We had to meet at the Outdoor Recreation Center at 1:30 AM to catch our bus. I don't tend to sleep very well on airplanes or buses and our drive was about 8 hours long. It made for kind of a rough day, but I still had a blast. I just loaded my MP3 player up with good music and some Jim Gaffigan and Jerry Seinfeld and was able to doze a little bit.
When we first got there, we stopped across the street from the Train Station there.
After a small walk towards the center of town, our tour guide stopped us by a couple of museums and showed us a statue of the "Knights Templar" memorial. Prague was a key city during the Crusades. All of the traffic coming from England went through there and it was where the development of the Knights Templar took place.
These are some pictures of the museums in the same area.
Our tour guide took us on a walk through the old part of town to the famous "Astronomical Clock" in the center of the old town.
This clock doesn't keep time. It tracks things such as: the relative positions of the sun, moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.
At the top of the tower that this clock is in is a regular time-keeping clock. At every hour, two doors open up and figures of the original apostles affixed to a glokenspiel appear in the doors by the astronomical clock while figures of a man looking at himself in a mirror representing vanity, a Jew holding a bag of gold representing greed, death represented by a skeleton, and finally a Turk representing infidelity are put into motion for the number of the hour. We were there at noon when all twelve of the apostles appeared.
Also, after the bells chime, a man in the top of the tower dressed in medieval clothing plays a trumpet.
It was really neat looking at the whole process at the top of the hour. The whole square below would fill with people just wanting to catch a glimpse of it.
Right after we saw the event at the clock, we walked a block away to the Hard Rock Cafe.
I was really excited to go to lunch there. The location in Prague opened only a year ago, so it is really new. They had some great stuff inside. They had a motorcycle designed by and a jumpsuit that belonged to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith.
They also had a guitar that belonged to Joe Perry of Aerosmith and an outfit worn by models for promotion of Aerosmith's 2001 album Just Push Play.
It had my favorite chandelier out of all the Hard Rock's that I've been to as well. It was a series of crystals suspended from the ceiling in the form of a giant guitar.
It was really funny because after we ate there we went outside and I noticed a bunch of advertisements for an upcoming Aerosmith concert in Prague.
We wanted to see more of the city, but Staff Sergeant B's wife is pretty pregnant right now, so we decided to take a tour of the city in an old convertible. It was really neat to see everything and I took as many pictures as I could along the way.
In the car were the four of us: Staff Sergeant B, his wife K, myself, and Tech Sergeant D. Here are some pictures I took along the way.
After our tour, we walked around the city square and snapped some more pictures.
While walking around, a guy pulled up next to us in a yellow Lamborghini. Sergeant B started freaking out! He made me take pictures of it and of him meeting the owner. He was so happy to see it. I really think that was the highlight of his trip.
We came across a really funny museum. I didn't go inside, I SWEAR!
They also had a statue in the center of the city made out of keys. It was pretty amazing to see that many keys strung together.
At the end of our day we were headed back to our bus and we passed someone who had parked their car illegally. Apparently they don't mess around with stuff like that there...
Once we got on the bus all of us CRASHED! We were so tired. Here is everyone sleeping.
We didn't get back home until 3:30 in the morning and I had to be up at 6:00 to set up for the day's religious services, but it was worth it.
It was a great time. I have really loved Europe and will miss seeing sights like this.
I love love loved the keys and the hard rock stuff. How neat you are able to do all this while you are out.
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