Studying abroad has truly taught me how to “go with the flow”. My friends and I had plans to go to Paris this weekend. Our flight was to leave early Friday morning. Due to the horrible weather conditions in France, our flight was canceled. So early Thursday morning, we spontaneously booked a bus trip to Prague! As you will soon see, this was one of the best spur-of-the-moment decisions I’ve ever made.

Prague was a fairytale! The buildings were all so colorful, unique, and full of rich history and character. The golden spires on top of all the structures only added to the city’s beauty. Even though the weather was cold and dreary, I enjoyed every second walking up and down the streets of Prague. We visited the typical tourist attractions. We saw Old Town Square and New Town Square. I found it humorous that the “new” square was still constructed in the 1400’s (America is an infant compared to Europe). We walked across the Charles Bridge numerous times. There were incredible statues along both sides from end to end. This bridge led is to two more pieces of history: The Lennon Wall and the Prague Castle. I thought the John Lennon Wall was absolutely amazing. Our tour guide told us that if we came back in a week, the wall would look completely different due to the constant additions of new “graffiti”. There was a man playing “Imagine” by John Lennon on his guitar while we were at the wall and it’s one of the moments that is going to be engrained in my memory forever. Prague Castle looks like it was ripped out of the page of a storybook fairytale. It is the world’s largest ancient castle! We didn’t actually go inside the castle but we did explore the grounds. My favorite part was St. Vitus Cathedral. The churches in Europe never cease to amaze me.

I was a big fan of the food in the Czech Republic. The highlights were the bread dumplings and trdlniks. Bread dumplings came as the side of most dishes and tasted like nothing I’ve ever had. Trdlniks are these donut-like cones that can be filled with things like ice cream, Nutella, chocolate, and fruit. These tasted as good as they looked! The food here was very heavy though, so three days was definitely all that I could handle of it. I think my favorite part about the food and everything in Prague was how cheap it was. Dinner rarely was over what is equivalent to 10 US dollars. Most weekends I come back to Florence feeling broke, but this trip fortunately did not leave me feeling that way.

Overall, I loved my time in Prague. It was way larger of a city than I had pictured. I didn’t expect to get here during my travel abroad time, but I am so glad I did. I recommend going here to anyone who studies abroad!