Prague...as beautiful as everyone says.

Prague truly is a beautiful old city. It has a rich, rather turbulent history, which is evident in every aspect of its culture. It also has, of course, Czech Beer. According to one travel brochure I saw, "Czech Beer is a part of every day life in Prague." OY is it ever. It's cheaper than water and coca cola combined and it flows throughout the city at every hour of the day (even breakfast for some...not me, I promise).

I've been told to go to Prague by multitudes of people since I was 18 years old and was so excited to make it 10 years later. However, I feel like those people were 18 years old when they went. Prague is swarming with tourists and backpackers (and this was september, I can only imagine in the summer) which becomes tiresome. When I travel, I like to do a mix of touristy things while trying to feel like I'm living in the city (with emphasis on the living). We had a very hard time finding out where the 'real' czech were located and constantly felt like we were in a touristy part of Epcot (it was that beautiful it felt fake).

 Also, not only were we always in the touristy part, the locals weren't all that friendly. Finally, on our last day we met Jacob, a Czech man about our age who had recently spent a few years working in Canada. Jacob apologized for his 'people' saying that do have the tendency to try to rip off tourists. Tendency, may be downplaying it a bit. As a group of fairly well-travelled tourists, we were ripped of left right and center from taxis whose meters went a million miles an hour to double charging on bills at restaurants or corner stores. (Or my personal favorite--being sold a tour ticket to something that was closed...hmmm) It was truly incredible and I must say it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth about the country (it happened in Czesky too).

To be fair, if my city was inenduated by tourists like that I would be annoyed too (hell I was annoyed and I was one of them). And the fact that we searched and couldn't find evidence of real life meant that we were probably out-numbering them, which is a little disconcerting. In general, I'm glad I went, but I wouldn't go back and I probably wouldn't recommend it without some serious research on how to approach (or maybe for a short weekend?).