Over the autumn break my host family was kind enough to take me to the Czech Republic for a few days. Our first day started off early in the morning, around 5:30 am for me because I was not completely finished with packing and we were supposed to leave around 6:00, however, we ended up leaving around 6:30 and thus our long car journey to Prague began. Though the car ride was long (and we had plenty of long drives besides the first one) but it was enjoyable because I got to play games and bond more with my host family. Some examples of the games we played included I Spy (which I sort of had to explain the rules to them), one cow moo, and a few hand games. I Spy was actually really hard because my host family is VERY creative in coming up with these so there were many rounds that probably lasted a good 20 to 30 minutes. One Cow Moo is a game where one person says, another says cow, and another says moo, and then you go on to two in which each word if repeated twice e.g. two two cow cow moo moo and then three times, four times and so on. We played this for quite a long time as well. At one point I had momentarily forgotten what to say and was going to say moo but then I remembered that I was supposed to say cow so I just said MOW. My host family just burst out into laughter as did I and now I am the butt of the joke of this game. After much laughter, sort of napping, and games soon enough we arrived in Prague.
The next day consisted of 24 kilometers of walking (18 miles for those who do not know the metric system) in which we got to see the majority of the sights around Prague including the oldest synagogue, the astronomical clock, St Charles's Bridge, the castle, the cathedral, and the golden street. It was so amazing to see such an old but beautiful city. I really hope to return one day to Prague and maybe even live there one day (I touched the plate that supposedly if you touch it you will return to Prague one day so I really hope that's true).
The next day we drove to Karlovy Vary which is home to a lot of hot springs and spa places. It is also home to Becherovka, a famous liquor from the Czech Republic. There we visited different springs and tasted the water from them, hiked up a super large hill and tower that overlooked the city, and visited the Becherovka museum. After that we went to our hotel which was basically a castle, however we got sort of lost trying to find it. At one point we were going into the forest on a very narrow road. It was like something out of a horror movie (which we joked about) Oh, we almost got hit by a train trying to find the hotel. Finally, when we thought we had found it we went in where we were given judgmental looks and then told that we didn't have reservations. We ended up being at the wrong place but the lady was kind enough to direct us in the right direction. After finally arriving we went swimming in the beautiful and deserted pool. We also got to try some Czech/Russian cuisine (I had dumpling like things).
The next day we went to another town along the border of the Czech Republic and Germany that I don't remember the name of because I wasn't in it for very long as we were going on a 17 kilometer hike from that town to the next one over. We started off strong and didn't stop for five kilometers (which was mostly uphill and didn't feel like 5 kilometers at all, more like 7-9). After that we continued until we got to a spot to take pictures of the scenery and ourselves on a cliff (I don't have the pictures at this time, sorry!). We then continued until we got to another city with a tourist spot. There we took our last photos, ate some German/Czech cuisine (I had schnitzel for the first time), and then waited for bus to take us back to the town where our car was. Sadly, we didn't finish the 17 kilometers and stopped at 11 as it was getting dark and we didn't feel like parading through the pitch black forest on Halloween night and we were also exhausted. Needless to say it was wonderful to see the autumn scenery and forest/mountains of the Czech Republic/Germany. After getting to our car we traveled to Wroclaw, Poland for the night and then headed the rest of the way home the next day. Overall, I loved the Czech Republic, hope to live there one day or at least return, and am very grateful to have been able to go with my host family and bond more with them over this time!
