Czech Trek and Prague

John Lennon Wall in Prague

CZECH TREK
Then, to wrap up spring break (FINALLY), I headed off on the Czech Trek, a trip sponsored

view of our castle home

 by DIS, with 38 other students, and 4 awesome leaders. We took a bus to a ferry, then the ferry to Germany, and then drove the rest of the way to Hruba Skala, Czech Republic, where we stayed in a sweet hotel in a former castle, up on the mountainside on and surrounded by these stunning, extreme vertical rock formations. Fitting, since the trip was all about that kind of stuff- meaning, climbing the rocks and things like that.


It was definitely a cool trip with a good mix of students- I had never seem most of the people on the trip before, with the exception of Danielle, of course, and a girl in my psychology class, who I spoke to awkwardly for the first time while boarding the bus from Copenhagen, because I had noticed her wearing "LBG Track" attire- turns out, Abby is, indeed, from good old Lewisburg! We sat together for the long bus ride, assuming a variety of creative positions to try to get some sleep.

archery, watch out :)

When we got to Hruba Skala, we checked into our rooms- I was with Abby, and two girls I hadn't met before, Sam and Wen-Zhou (I soooo butchered that. Story of my life, whoops- sorry!). The first day we spent doing team building activities and archery, which was fun, and I got to know half of the group pretty well. Team building was fun, minus the low ropes course being surrounded by a thousand million ants (flashback to El Porvenir in Nica '10). Archery was very hit or miss, literally, as I went from hitting just outside the bullseye to hitting the dirt in front of the target. Haha.


We stayed even more active the rest of the days. One day we 

up in the rock

rappelled down the rock face, ziplined, and walked across the rope bridge suspended VERY high up, which was all really cool, and went for a hike, which was beautiful, with some cool rocks to climb on along the way. The next day we went canoeing on a nearby river, which was so relaxing (although a few people tipped their canoe, so that was some added 

Danielle on the bridge!

adventure I'm glad I missed out on), and then rock climbed and rappelled in the afternoon. The rock climbing was my favorite- it is such a cool mental and physical activity, having to find hand and footholds, and trust yourself and the rope. I wish we had more places to do that around home! We had a bunch of really cool Czech guides helping us with all of these activities, and they were really great.


After our long days, we would have dinner together at the hotel,

crazy rock formations!

 and then hang out with a glass of wine, beer, or hot chocolate together outside on the patio or in by the bar. One night, we sat under the stars and had a little guitar sing-a-long, which was super cute. But, definitely the coolest night was our last night there. We all were hanging out in the room we ate in, playing games, talking, laughing, and dancing. But then, somehow I ended up hanging with some of the leaders and Czech guides. There was an old man who is the caretaker of the castle, and somehow, he decided that it was the night to show us the underground rooms of the castle! It was awesome- Martina, one of the guides, said that they'd been coming here for 8 years, and it was their first time down there!

view from the castle

I forget his name, but he asked us to call him Grandpa in Czech- "dědeček", according to google translate, since I obviously forget/can't spell the word. He took two of the guides, two of the leaders, Eric and Allison, myself, and two other DIS students, Nick and Sarah, down to the basement. We first saw a room that used to be a wine storage room, and now houses one of the smallest breed of bats in the world, apparently really rare. It was a little creepy, but really cool! Nick and Sarah went back up after, but the rest of us continued on to see all these other rooms, including the "Widow's Jail", where the legend is that the guy in charge of the castle was entitled to the first virgin in every family, or something like that. If she was found to not be a virgin, they would throw her in this jail, which was a winding dirt staircase with very few, tiny windows (it was underground, but since the castle is on those rocks, the window looked out). Martina acted as translator as "grandpa" talked- he knew everything there was to know about the castle!


This was because, as it turns out, he used to have a claim to it- technically, it should be his! But, during the Communist era, lots of land and castles and other property was seized and put under state control. When they gave the land back during "normalization", properties like this one was marked at an HUGE value- it would have cost "grandpa" millions and millions of Czech kroner to get his family's property back, even though it was his- and to get a lawyer to prove his rights would have been way too expensive as well. So, he remains at the castle, working on the heating system, located in those underground rooms, and other castle work.


He was such a character though! After the tour, we sat outside on the patio and he told joke after joke (mostly inappropriate ones, all in Czech, all of which Martina expertly translated) and we laughed until the early hours of the morning, and even got another tour of the castle jail and underground rooms when more DIS students joined and were interested. We left the next morning, but not without saying bye to "grandpa"!


PRAGUE

Sam and I,
John Lennon Wall

A few hours later, we arrived in Prague for our last day. I was so 

beautiful Czech Easter eggs

tired already ended up being a very long day! I first went with a bunch of people up to see the Prague Castle, which is a looong walk from where we started. Some opted to pay to go in, but Sam, Tim, and I chose not to. Instead, we got some lunch and just sat outside by the Old Square and Clock Tower talking about life. Love that. We went on a guided tour of 

Prague clock tower

the city later, but it was beyond boring and dry, so it was a  struggle. The rest of the day was super low key, since my sandals were making my feet hurt, and like I said, I was super tired. The bus ride home (another overnight ordeal) was rough, but I returned home to a WARM, SUNNY, and GREEN Easter weekend in Denmark, which made up for it :)