Have I told you yet how gorgeous Prague is? Because, oh my goodness, it's lovely, and I want to learn Czech now because it seems like a really fun language, and I've been derping out over it. I got back on the third (so it's been almost a week since I got back and don't judge me), and I finally got my pictures onto my computer on the fourth, which means that they're now on Flickr.
New Year's Eve/Silvester (depending on your religious leanings and what country you're in; for me, I celebrated Silvestr; no 'e') was gorgeous. I was invited by a friend to a party hosted by one of her friends, and took American-style fried chicken (at request) which, apparently, everyone loved, which is a relief, since I don't really eat meat, and I was incredibly worried it wouldn't be cooked enough. We all had a very good time and played a game something like a mix between Pictionary and charades, where instructions were written on cards (in English, thankfully), and you had to do things like, "Act out a city" or "draw a specific kind of flower" and your teammate had to guess it. Our team names came in multiple languages across the board, and we ended up playing and chilling and chatting until the final countdown started.
Oh man. The countdown wasn't much to look at, but once the fireworks started going?
We were far enough out that you could see the whole city centrum from the terrace, and we looked down and it was like the city exploded with fireworks. They were everywhere.
Those were just the views from the flat where the party was happening. All day, 31 December, the fireworks had been popping in the streets and people had been drinking and celebrating, and suddenly, everything was exploding. It's possibly the most beautiful New Year's fireworks I've ever seen, and I was distant enough from them to appreciate the beauty without the sound.
Around 12:30, I was asked if I wanted to go out with everyone, and I said, "sure," because, to be honest, I wasn't quite sure what they meant by going out. Apparently, as I discovered, they meant go out and climb this (largely-vandalized) medieval (probably; I've only seen it at night) tower to see if we could see any more fireworks. It was lovely. My friend and I spent the time comparing the names of the constellations in our languages. Big Dipper as opposed to the Great Wagon (I looked it up, after we tried to figure it out); Orion's belt being the same, &c.
We all finally went to bed around 5, having cleaned up some (not all) of our mess, and my friend and I caught the bus back around 11.
On New Year's Day, there were more fireworks near the National Theater, and some friends and I stood on the banks of the Vltava and watched those fireworks, which were just as lovely, but were much more coordinated than the fireworks of the night before:
And you can click on any of those pictures to be taken to the page on Flickr and see it at a larger size.
I think I forgot to post here about my hiking to Kutná Hora and trip to Kostnice, so I'll probably make another post tomorrow to do a quick sum-up of that, too.
