Prague

What we heard from other backpackers we talked to was that Prauge was a major tourist trap, hardly worth spending any time in. We cut back our time there from five nights to two to make room for our Budapest excoursion. Of course, Prague turns out to be the most beautiful eastern city we have seen so far. Tourists are bad, but no worse than Rome or Venice. The city went through WWII unscathed, so has all of its historic district and buildings intact. Its a surprisingly art deco and industrial arts city. We are staying at the nicest hostel Ive ever seen, with treated concrete floors, amazing walk in showers with dinner plate sized shower heads, and light airy rooms.
Our first day here, we walked around, had dinner, and later went to see War of the Worlds at the theater which premired LXG. I was unimpressed overall, although the action sequences were pretty cool. When I got back, I was immensely relieved to be informed that I had been accepted to upper division.
We also saw dragon boat races, which turned out to be crewed by Irishmen because we saw huge groups of the wearing thier team shirts going between pubs at night.
Yesterday, we walked to the Prauge castle, completely packed with tourists, so we decided to come back today. We also went to see Frank Gehry`s Dancing building, which I actually liked better than his big shiny swoopy buildings. White Stripes was playing at a small venue, but we were too late to get tickets, very sold out. Instead we walked around the Jewish district, the oldest in europe, if not the world.
Today we will go see the castle and perhaps an art exhibit before we hop a train to Berlin. Today is the 4th of July, and how better to spend it than by going to Checkpoint Charlie on the Berlin wall, where the Commuist reign ended and where American democracy broke through.