Prague

We’re in Prague. We checked into our hotel with no issues. It is a very nice hotel; I got a steal on Priceline. The problem with nice hotels is that they charge for things that are normally free at less nice hotels. For example, internet is $25 for 24 hours. So now we are at a restaurant with cheap wifi waiting for lunch. Be patient if I don’t get to update tomorrow.

Prague is in the Czech Republic. Although CR is a member of the EU, they use their own currency and do not accept Euros at some places. Switzerland was similar, they are not a member of the EU and only use Swiss Francs. They have their own currency, which is really annoying when you’re only in the country for a couple days. You end up with all this money that isn’t good anywhere else. In Switzerland it was pretty easy to figure out the exchange rate, because 1 Swiss Franc roughly equals 1 US Dollar. Not so easy in Czech. To find US dollars we have to divide the Czech price (I’m not even sure what their currency is called) by 19.8 or something crazy. And that’s not all there is to it. They say a price in Czech currency, you ask them how much that is in Euros and if they take Euros, they usually say yes, you pay Euros, and then they give you your change in Czech currency. It can get pretty confusing and you have to trust that they are charging you the right amounts and giving you the right amount of change.

The other thing unique about the Czech Republic is that they speak Czech, not German like all the other places we’ve visited. In Switzerland, they actually speak 4 languages, but predominately German. We have a little German phrase book and are fairly comfortable with basic expressions, but guess how many Czech words we speak? Zero. Our first impression is that most people here speak English, and I hope that holds true.

Tonight we are taking a river boat dinner cruise. No plans for tomorrow; we’ll figure it out in the morning. Maybe a walking tour to learn about the history of the town. It’s supposed to be the “most beautiful town in the world”….I don’t know who that is according to, but have heard it several times. I’ll make sure to post some pictures on my next post; I feel like I’ve been slacking in that area lately. Have a good weekend, can’t wait to see everyone again soon!