Prague for a day

We arrived in Prague by train around 11 p.m. The ride, which should have been long, was great because we slept, journaled, talked and met a woman with her son on their way back home to Prague.
The conversation started when I asked her if she wanted help putting her luggage overhead. She spoke little English, but we all managed to communicate.
She said had just visited her sister in Munich, but had lived in the Czech all of her life. She also had recently been to the States, with her husband on a business trip. They went to LA and Las Vegas.
She taught us some basic Czech phrases, told us her favorite restaurant in Prague, and what we should see while we were there (Prague Castle and Old Town). She wanted to know where we were going, how long we were staying, and where we were from. She seemed really nice and we enjoyed talking with her.
When we arrived at the train station, we got a taxi to our hostel.
First hostel experience, since we'd stayed in a super cheap hotel in Paris and with a friend in London.
It was awesome.
It was called the Maribou Hostel and had a great atmosphere. We walked in around midnight and people were up in the lounge and kitchen drinking and talking with music in the background. They had a lounge with dim lighting and big, comfy couches upstairs, just adjacent to the kitchen, and another one downstairs with a pool table.
Downstairs there were also computers where people could get free internet.
The way it was decorated was so interesting - I guess you could say retro?
Our beds looked comfortable, and we started talking with a few girls next to us to see how they liked Prague so far. They were going out to a jazz club that night - which we later found out is a more "touristy" thing to do - not something the locals really enjoy. But still cool.
There were about 20 other people in the room, all bunk beds, guys and girls. I felt like all of the furniture must have been ordered from IKEA, but it wasn't.
One shower for girls and one for guys for the entire first floor, but surprisingly it was rarely in use.
Tired, we went to bed, and the next day headed into the city to see Prague Castle and Old Town.
We took the bus into the city center, and I could not believe how crowded it was!! Literally, it was stuffed so full of people, that there was no room to move. People in chairs, people in the aisles, by the doors...crazy. It was like playing Sardines, except on a bus, in Prague.
Old Town was incredible. The architecture dates back primarily to the Middle Ages, and once you get to Prague Castle, you feel almost like you're in a fairy tale.
Houses and buildings with pointed red roofs, placed in no particular order. It was so refreshing - so different from our geometric street plans with right angles and buildings lined up like ducks in a row.
We headed toward the red roofs, not really knowing where we were going or what we were planning to see. But we stumbled across this incredible building with gardens outside - what we think was the Senate house. But who knows!?
That led us to the Prague Castle gardens. The gardens were amazing - planted on a hill with endless (or at least it seemed so with hot temperatures) stairways up to the castle's square, which also included an amazing cathedral and other historical buildings.
The gardens weren't really gardens, though the stairways were decorated with lots of greenery and flowers. They were a combination of plants and patios and pottery and niches. As we ascended, the view over the city just got better and better.
On our way up, we spotted a classy restaurant situated right on the edge of the hill overlooking the city and decided to eat there on our way back.
We made it to the castle, walked around the square, bought pins and postcards, and sat down for another postcard writing session (which I've come to love). We pick a peaceful place after we buy postcards and just write. It's great.
So sitting outside the palace, we drafted messages to home, and then dropped them in the mailbox and headed back down to eat.
We didn't end up going into the castle - it cost 10 euro and we had already seen several castles.

Lunch was wonderful - and one of our first truly nice meals. We ordered something that was really delicious, but in Czech. To try and explain it (I'm sure I will butcher it), it was a dish with two tortillas filled with mushrooms, cheese, other ingredients and herbs, and was cooked with eggs around it. So good, but I can't remember what it was called.
We sat down just minutes before it started to rain - which was perfect because we could enjoy our meal sitting outside, with the patter of rain falling around us.

We sat for hours - literally hours - and then continued to the astronimical clock in the center of Old Town for a boat tour along Prague's major river.

The boat tour starts with a bus ride for about an hour touring Old Town. The bus was full, and so our guide asked for two volunteers to ride through the city with the company's owner, and Leslie and I jumped at the opportunity. The owner looked younger, and it would be the perfect opportunity to ask questions about the Czech and Prague and the politics of the city. And it was - we were so thankful for that hour car ride.

He told us about the city, a little about the economy, and that the Czech (whose current currency is crowns) will be adopting the euro within the next 5 years. He spoke briefly about the split with Slovakia...they wanted independence, the Czech said okay, but now the Slovak economy has been declining, and many Slovaks come to the Czech to work for better wages. (Sound familiar?)
He also said that the country's switch from socialism to democracy has been good for many in the city, but people on the countryside have not benefited from it and thus they still support socialism.
We drove by a big, symbolic building where the Czech people gather for polcitical protests and such. The owner said that in the 1970's, two students actually burned themselves alive in front of that building to protest Soviet invasion. Ouch.
He said the city, in medieval times, was constantly building walls for protection. The Old Town was surrounded by walls until the New Town was built in the 1200's. Wow.

So we got a lot of good tidbits from our tour. But then we got on the boat and found that the information stopped. So sad, we wanted to know more, but there was just a lot of food. So at least that was good.
And there was live music - a trumpet, a banjo, a trobone, and a fourth instrument that I can't remember.
That was fun, but they played renditions of American classics. We wanted something a bit more cultural.
And that ended our day in Prague.
Back at the hostel, two guys from Holland started talking to us while we were on the Internet. Side note - English is truly the universal language. Everyone speaks it in Europe. They know their language, and then English, and sometimes have a third or fourth language under their belt. So if you're Spanish, and you travel to the Czech, you have to know English or Czech to communicate. Crazy.
Leslie and I, wanting to see the cities and learn about their history first and foremost, have been too tired to really go out at night. And it's harder when you don't know the language, and don't know any locals that can give you good pointers.
These two guys have been traveling for two weeks and have only stayed in twice. Every other night they've gone out drinking and dancing. Granted, their purpose for travel is quite different from ours, but they could not believe that we hadn't gone out. We wished them luck in their endeavors =).
The next morning, we got up early, took advantage of the hostel's free breakfast, and went to the train station to go to Rome.