The last couple of days have been slow and lazy. The weather finally started to turn (I can wear my jacket without sweating!) and the cold rain makes long naps sound even more appealing than before. We've been starting each day even later than usual because sleeping in is just sooooo nice. I still wake up really early in the morning for some reason and from my bed I can watch the city's colors change with the sunrise. When the orange hue finally fades I roll over and go back to sleep. Not a bad way to be, really :) The other day we visited St. Vitus cathedral, which is part of the very large Prague Castle complex. It's just up the road from our hostel and gives you an amazing view of the city. Just about everything there is at least a thousand years old, so there's no shortage of history to read about! The inside of the cathedral was impressive to me for two reasons: the ceiling is higher than in any cathedral I've ever visited, which gives it an incredibly large and expansive feel, and the windows are covered in the most interesting and beautiful stained glass I've ever seen. The cathedrals of Paris had amazing glass but here it is so detailed and varied that some of it even seems to resemble a comic book. The stories they tell are clear and easy to follow, which is pretty much never the case (for me anyways). As we did our little walking circuit of the cathedral we found ourselves next to a large group of older French people. I really wish I could've heard what their guide was saying, because all thirty of them let out a loud and collective "OOOOOOOHHHH" at the same exact time. Ten seconds later the guide said something else that brought on an even louder "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH"! We couldn't help but laugh; they reminded me of the little green aliens that Buzz saves in Toy Story. "Aaaahhhhh, the claaawwww". The meetings are earlier than what we're used to so after an hour or so in the basilica we walked back to our hostel in the rain to get ready. The Halls so far have been really easy to get to. I guess we had gotten used to Central America where the English meetings were few and far between. We could almost never make them because they would be so far outside of the city centers. Here it was a twenty minute tram ride with no changes and we were at the door. When we walked in the attendant brother quickly explained that for some reason the English congregation wasn't having their meeting that night (must've been their convention week) so we would have to sit through the whole thing in Czech. I've got to admit that sounded pretty terrible because the language is so radically different that we can't understand a single word of it. When the brother saw the apprehension in our faces he half-jokingly said, "or you could meet with our french group, if you know any French". Score! We excitedly sat down in the back school and had a great meeting. Chelsea was pretty bored of course, but at least two of us could follow along! There were only about 14 in the group and after we had commented a few times the brother conducting stopped the meeting for a minute to ask us where we were from and how we spoke French. It was a really tight-knit group and they reminded us a lot of our own congregation. When the TMS was over we went into the main hall for the rest of the meeting in Czech, and were surprised to see that they had a translator for the parts (which made it soooo much easier to pay attention). It was even more surprising to see one of the French brothers from Congo do the translating and then give a part in Czech! We found out after the meeting that he speaks six languages. Brittany and I laughingly thought 'we found a European Chad!' We stayed and talked with the brothers for a long time and one of the elders summed things up well by saying, "I will see you again...in paradise!" When we finally left we were starving. By some wonderful coincidence Beerfest was just down the road so...round two! I have to admit it was even more fun at night. There was a crowd to give it energy, but no rowdy weirdos. They had a decent band playing and the food was just as good. I actually got two different dinners just so I could try as much as I could. You've got to savor these moments, right? For dessert we got a couple of cupcakes and some cranberry beer. I wasn't around for it but I'm told that a drunk guy walked up to Brittany (and after several fruitless attempts in Czech) got within two inches of her face, slowly looked at her cupcake and artfully muttered, "I really love your ice cream". If that's some kind of Czech pickup line I don't think I have much to worry about! Haha We were out pretty late so getting up yesterday was extra hard, especially for the girls. While they snoozed I went downstairs to the common room and was pretty ecstatic to find a nylon string guitar in the corner. This hostel just became my instant favorite! I haven't gotten to mess around with one for a couple of weeks now so I had fun tooling around on it while Brittany and Chelsea got dressed. We still had a lot to see at Prague Castle so we went there first, getting soaked on the way. There's a neat little area called the Golden Lane, which was a special street of tiny houses built for the craftsmen, guards, and others that worked at the castle. Each house was restored and filled with interesting things from different time periods. A special museum told the long history of the castle and showed off all kinds of super old artifacts excavated from the site. Brittany really enjoyed it but Chelsea was bored and I was so hungry I would've (as my father would say) "eaten the boogers out of a dead man's nose". What a gross expression! Brittany's going to yell at me for that one... :) We were almost completely out of cash and didn't want to get any more because we wouldn't be able to spend it all before flying out. That made it pretty hard to find a place for lunch because almost everywhere we went they only took cash. I was pretty surprised by that. We were right in the middle of the super touristy Old Town and they don't take cards? It worked out for the best though because one of the first places we saw with that oh-so-beautiful VISA sticker on the door was a monastic brewery! I had deer goulash and some of the tastiest beer of the trip. To be honest I really haven't been in the mood for more beer (sacrilege, I know) but I just can't get myself to pay extra for water; beer is by far the cheapest drink you can get. Have I mentioned how much I love this town??? From the brewery we took a long walk past many unique and beautiful buildings to the "dancing building". I personally loved it but Brittany and Chelsea felt that it was out of place. I, on the other hand, think it looked particularly good because of the drastically different and old buildings surrounding it. I guess it's a love it or hate it type thing. The stroll gave us a glimpse of a different part of Prague, one we had yet to see. There seems to be no place you can go here that doesn't cause you to stand in wonder and marvel at how beautiful it is. A bowl of hot rabbit stew for dinner (I love seeing this stuff on the menu!) and we visited the Old Town square for the last time. I wanted to sit and savor our last hours there, so we huddled next to the propane heaters on a cafe terrace and shared some drinks. I finally got to try the "original" Budweiser, which was on my must-do list for the trip. It has a whole lot more flavor than the swill back home, but I'll take a Pilsner Urquell over it any day. From the terrace we saw a big group of college-age kids walking by on one of the many pub crawls, and trailing behind was a guy wrapped from neck to foot in duct tape. He almost had to hop just to keep up, and even that wasn't working. It was one of those double-take, did I really just see that? kind of moments. The guidebook was right, you see a lot of WEIRD stuff in Prague. Duct tape guy was just one item on a long list of the funny and bizarre we've come across. When we finally dragged ourselves away from the square we basically walked down Charles Bridge backwards so we could keep our eyes on the Old Town for as long as possible. There's something about those gothic spires towering above you that forces you to stop and stare. This morning was spent scraping our scattered clothes off the dorm-room floor and shoving everything back into our packs. We're flying over Germany now on our way to Bergen, and I can see endless acres of farmland from the window. The next week is going to be very busy because we're hopping all over Norway, never staying anywhere for more than two nights. I hope the fjords are worth it!