Praha : Day One

hihi the long overdue post is finally up. so sorry kakak2 semua, been terribly busy with revision. ive exams coming up, so excuse this nerd yea? ;)

here it goes..

praha ouh praha. hihi it was almost three weeks ago that my housemates (Nadia and Ameen), Nadia's boyfriend Urtah, our friend Zaki, and I went for a 3night vacay in Prague. it was a so-called kick-start to our 5 weeks of nerd-isme, ouh exams!

flight tickets were purchased months earlier (effin cheap, GBP37 return) . departure was from Luton Airport, the quite-comfy Greenline bus brought us there, from Victoria Station.

Thomsonfly was the perfect choice. Upon arrival at Luton, the check-in queue was as long as two hundred yards, but hehe, that was for EasyJet passengers. Fortunately for us, the queue was just about 3 passengers long. hihi. Alhamdulillah. so we checked-in within a few minutes, went through security checks (us girls had to take off our boots, so that took me almost 20 minutes off window-shopping!), bought some snacks (we were all stocking for the two hour no-frill flight), boarded the plane, snapped some photos, and of course, tidooo.

2 hours later, touched down, went through immigration, got our luggages(mine was the biggest!), and anxiously fled to the Arrival Gate, expecting to see someone holding a card with Mr Zaki Kastor written on it. zaki booked a single-starred hostel for us, which came with an option of an airport-hostel-airport transfer. he took it up, for convenience sake, thinking that our arrival is in the evening, and we would be dead tired, and that the transfer was cheap. sadly, what a bad first impression, dah kata satu bintang. hihi. noone turned up. not until 20minutes later when this old,thin,single-starred looking man was spotted wandering around by urtah, and he was THE missing transfer-man! hihi. yep, he was holding the card, though the letters werent as lucid. he usherred us to his vehicle, and took us to our strategically located hostel Tyn, in his off-whiteish van.

our hostel was located right behind the famous Tyn Church, at the Old Town Square.
fyi, there are 4 districts that make up Prague's city centre. Namely, they are New Town (with Wenceslas Square at its centre), Old Town (with Old Town Square), Josefov (the Jewish Quarter), and last but not least, Mala Strana (ie. the Lesser Quarter, with Prague Castle just above it). Mala Strana is separated from the other three districts by the Vltava river, and is connected to them by many many bridges (imagine Thames river); and the most famous bridge has to be the Charles Bridge, which is very near the Old Town! :)
[thanx ema for the brief geography lecture ;)]

Hence we checked into our room No.15 of 5beds, which was on the second floor (no elevator!). On each floor, there are two main doors, where each door leads you to 4 bedroom doors, 1 shower, and 1 toilet. At the corridor between the two maindoors, are 2 more showers. Pretty compact and economical, costing 10quid per night.

Soonafter, we went for a walk around the Old Town Square. Saw the Tyn Church, THE Astronomical Clock, and a few other buildings for the first time. agak jakun kejap la. hihi. took photos here and there, went around scouting for possible dining spots! hihi. compared prices, types of food, location, and all that jazz.. The typical price of a pan of pizza would be around 200czk (=200/40=5 pounds), which is rather affordable.

We ended the evening by dining at an Italian restaurant. Quite a cosy place, well heated, but filled with american teens of almost 3 table full, and the customer service, i thought wasnt as fulfilling. why? because, we were there for PIZZASSSS but just because we came, thus ordered later than those bunch of americans,, we were told to order something else. All the waiter did was to point to the americans, and then her watch, and then crossed her arms while saying pizza,, resorting her fingers to pointing at fish & chips on the menu. go figure!
and yep, u got that right, we ended up with four plates of equally dry, and tiny fish fillets, with chips. Lucky Urta, he ordered spaghetti marinara.
Tak berapa kenyang, but paid, without tips (we're students!!hihi), and balikk.

On our way back, with the excuse of wanting to printout our dinner coupon at the nearby internet cafe, Ameen and I accompanied Nadia to get two slices of cake and an apple pie, for Urta's birthday eve, from the restaurant the internet cafe shared its door with :) so sweet Nadia. packed everything into my bag, and as soon as it struck 12am, in the room, we sang the birthday song, and surprised him with the scrumptious cakes and pie!

... and off to bed!

p/s: thank you zaki for the ideal choice of accommodation, and the VERY handy compass for our room :)