In which Emily is cold a lot.

22:47--Krakow, Poland

So there's this giant horse statue in the middle of Prague, in front of the giant museum. This is what it looks like:

The point is, he's giant, and he's the only horse statue of such magnitude in Prague. Ellen and I wake up our first morning in Prague and find a free tour of the city led by a guy named Paul, whose flier tells us to meet by aforementioned giant horse statue (the man on the statue is Wenceslas. Yes, as in King Wenceslas, and the square in which this statue stands is Wenceslas Square). So Ellen and I go for a walk in the morning, seeing the city (which is beautiful! so gothic and foreboding!) before our tour. We get to the giant horse statue and think, oh hey, we should find that place we're supposed to meet. We (erroneously, it turns out) conclude that what Paul really means by "giant horse statue in Wenceslas Square" is some tiny square with an obscure and unpronouncable Czech name with absolutely no statue whatsoever. We head that direction.

Well, upon stumbling on this quaint, horseless square, we realize our error and speeeeeeeeed walk back to Wenceslas, ten minutes late. We call Paul; he's down the road a bit and kindly waits for us. Going on this tour with Paul? Best decision we've ever made. He's a delightful British ex-pat with a great sense of humor, a fast walk, and a lot of knowledge about the city. Just so you all can salivate, here's Prague castle (the largest in the world!), one of our stops:




That night we saw the Prague Philharmonic play in a beautiful music hall, which was predictably fantastic. We spent the next day wandering around Prague until our night train left for Krakow, which is where I am now.

Next on Storytime with Emily: an Epic Czech night train adventure, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a cell phone ring-tone metaphor for the Krakow train station organization (or lack thereof).