I'm so behind on blogging it's actually a joke

Hi friends.

So I am over a month behind on blogging, but thats okay becauseeee it just is. I will tell you all about Prague, a little of Dublin and basically about the rest of the month of March. But let's be honest I dont know if I can promise I'll blog about all of that in one sitting.

So I went to Prague the weekend of February 24-28 with Audrey, Danielle, and Lauren! I had only heard the BEST things about Prague and how it was such a hidden gem basically of all of Europe and it was super fun and really really cool. It totally was this, because I'd say it was very different than all of the other places we went, it was pretty cool because it was in Eastern Europe! Rather than doing typical blogging where I tell you every detail I did, perhaps I will tell you some highlights/interesting things I learned about Prague.

1. The Christmas carol, Good King Wenceslas, originates from this city. King Wenceslas was a king here for quite some time, and to my knowledge he was quite the controversial King. Good King Wenceslas looked out..on the feast of stevennnn (I think those are the words). Today in Prague, one of the main "squares" is named after this fellow, known as Wenceslas Square.

Wenceslas Square

2. The main Square in Prague is known as Old Time Square. It's quite large, and basically the center of life in Prague. It reminded me a lot of Beauty and the Beast, not sure why. There were periods where there was civil war among the people and people did things known as "windowing" and they would literally go up to people and throw them out of windows, specifically, Catholic priests. There are tons of shops and restaurants around this square, and there is also the astronomical clock (which I will explain in a second), and another church with two towers, one called Adam and one called Eve (for the sizes!)

Old Town Square

3. In the Old Town Square is this Astronomical Clock. It is one of the main tourist attractions of Prague, because every hour on the hour (I'm not sure if this happens all through the nights but) it starts ringing, and these little figurines on the clock start moving and dancing and stuff, and there is a rooster that crows, and because its somewhat anticlimactic, they added a man to play the trumpet at the top of the tower. I actually thought it was pretty cool! This is the only astronomical clock still functioning today. There are three parts. The astronomical dial represents the position of the sun and the moon in the sky, a calendar medallion representing the months, and a "clockwork hourly show of figurines". It's really cool because there is a zodiac clock in it and it kind of shows the position of the Earth among the constellations, showing what zodiac the earth is in and stuff. It's COOL!

Prague Astronomical Clock

4. In St. James church in Prague, there is a mythical tail that exists of a homeless man who broke into a church to steal a gold necklace off of a statue of Virgin Mary. The man reached to grab this gold necklace from her to sell and make money, but at that very moment, the Virgin Mary came alive and grabbed his arm, and went back to the stance of the statue she was in before. He tried everything he could to get his arm out, but he couldn't, so he stayed stuck like that through the night. In the morning, the priests came and saw him and tried to do everything to get his arm out, but they couldn't. Finally, they decided they were going to cut the arm off. But not the arm of the Virgin Mary, the robber's arm. Today in the church hangs the "remains" of this individual's arm to warn everyone of what would happen if something similar happened.

Statue of the Virgin Mary

The arm of the robber!

5. The Prague Castle from a distance. It's awesome. It's actually somewhat similar to the Alhambra of Spain because it's a giant city within walls that is situated on a hill above the entire city. It's not actually a castle, its literally a city within guarded gates, with a palace for the President, and a bunch of other buildings and such, and a barbie museum, and a giant cathedral. The current President resides there, but previous kings lived there and guards are there ( like in London! ).

6. The Prague Toy Museum. Dare I say more? There was an entire floor dedicated to Barbies, and it had some of the oldest toys, smallest toys, etc. there. Very cool. There was a University of Illinois Barbie!