Prague

We took a tour of the city in Prague, and before the tour started our tour guide gave us some warnings about the city: 1. Do not change money anywhere in the city, use only ATMs to get cash as even the authorized places will give you fake or Hungarian money. 2. Do not trust the taxi drivers. They are now obligated to use the meter, but being creative souls they discovered that tourist don't know their way around, so they will drive you for miles out of your way to up your cab fare to astronomical levels. 3. Watch out for pickpocket when using any public transportation. They can steal your shoes while you walk down the street. Having experienced the trustworthy cabdrivers upon our arrival, when trusted what she said. Maybe this tainted our view of the city, or maybe it just help us to approach the city without being so naive. That being said, the Old Town, Lesser Town, and Castle Areas of the city are lovely. The city wasn't bombed in either of the World Wars, so the architecture is perfectly preserved. The church in Prague Castle rivals the beauty of Notre Dame Cathedral. Oddly, none of these buildings are still used as churches. They were converted to concert halls during the Communist era. An interesting history to hear, since growing up in America we learn very little about the communist movement other than they were the bad guys in every film of the 1980s. Having that steroetype of Eastern Europe in our head, we felt that most people we encountered were unfriendly. They rarely smiled, even at each other, and the constant warnings posted everywhere about theives leave you feeling a little paranoid. We had a difficult time with the trains in and out the the country, as we got conflicting information from each person that we talked to, and once on the train it didn't really matter what ticket we got as they were all "invalid" for one reason or another and we had to pay money to stay on the train everytime someone came around to check our tickets. We breathed a huge sigh of relief upon crossing into Hungary. We are hoping that our stay here will offer us a different view of Eastern Europe.

Prague