Prague

It was a long 17 hour train ride to Prague. The land is a lot bigger as you get away from Italy. This was taken several hours away from Prague in the Czech Republic. Huge fields as far as the eye can see.

The city of Prague is dominated by the Vltava river. It flooded the city in the summer of 2002 and destroyed the subway system. This caused big problems when I tried to get around town...

The river may cause trouble, but it's one of the main reasons Prauge is so beautiful.

The bridges in Prague are unusually old. Most of Europe's old bridges were destroyed in the world wars, but not Prague's. This is Charles Bridge--probably the oldest and most famous. In the distance is the castle.

Charles Bridge has a series of statues along its length..

In the middle of the castle is a Gothic Cathedral. It's so old, dirty, and tall that it is downright scary.

Gothic catherdals are known for their stained glass windows, and this one did not disappoint.

The castle itself also had some interesting architecture. The ribs on these arches were very unique.

One very interesting thing about Prague was the total absence of concrete paving. Almost all of the sidewalks were paved with small quartz pavers.

Frank Ghery's "Fred and Ginger" monstrosity. Supposedly the people of Prague hate it, but I have a feeling that with time they will begin to like it. This was the first Ghery building I have ever seen and when I got up close I could not even begin to imagine how it was actually constructed. For those of you who are not architecture geeks, Ghery designed this by building a model, probably out of paper, and then digitized the model with a 3D scanning tool used to design airplane fuselages. From that digital model they somehow broke it down into buildable components and eventually built it, over budget of course.

Ah, one of the best things about Prague: the cheap, good food. And I do mean cheap. This meal was $6 or something ridiculous. The beer was also incredibly cheap. Goulash and dumplings were apparently the Prague specialty. By the way, Budweiser was originally brewed in the Czech Republic. American Budweiser has nothing in common with it except the stolen name.

Alexis, a fellow student at Santa Chiara, accompanied me to Prague and then went on to Berlin. Get this--her boyfriend is Lee Nalle's cousin. It's a small world after all.

Last, Chris with a beany and pseudo-mustache. It was pretty cold in Prague and the besides keeping my bald head warm the beany made me look like a real native.