We got up early today, got ready and headed into town. We crossed a pretty bridge with a nice view over the river, and of the famous bridge, Charles Bridge, which was up the stream a bit. We walked through town and headed past the city centre to get to the Australian Embassy so we could vote in the federal election. We went in, then found out we couldn't vote there... Apparently not every consulate has the facilities to let people vote, and the closest place we could go to do it would be in Vienna, Austria!! So after talking to the guy from the embassy (not even in person, we had to talk on the phone from reception!) he said we should be able to notify them online that we couldn't vote, so we headed off to find somewhere with wifi to do this from. We walked up the street and went to a little cafe called Follow Me, where we got a drink and some food and used the wifi. Darren got some oatmeal, and I got a croissant, which I had to wait a bit longer for, as they weren't quite ready yet, but it was so fresh and delicious! We couldn't find a way to let them know we couldn't vote, but we did find out that if you don't vote, they'll send a letter asking why, and with a valid reason, we won't get fined. So that will hopefully work out! After breakfast we walked down the street to the square in the middle of the old town, where we joined up with one of the free walking tours. We were a few minutes late, so the guide, Eva, had already started talking and giving a bit of history on the town, so we slipped in the back of the group and joined in. We started just around the corner of the square, at the town hall, which had a beautiful and famous astronomical clock. It's supposed to tell things like the position of constellations, and the time of the year it was and that kind of thing, but it wasn't working. We learnt how after the artist had made the clock, the people of Prague were so proud of it, that they took the artist's eyes so he could never make another one in any other town. As revenge, he made his way up to the clock, blind, and stopped it from working, and it hasn't been fixed since. Crazy! From there we walked down to a massive church, which is apparently the 2nd biggest church in the Czech Republic, and were told a story of the guy who tried to steal a necklace from the Virgin Mary, only to have the statue grab his arm and not let go! Apparently they cut his arm off and as soon as they did, the statue let go, and they still have what they claim to be his mummified arm hanging up in the church. Aside from that the church was beautiful. It had heaps of different altars which were all huge and beautiful. From there we walked through more of the old town, past lots of beautiful buildings and headed into the new town where we got a bit of information about the communist history in Czech Republic. We went to Wenceslas Square where they had a shrine to two young boys who had poured petrol over themselves and lit themselves on fire in rebellion to the communist regime. Although it did nothing at the time, everyone now knows their names. From there we stopped at a fountain to fill up our water bottles, and watched a guy dressed like a pirate bring his two macaws over where they had a drink and a bit of a bath. So cute! After that we walked past the theatre where Mozart had premiered one of his famous plays, and they had a statue next to it of one of the characters which was cool and kind of creepy. The theatre is also where the Czech Republic's national anthem was played for the first time after they separated from Slovakia. Apparently the old anthem was half in Czech and half in Slovak so they literally just split it down the middle and kept half an anthem each. Awesome. From there we passed by another cool statue, which was a bar sticking out from the top of a building with a man hanging by one hand. He was supposed to represent the idea that everyone should have the right to choose to take their own life. From there we headed into the Jewish quarter and learned a little about the atrocities that happened to the Jewish people here. There is a graveyard with 80,000 names of victims from World War II. There were no gas chambers in Czech, but often the Jewish people were sent from the concentration camps here to the gas chambers in neighboring countries, like Poland and Germany. There were 80,000 names there, and still today there are only 20,000 Jewish people living in the area. Like a lot of places, the Jewish community here never fully recovered. From there we went to a statue of Franz Kafta, a famous Jewish author (the metamorphosis, etc), which was of him riding the shoulders of a giant man with no face or hands. The tour finished up there, and we thanked our guide, Eva, and got some tips on places to eat, as well as a well-known Czech rock band for us to look up. We walked back with Eva towards the old town square to find this traditional Czech restaurant she had recommended. At the old town square we saw a bunch of people from the tour looking at a map who, it turned out, were looking for the same restaurant as us. We got some directions from Eva, said goodbye then all headed down to the restaurant together. We got a little lost on the way, then discovered we weren't actually lost at all, but were going the right way all along (plus we walked past another vegetarian restaurant that we'll have to come and check out!), then finally made it to U Balouna. We got a table and all had a chat. The group were from Macedonia and Ukraine, with one guy from Brazil. They had been traveling all night and were on almost zero sleep, so they were all pretty wrecked. We had a good convo with the Brazilian guy mostly though. I got some fried cheese, Darren got a 'butchers platter' and we shared some potato dumplings, because they were so good last night! Unfortunately they weren't the same thing, but they were still good. We got a free apple strudel each at the end with the voucher from our walking tour, then fixed it up and went out the front. We said goodbye to the guys and walked back through town, over the bridge and to our hostel. We stopped by the supermarket on the way for some toothpaste, then went back to the hostel. We chilled out for a while and had a chat with Joe, the guy from our room, and Hilary and Stu, and used the wifi for a while. At one point a whole group of guys came into the hostel (must have been without a booking), and got shown around the rooms. The lady took them into our room (which only had one spare bed), so we were a little bit like... What's going on here.... But then they checked in, one of them in with us, then they left to go get drinks. We chilled out for a bit longer then when they got back they hung out with us too. They were all from Uruguay except one guy from Spain. They were so noisy too! This is in a hostel that is much more of a homely family feel than a party hostel, but no one was sleeping in our room, which was next to the kitchen where we were hanging out, so it was okay. I went to bed not long after and Darren stayed up for a bit playing guitar with them and hanging out.