Prague!

Prague

What a beautiful city, especially at night. Woe to the man that takes a woman around Prague on a date and cant get any. You have to seriously lack game. Got in pretty late since I chilled at Stef's about 2pm instead of doing the morning trains. Was tired, had to plan Rome and had a change of heart about the route I wanted to take post Greece.

Met up with Carlo, my "Italian raised/studied in Finland/working in Prague" host, in the New Town Square. Ate a super late dinner at this nice vegetarian place. Realized really quickly that Prague was cheaper than most of Europe. The 24.5 korun = 1 euro conversions weren't too difficult.

Discussed 40-year old man stuff (politics, economy, culture) with Carlo, a quite intelligent guy, and fluent in many languages. His Czech was quite good and he was learning from a Czech person in exchange for tutoring Italian.

He lives about 30 minutes from Old Town so we took the tram. I won't forget how beautiful Charles Bridge looks at night. or Korluv most :-) We walked across that as he continue to explain the history of the key buildings, statues, and so on.
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New plan below:
6/4-6/7
Bari->Rome

6/8 
Rome->Florence
Florence->Pisa
Pisa->La spezia

6/9 
La Spezia-Florence
Florence-Zurich

6/10
Zurich

6/11
Zurich-Bern
Bern-Interlaken
(stay at Ballmer's)

6/12
Interlaken - canyoning, holyshitsoexcited

6/13
Interlaken-Bern
Bern-Barcelona (overnight)

6/14-6/18
Barcelona

6/19
Barcelona-Madrid
Madrid-Toledo

6/20-6/22
Madrid + Sevilla

6/23
Madrid-Paris (overnight)

6/24-6/27
Paris

6/28
Paris-Cologne
Cologne-Amsterdam

6/29-6/30
Amsterdam

7/1
Amsterdam-Copenhagen

7/3
Copenhagen-Hamburg
Hamburg-Berlin

7/5
Berlin-Frankfurt
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Got up way too late. Was exhausted. The night before Carlo recommended I go to Vsheyrad, a place where very few tourists go, in the southern part of Prague. There was an old cathedral and gorgeous parks with an amazing view of the river and some of the city. Also, there was a cemetery with many big names of Prague. Even if Carlo hadn't told me you could figure it out since the tombstones were massive and ornately made. Right next to the station was a tech expo center. International IEEE Conference on Speech, Signals and something. Man, I should've applied, maybe they would have covered my airfare 8-)

Did the free New Europe tour for Prague. Wasn't as good as Sonja in Munich, but entertaining, informative, and worthwhile nonetheless. So much has happened in Prague with so many groups since its inception. Jewish Quarter in particular was fascinating. Whats crazy is that Hitler, who loved Prague deeply, preserved that Jewish ghetto because he wanted it to be a museum for an extinct race. It is the sole reason, that those buildings still exist.

Met up with his heptalingual German friend for dinner+beer. The guy had been and lived everywhere. Great restaurant. Had a 0.5L Pilsner Urquell and I have since forgotten the name of the dark beer but it was really good!

Came back late and I was tanked, plus had to take care of SimpApply, some emails, and figuring out how I would get to my hosts house in Budapest. Zzzz