Prague, first day

Liz and I boarded the Munich to Prague train, looking for an open car. We walked past a car full of young men and crates of beer, and chose the car just next to them. We were in for an entertaining ride. The train to Prague is about 6 hours and these partying young lads entertained us for most of the ride. They weren’t meaning to entertain us, just celebrating a bachelor (or stag) party, and being drunk on the train. None-the-less, it made the train ride go by quickly.

When we arrived in Prague we got some money from the ATM then headed to the taxi stand. Once we got a driver’s attention and told him where we needed to go he said, 600 crowns (about $31 USD). Since we’d just paid one-third of that on the train to get from the German border to Prague, we said no thanks and started walking. A few steps into our walk, another taxi driver approached us, he asked where we were going and said, 300 crowns. Liz asked me, “how much do you want to pay?” I said, “200”. She was thinking the same thing, so we settled on 250 crowns ($13 USD) and headed to our hotel.

When we arrived out our hotel, U Semika, we were quickly checked in and shown to our room. Our room was very spacious with a full kitchen and washing machine! After dropping off our stuff and changing our clothes, we headed toward the Old Town to find the Estates Theater.

The Estates Theater

For my birthday, Liz purchased us tickets to Don Giovanni at the Estates Theater.

Statue in honor of Don Giovanni outside the theater.

Unfortunately, the ticket seller had made some mistakes and sent her the wrong e-ticket, we were going to try to sort it out. We eventually found the ticket office, but couldn’t get any help sorting out the e-ticket problem since it was from a second-party seller. We did however, get the last two tickets to that night’s performance of Don Giovanni. Our tickets were in the last row of the highest balcony, but they only cost 50 crowns each ($2.60 USD). We were excited about the possibility of cheap tickets to other shows, so asked the salesman what else was available. In the end, we also purchased tickets for the ballet, A Christmas Carol/The Nutcracker, for 30 crowns each ($1.50 USD).

After purchasing our tickets, we spent some time walking around and enjoying the Old Town.

Found some Oregon love at the Nike Store in Prague.

Then we headed into the theater for a wonderful performance (complete with English super-titles!). Our seats weren’t wonderful, we had to stand to see much of the action on stage. But, the price was right and with opera sometimes it is nice to just sit back and enjoy the music.

The Estates Theater.

View from my seat.

Liz and I getting ready for the show!