Oh Prague, it snowed upon my arrival. I walked under the astronomical clock wondering
why didn't I go to the beach like everyone else for Spring Break. But I didn't. I walked and walked, got overcharged by the mystery man at the lunch place, under-impressed a stranger, found the cozier bar for reading but then reunited with two men from my plane which lead to too much Becherovka, and for my last night, a party in my hostel as I slept.
All that, and the greyness aside, the skies cleared one afternoon. It was warm enough to explore and I discovered side streets and public art. A giant heart made of candle wax that looks like a wall you can enter from the side. I sat in cafes and drew pretty chandeliers and ate cake. I found the park that seemed to follow the sun, and ate dinner at the same wonderful vegetarian place two nights in a row.
If only my trip wasn't bookended with grey. But grey days are a good excuse to stay inside a museum, like the Museum of Communism, which, among other things featured a 30 minute video about the student protests from 1969-89, during the invasion of the Soviet Union and later, the fall of communism. My hostel was on the same square where the tanks rolled in, where a student burned himself in protest, where the police beat the crap out of peaceful protestors, where night after night thousands of people gathered calling for the resignation of their government. But that didn't stop the party where I stayed.
