Were going on a trip!

You never understand how wonderful it is to sleep in until you have to get up at 6 am again. When we started out on the journey we left our dorm around 8:10am and meet up with our group at 8:30am. After a short tram ride and a while waiting for our train, we were off! However, I am pretty sure that most of the excitement for the sitting on the train was because we could nap there! The first day, once we got there we rested for a little while and then we got a tour by Jan and Martin! They explained that Prague wasn't originally built this large. It used to be four villages that were combined once they started getting so close to one another. On this tour we got to see the Harry Potter clock tower, the Charles Bridge and the John Lennon wall. Once this was over we made our way back to our hostel and only got lost once, which is really good for us.  On day two was the real workout! We went to the Prague Castle, which I was really excited about. The walk there however, made it less exciting. Once we got there we saw the St. Vitus’s Cathedral, The Old Royal Palace, the Basilica of St. George and Golden Lane. One of the unique events that we saw here was the changing of the guards. It happened at noon and we were right against the gates watching. The changing only took around fifteen minutes but I have never seen one so it was amazing. What really surprised me about the entire trip was how many people were everywhere. Even our tour guides, Jan and Martian, said that it was really busy and they had never see so many people. Another cool event that we saw them getting ready for was the visit of the Chinese President. He is in Prague right now so we saw them putting out chairs and other decorations in the Old Royal Palace in preparation. After that we were free to roam. We went to many shops and even visited an American classic like McDonalds for a quick bit to eat. We also ended up going back later that night because the internet in our hostel was the worst I have ever seen and we were skyping our families.

Inside the St. Vitus's Cathedral, 

Band that played during changing of the guards.

Section of the Old Royal Palace.
Getting ready for the Chinese President.

Royal Jewels that were on display in a tower in the Old Royal Palace.

Next we were onto day three of our trip. We got up and was at the train station by 8am. That day we went to Dresden, Germany. What was really interesting about here is that we could physically see what World War II had done to a town like this. We went to the Lutheran Church that was located here and you can see on the outside of the building, the black on the stones is from the bombings that happened here including the fires that were started. We also went the Art Gallery that is the top five art gallery in the World. After this we went to the train station and back to Prague we went.

View of the Lutheran Church from a distance.

Original cross that was on the church.
Taken down after the bombings in World War II.

View from the top of the church.

One of the famous paintings in the Gallery.
Mostly known for the angels at the bottom.

On our last day there we visited the Jewish Synagogue. We also saw a museum that had all of the names of the victims of the Holocaust written on the walls. This filled up the entire building. They were organized by where they were from, their last name then their birth year and death year. This was extremely depressing because there were lots of people that were my age or younger when they died. It really makes me think about how lucky we are that it was just an event in history and we never had to experience it. After that we roamed around until it was time to go back to Olomouc, which has a home feeling now because we were so happy to get back.

Just a section of the walls filled with names.

Jewish Cemetery. They were buried with their feet towards the
 tombstone so when they were resurrected they would
see their name and remember who they were.

Inside the Jewish Synagogue that is used as a synagogue.