On Saturday August 20^th, I left Staudererhof. I was actually pretty glad to leave. On one hand, the experience was everything that I had wanted—go to work on my German, get some farm experience, meet some new people... But, there was a lot of work that wasn’t really satisfying, which I felt like I could never do correctly, and family-WWOOFer relations were sometimes a little tense. Mostly, Jenny was a rather demanding person who I felt was a little unpredictable, and I had a hard time with her sometimes. Anyways, I was very relieved when Manuel came and picked me up. We went off to Rosenheim for the afternoon which was fun. Shopping and ice-cream eating was a good way to get farm work out of my system :)

On Sunday, we went for a walk/hike at the foot of the Alps. Manuel has the pictures, so I need to get them from him... It was fun though, and we had a very Bavarian dinner halfway through. Monday and Tuesday were spent hanging out in Prien am Chiemsee while Manu was at his internship, trying to make plans for the rest of the summer. Funny story: the first day, I was hanging out in the lounge o the clinic, waiting for Manu to send me the WiFi password so I could get online. My phone said that the inbox was full and I had a message waiting, so I deleted a few, but the message didn’t come, so I thought I’d turn my phone off and then on again. Little did I realize that I had never turned my phone off before, and that when you do, you need a special pin number to unlock it, which I didn’t have with me. So, I couldn’t get on my phone to use the internet, which was why I had come to the clinic in the first place. Talk about frustrating! It all worked out thought.

On Wednesday, I woke up at 4:00 am, went to the train station, got into Munich by 6:00, walked around for a while until I found the bus station, and then hopped a bus to... PRAGUE!

The bus took about 6 hours, and we got in around 1:00. I was confused at first, but then I found a metro station, and figured out where I needed to go. Problem: I realized that the Czech Republic doesn’t use Euro, but Crowns, and I had no idea what the conversion rate was. No idea at all. So, when my metro pass cost 310 crowns... What the hell does that mean? Turns out, it’s 23 Crowns to the Euro, but it took me a little while to figure that out. And man, did it feel weird to take 1,500 Crowns out from the ATM. Once I got into town, I tried to find my hostel which said it was centrally located (I I daresay I learned my lesson in Italy). 2 hours later...... Yeah, I have a terrible sense of direction, and my map wasn’t good to boot. I eventually found the main square (with the help of two lovely Americans), and proceeded to look at every street off the square, and getting pointed here and then there... Turns out, the street I wanted was the one I came down in the first place. Sigh Anyways, finally got to the hostel, which turned out to be a really great find—15 euro per night, plus breakfast. The room had its own shower and sink, and there was a computer room... Pretty swell. Only funny thing? The rooms are mixed gender, and when I woke up on Thursday, I realized that I was in a room with 1 other girl and 6 men, which was a bit of a surprise!

Anyways, after finding my hostel (finally!), I needed lunch, and felt the need to document the meat and beer. Pilsner, to be exact. Really kinda bitter. Also, I drank it Way too fast. Oops...

One of the really cool things in Old Town Square, the Astronomical clock. Super cool! And, literally 1 minute from my hostel. I’ll put better photos up on Facebook one of these days.

Other side of the square, with the Cathedral, Our Lady of Tyn or something...

Alphonse Mucha museum! Apparently he’s originally Czech. Who knew? So, the museum wasn’t very big, but it had some cool things that I hadn’t expected. Lots of photos of him and his life, and a number of the works he did when in Czech.

I love Mucha. Oh, and apparently it’s pronounced Mu-Ka. Huh.

Obligatory the-pictures-I-took-of-myself-look-awful-so-here-are-my-feet picture. On cobblestones. So many cobblestones. Watching the women wearing heels was hilarious.

On Thursday, I went to the Castle, which is on a small hill on the edge of the city. View of the city, on the west side of the river.

St. Vitus’ Cathedral, the largest in the country, and one of the most impressive I’ve ever seen. Really. This thing is Huge! And really beautiful, although it has an interesting mishmash of styles... That’s what happens when it takes 600 years to finish!

Back side of the cathedral. Because it was within the walls, it was hard to get a good picture, because I could only get so far away.

One of the coolest things was this window, which was designed by... Mucha? Wow, that man got around. Artistically speaking, of course. Beautiful, though.

I also visited the Jewish Museum in Prague, which consisted of a number of Synagogues and the old cemetery. Pictures were prohibited which was too bad, so I only got cemetery photos. It was really cool, though—thousands of gravestones, all stuck together, with Yiddish all over them. Very cool. Buried here is also Rabbi Loew, who invented the Golem legend. The Synagoges were interesting, although... Not very gripping. Some of them were dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, one to Jewish culture and traditions... I dunno, maybe I’m a terrible Jew, but it just wasn’t that interesting. The best parts were the cemetery, and the Spanish Synagogue, which is really beautiful and done in a totally unexpected Spanish-Arabic style which was really cool.

One of the best parts of the trip was on Thursday afternoon, when I was walking back to the hostel. I thought I heard bagpipes and was really excited when I stumbled across a Medieval music group. They were pretty awesome, and even sung a few songs I know. They only played for about half an hour, and then took a break. I was chatting with them a bit, and then they invited me out for a drink... And how could I say no? So, two of them brought me to a cafe, and we had coffee (yes, I really drank coffee... No, I don’t really know why) and talked about music etc. It was pretty cool :) I love being me sometimes.

And finally, Prague at night. More pictures forthcoming... Eventually.

I went to the bus station early Friday morning (yes, I know, super short trip), waited for 2 hours, because it was late, and then caught the bus back to Munich. I’m not sure how, but we left an hour and a half late, and arrived half an hour early. We must have gone through a worm hole or something. Weird. I hung out for a few hours in Munich, mostly reading. I wanted to go to a museum, but it was closing by he time I got there. Got back to Prien and Manu around 9 that evening. Whew. Fast, full trip.