Music Capitals of the World 2014 PLU: Picturesque Prague

Hopping on the train to Prague yesterday, I was full of anticipation for what the city would be like. I had heard so many wonderful stories of the food, buildings, scarfs, and frankly just the gorgeousness of the city. Arriving in Prague (after a little train stop mixup that worked out just fine) I realized my hopes had not been disappointed. It is absolutely beautiful here! Our Hostel Mango is located right by the St. Charles bridge, which puts us in walking distance of the sights in the town. Before exploring with the group last night, a few of us found a tiny cafe right around the corner from the hostel. It has delicious pastries and espresso. The traditional Trdelnik is a hollow rolled pastry with sugar, honey, and almonds that is definitely the most delicious baked good I have had on the trip so far. We then went through the town with Dr. Powell as our makeshift tour guide, showing us what he knew from last years trip. The restaurant where we ate dinner was delicious too! The goulash with bacon dumplings and beer was a perfect 10. This morning a bunch of us went out to the same bakery and bought more delicious pastries and coffee. I'm pretty sure I could eat pastries and coffee for the rest of my life for breakfast. We then decided to split up into groups and explore the town. My group (Annalise, Alexandra, and Taylor) decided to first look around near the Hostel and go to the nearby music store. I bought French reeds, a guitar pick, and I'm hoping to go back and get a harmonica, too many good prices to pass up!! Next went went into town to look for some scarves and snacks. We found a Bon Bon shop and got ice cream bons bons and hot chocolate. Now this wasn't just any hot chocolate. This was actual melted chocolate, a delicious liquid chocolate bar. We then found a store with nice reasonably priced scarves and thought that would be a good place to buy some. Oh.....we were wrong......While perusing through the three racks of scarves, the lady working just was not looking very happy at us. I wasn't sure if we were doing something wrong, so we just kept looking. She all the sudden exclaimed "No No No!!" and proceeded to scurry us out of the shop. I stopped because I was trying to figure out what the heck was happening and I watched her go over to the racks and start straightening out the scarves and folding them up. I then realized that when we were looking at the scarves she didn't like that we didn't fold them perfectly back up. Now saying this, I must say that the scarves were all hanging together and too look at all of them we did have to touch them all look through then to see the ones laced behind, we weren't throwing them about or anything like that, just looking through. Even so, we decided that the next place we went we would be extra meticulous in not touching the scarves too much and making sure they were folded carefully, even if hanging on racks. We then found a nice little shop with scarves at the same price. The young lady working smiled at us while we were CAREFULLY looking at them. She told us to pick them up and look inside to make sure we liked all the colors on the scarves. I decided to ask her about shopping etiquette so that we knew what to do and I told her about out previous store. She was very shocked about that happening and told us we were fine. Needless to say, we bought some gorgeous scarves from her and even chatted a little. What a wonderful and helpful person she was!!! After our shopping excursion we went to the Astronomical clock and saw it go off at noon with its chimes and cool moving figures. We made our way across the river again on another bridge and to an small island park in the middle with a ropes course. We had fun getting our daily exercise in doing the challenges on the course, which were surprising hard! Walking to the other side of the Vtlava river, we ventured into some more areas including the Church of Our Lady Victorious-Infant Jesus of Prague that was absolutely gorgeous inside with guided gold, intricate sculptures, and colorful artwork. We also found the John Lennon wall, a bridge covered in locks, then dinner time with ghoulash in a bread bowl. After dinner, we all met back at the hostel and went to.......Tosca!!!!! The opera house was spectaculars and the opera was amazing. The orchestra was wonderful, but when the trombones came in blastissimo signaling Scarpia, it was awesome!!!!! The opera itself was full of cheesy drama, old school singing, Scarpia was a MAJOr creep, and I loved it all. Tosca is definitely one of my favorite operas, Puccini really knocks himself out with the everything, especially the over-the-top libretto. Well tomorrow will be our guided tours and we will be seeing the Prague Symphony Orchestra in Smetana Hall. Oh, and it snowed all day while we walked around. Yeah.....snow in Prague.....no big deal. Stay tuned for more!!!!