Prague and the Czech Republic

So this blog entry will be an update on what happened in the Czech republic.

So we are on our way to Germany! I am on the bus and there are beautiful hills and cute villages behind me. It is so green! (Sorry now that I am posting it, I am in Germany, but when I wrote it that was happening.)
But anyway, we arrived in Prague on Thursday and met our tour guide to do a short 1 hour tour of the city. We walked through the city and saw a lot in a short amount of time. It was great! We saw old town, new town, many town squares, and a monastery. We also got to see the opera house where Mozart's Don Giovanni premiered and Mozart conducted it. There is so much history in this city!

After sightseeing, we rolled into the Dolce Villa, and had to get ready for the concert, eat and head to the concert.  Dinner was really good again. We keep having all sorts of incredible authentic food on this trip. And everyone wants to keep feeding us.

Our concert was downtown at a church that had extremely live acoustics. At the end of "Praise To the Lord" sound was still going for about 4-5 seconds afterward. So I guess it is tradition in Prague to sing on the steps, inviting people to the concert, since we had a small audience. So we sang our fast songs on the street. It was fun singing in the little square outside the church, and many people stopped to listen or take pictures. The concert was a bit hard because we had to adjust to the acoustics, but it was still great to have the opportunity to sing in Prague. There were not a lot of people there, but everyone there seemed to really enjoy it!

One lady came up to me after the concert, wiping her eyes, saying how wonderful it was, and how glad she was that we came.

After the concert we went back to the hotel and pretty much went to bed.

St. Vitus Cathedral (Behind) and one of the main old town squares

The next day, we got up a bit early to do a sightseeing tour before we sang at the International school of Prague. We went to the Prague castle as well as the Cathedral St. Vitus. It was so beautiful and built in the gothic style. May have been my favorite that we have seen so far. We also sang a few songs in that space, which was quite wonderful. (And we didn't get kicked out for doing so!) Another thing we saw was this really cute street that had some shops in it. I got this little book about kava houses or cafes in Prague.

Then it was time to head to thee school. We sang for the younger kids as well as middle-high school students. It was fun talking to some of the kids as they were from all over the world, and had also traveled all over the world. They all seemed to really enjoy it! One little girl and her two friends came up to me and asked me a bunch of questions - they were all so cute! This one girl was like "I am an actress. I was in a tv show, and my movie comes out in December!"

In the Prague Castle

In the second time we sang, I talked to a girl afterwards and Heidi asked her how long she had been in Prague and she told us two months. We asked if she was adjusting well, and she said yes. She said she really enjoyed the music because it was all so new to her (she was from India), and she enjoyed hearing all the different types of music.

After leaving the school, we went into the city again and did a short tour, walked across a bridge and saw many of the other historic bridges, and all sorts of neat stuff! There was also a spot where they had filmed Fast and Furious. We walked, where Leonardo Dicaprio  had walked! (Just a random fun fact.)

Finding fun things while we were shopping

Then we had free time, so me Heidi and Brianna did some shopping. Got some cool gifts and saw so many cute things. There were a lot of cool markets and shops with neat authentic Czech stuff. But it didn't take long until we were too tired to shop, so we walked around, took pictures, and saw some interesting things. One guy in one of the shops thought it would be cool to hit on us, which we got discounts on all of the stuff we bought, but at the same time he was creepy. He asked Heidi if we wanted to join him for coffee… Yeahhh we definitely said no.

There was also a lot of strange cultic things in the city. There was a guy who was doing strange and weird magic tricks in the square. There were a lot of strange shops too. It was rather unsettling.  I think we were just made aware of how dark of a city it is. All of its beauty cannot mask the darkness and sin that lies in its midst. We were told before that it was a very atheistic nation, and gave us more reason to be there and bring the light of Christ to it.

Eventually we met up with the group and went to an authentic Czech restaurant which was delicious! I had this potato thing that was two layers of potato with cheese in the middle, then the whole thing fried. So yummy! After dinner we went back to the hotel and it was sleepy time.