Catching the Magic: Prague, Day One!

Today was a long but amazing day!

We were off to rocky start, because we both overslept, missing our bus and the train we planned on taking, but we were able to find another one that left shortly after, so it wasn't too bad. On our way to Prague, we had a 40 minute break between trains in Cologne, so we walked around and as soon as we got to the front of the train station, our jaws dropped! We saw one of the oldest and most beautiful Gothic Cathedrals I have ever seen! We walked inside and it was even more amazing...these pictures do not even begin to do it justice:

this was the view from inside the train station,
the first time i saw the cathedral

the view from the bottom of the steps

some of the stained glass inside the cathedral

the main aisle leading up to the alter
(there was one off to each side as well)

looking up by a pillar

the prayer vigil area

the view from outside

outside of the cathedral

Historical Fact: After WWII, almost all of Cologne was bombed and destroyed, except for this cathedral. It is said to be divine intervention that it was not destroyed. Others say that it was done on purpose so that it could guide the German people to a place of safety and refuge (within the church, both figuratively and literally).

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We took trains for most of the day...which was really fun :( The last part of our trip involved taking a bus for three hours to actually get to Prague. After about eight hours of traveling, we finally got there! Luckily it was worth it, because everything was gorgeous! We had to exchange our money in the train station to Krona, because the Czech does not use Euro :(
We walked from the train station to our hostel to drop off our things and then we took the public transit trolley/bus to the main area of Prague. We walked around a lot, just looking at the buildings and seeing the sites. We saw a castle at the top of a hill, and decided to venture to the top to get a closer look. It was quite a hike, but it was well worth it because we ended up being high enough that we could see most of Prague, and by the time we were up there, it was dark, so it was beautiful.
We found a town square that was neat, and had some food stands, and we ended up getting some wiener schnitzel and potatoes from one of the stands and it was lush (the British word for delicious).
Unfortunately, it was raining basically the entire time that we were walking around, but we didn't really care because we were constantly taking pictures and looking at one beautiful building after another.
I bought some postcards at a shop as souvenirs, because everything here was rather expensive. When we got back to the hostel, we were greeted (sarcasm) by some men in the bushes who had just stopped to pee outside the hostel...it was a bit odd and definitely caught me off guard.
The hostel we stayed at was really cool. It was a school during the fiscal year and a hostel in the summer. We stayed on the third floor, which required eight large flights of steps to get to (not fun), and it was basically what a makeshift closet or an office had been for a teacher. It had a cupboard that we could open that was filled with books and school supplies for the school, so it was interesting to look at what supplies they have compared to home. It was also nice because they had free wi-fi, although you had to go back to the bottom floor to be able to access! We got cards to check into our rooms and to get breakfast in the morning. We were excited about getting a breakfast in the morning!