Les vacances!

First things first: RAFA NADAL LOST TO DAVID FERRER IN THE AUSTRALIA CUP WHAT KIND OF WORLD EVEN IS THIS I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Admittedly, Ferrer is a good player, but REALLY?!! REALLY?!! At least Rafa's been a gentleman about it and isn't whining about his hurt leg. HE'S SO CLASSY. I'm still upset though; I really wanted him to get that 4th title. (I'm sorry, but tennis is my football)

Now, the stuff y'all actually care about! After pretty much a 24 hour journey, I have made it in one piece along with Karen G. and Annie to Prague! We're sort of all zombies right about now, but I'll start from the beginning.

We took the train from Louvain-la-Neuve back to Brussels, only instead of being at the Grande Place we had to get off at the Midi stop, also known as the business part of town. BORING. And we had like 6 hours to kill. It was looking pretty wretched, but we wandered around until we found interesting things!



Impressive, right? You have no idea. But that's not the coolest thing we found. Not by any means. THIS is:

THERE IS A REAL LIVE CASTLE TOWER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY FOR NO REASON DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS EXCITES ME I DON'T THINK YOU DO. Seriously, I live for this kind of stuff. Old churches and castles? Sign me up; why is this not 1456. It was just there on the other side of this random park in the middle of the street and I had a small heart attack over it (sort of like the one you just read). We wanted to tour it, but we're going to save that for another day (one where we're not toting backpacks full of junk). BUT THERE WAS EVEN EVIDENCE OF A MOAT. AH.

We flew out of Brussels South Charleroi airport on WizzAir, which is this super cheap Euro airline. It was only an hour and fifteen minutes, AND I DID IT WITHOUT TAKING ANY SEDATIVES THAT IS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT. Granted, I was flipping out the whole time, BUT I DID IT. It helped that we stayed awake in the airport all night so I was dead tired and only wanted to pass out, but the point is I did it! I hate planes, guys. Seriously I do.

We're staying at the Hotel Atlantic. It's in a really nifty location pretty much in the center of town near a lot of really important buildings. It's a really cool hotel, and this is probably the biggest Euro hotel room I've ever seen. We didn't do much exploring today because we're zombies, but we did see a few impressive buildings!









Woo pretty things! I have no idea what any of these buildings are except the first one which is something akin the an opera/concert house, but I will find out and tell you.

Things I've learned:
1. Prague is not really full of gypsies. I feel like I've been lied to.
2. The Czech Republic was supposed to switch over to the Euro a year or two ago, but no one really has. Most places still only take the Czech crown, but, unlike Belgium, most places also take American bank cards!
3. Czech money is worth NOTHING. 1 US dollar is 15 Czech crown, and 1 Euro is 25 Czech crown.
4. Czech money is really pretty so I hope they don't get rid of it