)!

16-June: 2nd Day in Prague

Today began as a cool, but sunny day outside.  We started off with another nice breakfast and began the trek to a laundromat to wash clothes.  We have been washing everything in the sink, but decided that it was time to wash everything really well.  After washing clothes, we decided to take the easy way back on adventured into the metro.  The metro in Prague is very deep underground.  You ride an escalator down (not even stairs, only escalator) about 170 ft.  After that, it is similar to all the other metros we've used in Europe. 

For dinner we went to a medieval themed restaurant to find some wild food, and luckily, it was right near our hotel... so not too far to walk.  Turned out to be a little too wild for our tastes.  Meghan got some sort of goulash, but it was more like a smorgasbord of food, there were 9 different things:  potatoes, potato bread, potato dumplings, beef in Budweiser sauce (the Czech version of Budweiser), bacon, some weird sausage thing, potato pancakes, fried egg, and a huge banana pepper.  I got a turkey fillet filled with cheese and wrapped in bacon, with Czech style mashed potatoes on the side... the food was good, just a little too much for us to handle, especially Meghan's, 9 different foods is too much for one plate.

After dinner, we decided to get dessert... another mistake.  We went to a cafe with good reviews, but had crappy service and terrible food.  It's pretty bad when a cafe messes up crepes with cream cheese and strawberries.  Meghan ordered hot chocolate, and it came out cold!  We then decided that we've had enough for a day and decided we'd try again tomorrow.

15-June: 1st Day in Prague

Yesterday, we arrived in Prague and headed towards our hotel.  It is actually a pension, more like a bed and breakfast.  It is a very nice change from the crappy hotel we had in Berlin.  The bathroom is actually inside the room this time and we don't have to share it!  We are on the top floor of a building and have windows that open up to the sky.  It gives us a nice breeze and fresh air.  Prague is actually pretty small, much smaller than I was expecting.  Our hotel isn't in a great location, but some of the main tourist locations are only a 5 minute walk away.

After taking a break at the hotel after our 5 hour train ride, we went out to dinner at a Japanese/Chinese restaurant... it was not very good.  We had really great Chinese food in Berlin and we're let down at the place we chose here (picture here is from Berlin).  We didn't mention this in the post about Berlin, but the Chinese restaurant there served a small glass of mango nectar after dinner.  It was different, but actually very good.  In Prague, we were served a shot of some weird liquor... we were hesitant to try it, but Tres did, and it was not good.

After that, we took a walk around the city.  We started out heading for the Jewish Quarters since we stay right in them. First, we found the Jewish Cemetery which has really old graves and a great number of them too....the headstones are really close together. Prague, for those who do not know, was intentionally "saved/set" to be a memorial to an "extinct race" during World War II according to Hitler's plans. So most everything here has been well preserved, specifically synagogues and other Jewish things.

After touring a little of the Jewish area, it became dark (once again, it doesn't get dark here until at least 9:30pm) so we headed towards the Charles Bridge (a huge tourist attraction) yet the bridge wasn't too packed with people so it was very enjoyable.

Once we crossed the bridge and viewed the gates and statues, we walked up to Prague Castle and viewed the city from there. It was a very nice view at night and there weren't many tourists there either since it was at least 10:30pm. We took a scenic route back and stopped along the way at a WWII memorial to take a break from walking. It's so nice in Prague because we don't really feel too unsafe. The most unsafe we've felt has probably been in Paris and a little bit in Berlin, but other than that the other cities, including here in Prague, feel pretty safe (of course we watch out for pick-pockets and other tourist traps, so don't worry).

Our night ended once we got back to the hotel and after we checked in with our mommies.

Today started out with a fantastic breakfast of breads, yogurt, granola bars (that we took with us for the day's trip) and some yummy coffee. After we fueled up for the day, we headed towards the Communist museum and Winceslas Square. The Communism museum was neat and filled with memorabilia from the Soviet Regime and occupation of former Czechoslovakia. There were massive statues of Lenin and Marx and a few statues of Stalin and other important Communist figures withing Czechoslovakia. Meghan was kind of disappointed with the "Interrogation" room/information because it only gave a small description of the show trials which occurred during the Soviet occupation, such as the Slansky trials. Such trials claimed the lives of numerous innocent people and greatly disturbed/effected the lives of others living under Communism in the East.

After the Communism museum, we went to Wenceslas Square which is where numerous demonstrations, including the infamous Velvet Revolution, have taken place. There was a giant statue of St. Wenceslas and a dedicated memorial to the two young anti-Soviets who claimed their own lives by self-immolation. We also grabbed lunch at Wenceslas Square, Tres getting a Kielbasa sausage sandwich and Meghan getting a fried cheese sandwich.....yes it was strange and no, she does not desire to have another one.

When we finished lunch, we headed out across the river towards the newer part of town and the Castle. There was a great conglomeration of gardens and such which we hiked through in the Mala Strana region across the river. We climbed up a small foothill and captured great views of the city, Castle and other hillside regions. At the top of the hill, we came upon a beautiful monastery, Strahov Monastery, and took a walk around the campus of the monastery. Then we hiked downhill towards the Castle and explored that area. The Castle is the largest castle in the world, but there really isn't anything spectacular about it other than the sheer size of it. There is a gorgeous church inside of the Castle realms which you can see pictures of in our album.

It took a while to view the Castle grounds and the areas around it, but once we were finished, we explored a few stores around the area. One of the stores was an antique store where Meghan bought Tres original collector stamps from the Third Reich and where Meghan bought some original photos taken during the 1968 Prague Spring (a MAJOR revolution....worth a "Google" if you get a chance). However, we didn't have any luck finding unique items this time. We may go check out a market tomorrow that they have to see if we can find any other treasures ;)

Our tummies started rumbling once we headed back across the river towards the older city. So, we went to a restaurant suggested to Meghan by one of her professors back at UNC. The food was AMAZING, and we didn't expect anything less since the suggestion came from an actual Czech, not only her professor! Tres had rump steak with fried potatoes and apricot-jasmine mousse and Meghan got the grilled turkey and "genuine Prague ham" skewer with fried potatoes and some apples stuff (that was quite strange...or rather yucky). We finished it off with a shared rice pudding with small pieces of apricots and caramel as well as a cup of "chocolate" a piece. Now let me tell you....this "chocolate", while it was hot chocolate, was nothing like the Nestle instant packs or nothing like the kind you make with Hershey's cocoa powder....it was straight pure chocolate with whipped cream topping! And man, it was AWESOME!!! We both agree that the food here, with the exception of our bad Chinese/Japanese experience, is much much better than anywhere else we've been to....even Brussels!

We both had such full tummies after this meal that we decided to head back to the hotel and call it a night (early, believe it or not!). On the way, we saw the Dancing House, a type of "modern art"... odd, if you ask me. When we got back to the hotel, we had to wash a few clothes, watch the Brazil-North Korea soccer game, and write the blog entry for the day/upload photos....so now we're actually calling it a night around our normal time of 1am. Hope everyone is well (and Obama does something about this BP ordeal...Meghan's anxiously awaiting his public address and hoping for good things to come out of it). Anyhow, have a good night all! =)