The last update left off with us in Vienna and staying at the hostel.  We ended up meeting a few fellow Americans there and had a fun night talking with some fellow travelers and swapping stories.  The next morning we woke up, packed and left our luggage at the hostel, and headed out on our last day in Vienna.  Our first stop was the wonderful palace.  We took a quick audio guided tour of the palace and then slid out back to the gardens.  The gardens are amazing and huge.  I would imagine it would take a full 10 person grounds keeping crew to keep everything looking so nice.  After the palace tour Brandon pointed out that one of the trams in Vienna was basically its own riding tour.  You can jump on and it will take you all around the city and drive by almost all of the major sights.  We did that and jumped off wherever we wanted to take pictures.  After the tour we realized that it was getting close to time to catch our next train and headed back to the hostel.  The problem was that the hostel is close to one of the train stations and our train to Prague was at a different train station.  We had to basically run with all our luggage to barely make it to our train.  We jumped on just before it was taking off.  It was a close call, but that only makes it more exciting!

 

On train to Prague I decided to read up on where we were going and what there was to see.  The book warned us that Prague is known for its many pickpockets, but in reality there were so many tourist it felt quite safe.  Upon arrival to Prague we checked into our hostel and called it a night.  The only issue we had with this hostel is that we reserved it online and in order to get the best rate each night we had to switch rooms every day.  It wasn't that much of a hassle, but it did make us have to pack and unpack unnecessarily.  The next morning we woke up, switched rooms and met some of Brandon's friends from his summer in Yellowstone.  They were two girls, both named Zuska (or something like that) but had never met before Yellowstone.  We thought that they lived in Prague, but later found out that they in fact lived 2 and 4 hours away by train.  It was very kind of them to make the trip to show us around the city.  The first thing we did was hit the "Old Town" section of the city which is full of, well old stuff.  Several churches and shops.  We then headed over one of the famous bridges there towards the castle.  The bridge is very ornamental, as most of the older sights in Europe are.  We had read that there is one statue on the bridge for some saint that was pushed over the bridge.  The legend goes that the was pushed over for not revealing some sort of secret and consequently died.  They say if you touch the statue and make a wish he will grant you one wish (good for one per lifetime).  We each stopped and made a wish, but I can't tell you what for of course.  Then it was up to the castle, but first we stopped for a bite to eat.  This is where it was really exciting to have the Czech girls with us.  The helped us order some traditional Czech meals.  I had roasted duck with Czech style dumplings (more bread like than American dumplings) with pickled cabbage.  It was delicious!  We also tried what they said was a traditional bar snack. It was a pickled sausage with hot peppers.  Also delicious!  After our meal we continued up the hill to the castle.  The castle wasn't exactly what you picture as a castle but more of a walled in small town.  They of course had some royalty buildings along with their own church, living quarters and large garden.  From the castle you could get a great view of the city.  We headed back down towards the town as the girls needed to catch their train back to their homes.  Before they left we did get to see the astronomical clock change, which consist of some dancing figurines and some music, which I am sure was at the forefront of technology when it was built.  We bid adieu to the girls and went back to our hostel.  That night we actually had a small apartment to ourselves and decided to spend the night relaxing and just hanging out.  Previous to this we had either been busy planning or in a room with several people and didn't have much time just the three of us to hang out and talk about life.  It was a nice break especially since we had the whole apartment to stretch out.  

 

The next morning I needed to do some laundry and headed out to one of the places our book recommended.  It was a cyber-laundrymat where you could do some laundry and surf the internet while you waited.  While I was doing laundry Felipe and Brandon switched rooms again so we could see the town when I got done.  After I got back Brandon and I hit the Jewish Quarter and a museum while Felipe worked.  Felipe had to do a lot of work for a site that he volunteers his time to on our trip and seeing as he doesn't care for museums he figured this would be a good time to get some work done.  After the Jewish Quarter, Brandon and I were pretty tired and took a nap.  We ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon but when we woke up Felipe was done with his work and was up for going out.  We headed out with our first stop being the sausage stand.  The sausages were great and we even ran into some fellow Americans.  I instantly gave away where we were from when I asked "Where are ya'll from?"  The rest of the USA should pick up on this wonderful word.... ya'll.  We wandered around Prague for a while stopping at anything that looked interesting then headed back up to our room and prepared to leave for Berlin.