We left on Thursday night the 13th at about 10pm. We had couchette reservations on a direct train to Praha that originated in Paris before stopping at Metz. The train was about an hour late getting in from Paris. We boarded and it turns out that we were the only four people in our compartment. It was a little after 23:00 and we didn't really want to go to sleep yet, so we started playing spades. Turns out that the train didn't even leave the Metz station until about 45 minutes late. We played spades for almost 3 hours. It was a good way to start a trip. In the morning we woke up and packed up our stuff and actually got into Praha only about an hour late. As we got off the train a caretaker from a university dorm approached us. He offered us a place to stay fairly close to the sites for 8 dollars a night. We took the offer and he showed us where the ATM was in the station to get our money. After that he showed us to his car and we packed into a very small car and he gave us a tour while we were driving to the dorm. He was actually a pretty good tour guide. Best yet, that was included in the 8 dollars a night. When we got to the dorm he showed us to our rooms and proceeded to pull out a photocopy of a map and telling us about all the sites and what were good things to visit. Very interesting. He must off spent fifteen minutes in each of the two rooms explaining to us what were good places to visit while we were in town. I was even more impressed. We paid and he wished us an enjoyable time in the city. He probably headed back to the train station to get another group of tourists. The rooms were simple and had shared baths in the hall. But for the price, who could care. It was a lockable door and a bed, that's all that counts.

We got ready and headed out for the rest of Friday. We had a nice lunch that turned out to be about 7 dollars. We saw the Charles Bridge and went up to the fortification that used to guard the city from attack. On that night we went to a performance by a small group of string performers. Praha was regarded as a great place to enjoy the arts many years ago, and it still tries to do the same today. Every evening there are many, many musical productions that you could attend. Two in our group choose to go to an opera on Saturday night.

On Saturday we toured around and went through some of the commercialized areas of the town. Looked around in shops and tried to support the local economy. For lunch we went to a restaurant that was recommended to us by a group of GTL students that had previously visited the city. It was great tasting, inexpensive and filling. It turned out to be a very good combination for a picky, cheap college student. For the rest of the day we just enjoyed walking around the city.

It turned out to be a city of atmosphere instead of one of tremendous sites. The prices were very attractive though. We left on Sunday morning so that we could get back to Metz at a decent time.