Prague- Day 3

My new favorite city? A view from Prague Castle.

Sorry for the lack of new posts the past few days but Kristina Connolly and Carolyn Wott are here visiting and I have been gallivanting around Ireland with them, but more on that in the future.

Our last day in Prague we woke up and were down for breakfast by 9 o’clock. We then checked out and started our day. Stacy was feeling good enough to leave the room by not quite ready to take the hike up to Prague Castle so she went to the Communist Museum while we started our trek. (Afterwards she went shopping and likes to quip that she did the best of communism and capitalism back-to-back.) Prague Castle overlooks the whole city because it is on a hill above the river and there were some wonderful sights to see when we finally got to the top. It was a long walk uphill and after climbing it we knew that Stacy would not have wanted to climb that way feeling as sick as she did.

Not only were the views great but St. Vitus Cathedral was a sight to see as well; we spent a lot of time getting the perfect picture of us with the cathedral in the background. Unfortunately we could not stay up there very long because we were on a schedule and had to finish everything before our 2:30 train to Vienna.

One of the things that we needed to accomplish was buying the garnet jewelry I had been after since I first read about it in my travel guide. Laura, Brittany, and I had already scoped out some of the jewelry stores and we were ready to start spending Czech crowns.  We went to the first shop we had scoped out and Stevie bought some pieces and Brittany bought a pendent but Laura was keen to go another shop so they are left me while I pondered which pieces liked best. I am a very indecisive shopper and kept going back and forth so after a while of trying to figure it out on my own I decided to leave the store to try and find the others. I could not find then but I succeeded in freaking the sales clerk out which probably helped me with haggling (my new favorite hobby).

After getting back I got down to business of getting the best deal as possible. I had taken out 3000 Czech crowns (about 160 USD) and was not going to spend more than that (and I couldn’t because that was the only Czech currency I had). Once I had picked out three pieces that I was going to give as gifts I picked out a pair of small garnet earrings that I wanted for myself and was at 2880 crowns so naturally I asked how much it would be if I got the bigger earrings that I saw on display. The clerk told me that it would be 3500 Czech but I said that I only had 3000 in cash so I couldn’t do that. She said that the lowest she could go was 3300. At this point I was getting nervous about finding the other girls and catching the train so I told her that I had to try and get a hold of them. She then offered me 3200 but I told her that I couldn’t pay that. I knew that I had here where I wanted her and picked up my phone to try and call them. As soon as I open the phone she says 3000 and I handed the money over. I can attribute part of my success at haggling to the fact that I almost walked away because I was so worried about finding the other girls but I think that my determination to get the most for my money helped as well. I might have also worn her down because it took my about an hour to decide what I wanted. The moral of the story: don’t mess with Claire when it comes to jewelry. Now I hope that every time I wear my new garnet earrings people compliment me so that I can tell them the story of bargaining in Prague.

After paying for the jewelry I was able to locate Stevie who was shopping in Wenceslas Square with some of the other girls. I walked over there and then we all met up at the hostel at 1:30 to check out and head over to the train station, which was very close. Trains are my new favorite way to travel. As I’m writing this I am actually on a train to Dublin from Galway after spending the weekend with Kristina and Carolyn. Who would have thought that the girl who first rode a train alone to the city at age 19 would be riding across Ireland and international borders? Trains are more spacious than buses and the ride is so much smoother. You can also move around a lot, which came in handy when Jen wanted to do lunges down the aisle. One of the people on the train also brought their dog, which did not have leash and was free to roam around the train. Good thing none of us are allergic to dogs.

Travel Warriors