Prague, Czech Republic: Day 12

Our time on vacation is going so fast! It seemed crazy to me that it was our last day in Prague already. We had a few things left to see and do (like the Jewish Quarter in the Old Town and a return to the Mucha Museum gift shop as well as attend an Orchestra concert in the Municiple Building (see: gorgeous concert hall)), but overall, I felt ready to move on. I liked Prague a lot, I was just ready to get away from the big crowds and the over-done tourist stops.

I should have known that it was going to be a crazy day when we got a later start and weird things were happening all over the place. First we stopped at an old church, park area, and graveyard close to the guesthouse. I was expecting a nice, quiet chance to look around, but surprise! Instead of tourists, there were about 10 field trips on the grounds. As the morning went on, I was not feeling great and had to make several bathroom stops and it promised to be another really hot day. We made it into town and started to realize that we needed to get cash to pay for our stay at the guesthouse. The only problem was that it seemed our ATM card was not working although it had up until now. It was telling there was “insufficient funds” in our checking account (hardly).

So long story short, we spent part of our day going back to the guest house to call the bank (of which no one could talk to us before 9 am central standard time), John’s parents to transfer some of our money around to account we did have access to (the only time I remember actually appreciating U.S. Bank in a long time), buying a phone card so we could make calls without having Skype, trying to figure out how to use the phone card, and so on… Once we got everything else sorted out, we realized that John had left our orchestra tickets back in the room when we had gone back to change.

Although we fit in the tour of the Jewish area and the return to the Mucha Museum, it was a hectic day, and one that makes traveling in a non-English speaking country where you don’t have cell phones and have to rely on mass transit, exhausting. Luckily, we made it to the Orchestra concert at 8 pm in better spirits having dealt with the ticket crisis and decided we were still having fun. The concert was amazing and even included a piano concerto.

Afterwards, we wandered around the lit streets of the old town and Charles bridge, seeing Prague late at night for the first time. It was wonderful and we ended up out much later than we expected considering our early train ride this morning just because it was so nice out last night. The castle was lit up, all the buildings were picturesque and I really understood why people rave about Prague. If you are not expecting it- it is a gem with ambience