The Spires ans Stars of Prague

This weekend, some of us traveled to Prague. Friends from back home and new friend that I have met in Germany all told me that it was a beautiful city, like something out of a fairy tale. Even with their testimonies and the proof of the pictures I looked up on Google, I did not competely believe that it was possibly as beautiful as both told. Well, I was wrong. The pictures are not enhanced lies. There are spires everywhere, beautiful colored buildings with red roofs or green copper domes, and old cobble stones are the only pavement for the streets. Then there is Chares Bridge which is massive and impressively lined with statues and lamps. With each step, you have a new georgeous view of the river, the towers, the castle, boats and so much color. I must admit, though, that my fondness for the Geman language far exeeds that which I could have for Czech. Hearing Czech spoken in the train station and in the streets sounds so confusing and foreign. Now, both English and German sound comfortingly like home. The street musicians were wonderful and there were even more in Prague than there were in Vienna. One street band had bagpipes, a small trumpet like instrument and a drum. Another had brass instrumets very similar to the traditional small German group that played at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. They sounded a little more professional and played from one of the towers of Charles Bridge. There were several violin soloists playing throughout the city too. My favoite group by far was a band of three young guys somewhere around our age. One payed bass (the kind from an orchesta) and the other two played violin. The three stood in a triangle with the lead violinist at the front. At parts of their songs, the lead violinist and the bass player would sing a duet in harmony with the accompanyment of the bass and the other violin. They were amazing. The music they played and sang was a folk style and reminded me a bit of American bluegrass. However, my favorite experience with a street musician was not with that group. Late one night on my way back to the hostel, we saw one lone girl playing a fast paced waltz tune on the accordian. She had couples dancing in the steet that night in the lamplight under the Charles Bridge tower. My favorite couple was a young set of girl twins maybe nine years old who were dressed identically in dark pink flowered dresses. Since they had no other partners they danced with each other, and of course, each girl got to spin. Occasionally they wound up in small quick arguments when a consensus could not be made as to who was supposed to be leading. It was adorabe and they had everyone who walked around them laughing and aweing at how cute they were. It reminded me a lot of when my own twin sister and I used to do the exact same thing when we were young. The accordian player loved how much the girls loved her song and was smiling at them just as much as the rest of her audience was. Traveling for ten straight days was exhausting, but the train ride home was relaxing. It finally rained, cooling everything off so it was not so miserably hot. I was also extremely happy to be back with my host family in Bonn. They had some of their own family visiting too so when I woke up this morning I got to play a little bit with a four, six, and an eleven year old. It was a lot of fun. The little ones did not know much English, but we were still abel to talk by using gestures, drawings, and my phone's dictionary. The little ones are not at all judgemental about how my German sounds so trying to converse was like playing a stress-free game.