Back That Month Up | Prague
The people, places, and things that made the magical city of Prague feel like home
The theme of Month 2’s pre-recap reflection is routine.
I have historically been so helplessly owned by my routines that even the slightest deviation from them can send me into a tailspin for a couple days, maybe even a week.
My work week routine for the last 6 months I was in Austin consisted of: waking up early to cook the most delicious breakfast tacos while sipping on some cold brew with 30 Rock or Parks and Rec playing in the background, working, yoga-ing or boot camping, cooking dinner, watching my shows, telling myself I should probably read a book, ignoring that impulse, chuckling at myself for even thinking that I was going to read, scoffing at Netflix for suggesting that I wasn’t still there, and going to bed. Sprinkle in some quality Instagram meme time / #remoteyear cyber stalking and approximately 2–4 Topo Chicos, and you’ve got yourself a pretty excellent day!
This might sound boring to you, but I loved loved LOVED it.
It was literally perfect. I was eating really well, doing yoga everyday, waking up at 7:30 on weekends without an alarm, and always felt good. I felt like I had found the secret combination of things that unlocked the perfect healthy and fit lifestyle that I had been searching for.
Sooo naturally I decided to blow it to shit and do the one thing that is least conducive to forming a routine that I could possibly do. For an entire year.
Ka-boom.
Knowing myself, I knew how critical it was to start RY on a good foot and develop a routine so that I felt like I was in control of what was going on. If I didn’t, I knew things could get ugly real fast.
Whoops.
For some reason I decided to not do two of the things that helped me feel most in control: cooking and yoga.
Way 2 go.
I’m self-aware enough to know when I need to right the ship, so going into Prague, I decided to not be such a NARP and did my research. I picked out a yoga studio and quickly scoped out the grocery store nearest my place so that I could at least cook myself breakfast.
Did I got to yoga as much as I should have? Probably not. Did I cook breakfast every day? Meh. Not really. But the interesting thing was that it didn’t really matter. Doing them with any sort of frequency was enough to make a noticeable change in how I felt both physically and mentally most days.
I’m going to take this lesson and #remoteyearkaizen the shit out of it as the months go on — continuing to build on the things that make me feel good and feel most in control while being flexible enough to adapt them to each city we’re in.
It’s certainly not easy to find routine on Remote Year, but I’m finding out that it’s not as difficult as I originally made it out to be either.
The People
Kaizen
Still awesome. Still kai-razy.
French People
Leading up to our side trip to France, all people would tell us was how rude people would be if we spoke English to them instead of French (which none of us knew). I gotta call BS on that.
Just about every French person we interacted with was really friendly and helpful. One French lady came to Alex and my rescue when a Bosnian lady was trying to scam us near the Eiffel Tower and basically shooed her away from us like she was a fly. Another lady at a coffee shop came up to me while I was working and gave me a shot of espresso for free just because. One man at a restaurant gave Zach and I an umbrella to take with us as we left because it was raining out. So nice!
The only exception was one particularly snobby restaurant host in Bayeux who shot us down two nights in a row with the classic “sorry, we’re full” when there was literally an open table 5 ft away from him.
The Places
Prague, Czech Republic
Prague is magical.
I’m pretty sure that almost everyone at some point thought to themselves “I could probably live here…” . By the end of the month, it really did feel like home.
Some of the main reasons that I loved living in Prague were…
- The weather was perfect for the majority of the month
- Public transit was clean and very easy to navigate
- Every building either looked like an easter egg or something out of Disney Land
- Our neighborhood made it feel like we were living as locals
- Our workspace for the month was incredible
- The city was filled with quirky, endearing weirdness
Highlights include:
- Walking tour courtesy of Mama Jen
- The K10 coworking space and its incredible back yard
- All of the non-Czech food
- The architecture and history (especially the WWII history)
- Beer being cheaper than water
- Yoga classes in Czech
- An incredible set of local track events
- Leaving our mark on the John Lennon Wall
- Treehouse Bar — while not actually a treehouse, it had many treehouse-like structures you could hang out on while the owner, an Irish Wolfhound with a full-body mohawk, patrolled the grounds underneath you
- Being greeted with beers and shots upon sitting down at U Flecku
- Zoo Praha
- The Beer Spa — a magical place where you bathe in what is essentially a hot tub filled with hops all while drinking beer from the tub-side taps and eating beer bread
- Our 80s prom themed going away event
Pilsen, Czech Republic
Beer is a huge part of Czech culture. Apparently Czech people drink more beer per capita than anywhere else in the world. One of the most important places to their beer culture is Pilsen, which is home to the Pilser Urquell and Raven breweries.
First, we toured the enormous Pilsner Urquell compound, which dates back to the 1800s and is home of the world’s first pilsner. The compound is so big that we had to take a bus to get to some parts of it.
After getting a taste (technically several tastes) of how beer is brewed in mass quantities, we obviously needed to see how craft beer is made —you know, for science reasons. We took a tram over to Raven Brewery, where we saw the small batch brewing process.
Highlights include:
- Impromptu walking tour through the surprisingly large town of Pilsen
- Touring the tunnels below the brewery and trying the unfiltered pilsner straight out of the barrels
- Acting like children at Raven
Paris, France
My only side trip of the month was to France with Zach and Alex. Even though the main reason for the trip was to check off one of my bucket list items, which was visiting Normandy, you’re not going to fly through Paris and not stay for at least a little while, so that’s what we did.
Highlights include:
- Overplaying “Paris” by the Chainsmokers like idiots
- French people being way nicer than we were told they would be
- Walking along the Siene at night while drinking mini bottles of wine and champagne
- The classic tourist spots: the Louvre, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, and going to the top of the Arc de Triomphe
- Eating my first American-style breakfast in two months at a place called Breakfast in America — I’ll take crappy bottomless drip coffee and meals with names like “CC’s Big Mess” over espresso and croissants any day of the week
- Purchasing my first fidget spinner
Normandy, France
The only side trip I knew I wanted to go on before starting RY was Normandy. I’ve been on a huge WWII kick for the last six months or so and knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn more about D-Day in the towns where it took place. I was somehow able to trick Zach and Alex into joining me for what turned out to be a 10 hour guided tour.
Writing a recap of the D-Day tour would make this post way longer than it already is, so I wrote a separate post about it.
Highlights include:
- Memorial de Caen’s “Life before 1945” and D-Day exhibits
- The historic little town of Bayeux
- The 10 hour guided tour of the American sites from D-Day, which included a German war cemetery, the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, and the Normandy American Cemetery
The Things
Architecture
Everything in Prague looks like a colorful piece of art. Everything! It made for a great place to get lost walking around.
WWII History
Between my side trip to Normandy and two of my RY-sponsored track events, I learned so much about WWII this month. Learning about Prague’s involvement in the war was especially interesting because it was entirely new to me.
Operation Anthropoid was a secret mission that took place in Prague and resulted in the assassination of the 3rd highest ranking Nazi, SS General Reinhard Heydrich (aka the Butcher of Prague). The Czech and Slovak men who carried out the assassination were able to hold off the Nazis in a shoot out in a church for six hours before taking their own lives with their last bullets. The church now has several memorials in their honor.
In retaliation for the assassination, Hitler ordered that the (completely innocent) village of Lidice literally be wiped off the map. All men over the age of 15 were killed, mostly by firing squad. The women and children were sent to concentration camps. 80–90 of those children were gassed to death. Oh, he also completely destroyed every building in the village, altered the terrain of the ground using the rubble from the destroyed buildings, MOVED A LAKE, and even had new maps created that did not include Lidice on them. Insane.
Kaizen Kall
I’m not sure how it happened, but I was able to convince Kaizen during our walking tour that my go-to dance move of the last 8 years, waiving one arm back and forth over your head to literally any beat, would be a great distress signal when you got lost in the crowds. I kid you not, I got lost so I started doing it and 30 seconds later I turn to my left and I see at least 15 people from my group waving it back at me. I WAS SO PROUD!
A month later, it seems like it’s here to stay. It even has a name — the Kaizen Kall.
Weirdness
I wrote about this in my First Impressions post, but the weirdness continued to escalate throughout the month. Also, I finally got to meet the creepy babies face to face.
The wrap up…
As I write this post, I can’t help but look back on month 2 of RY with extreme fondness. It was in Prague that things started to slow down and really begin to feel normal. By the end of the month, there was an unmistakable homey feeling for me.
I’m the first person to roll their eyes when people say things like “I’ll be seeing you again very soon [insert city] ❤”, so I’m not going to say that about you, Prague. I respect you too g’damn much to lie to your face like that because who knows — I may never see you again. So instead, I’ll say…
Na zdraví, Prague!
Before you go, don’t forget to back these months up, too!
- Europe: Split, Prague, Lisbon, Sofia
- Asia: Hanoi, Chiang Mai, Kyoto, Kuala Lumpur
- Latin America: Lima, Medellín, Bogotá, Mexico City
Photo cred to Sean Marier (@839photo), Daniel Ryan and Alex Sheer for all pictures that don’t look like they were taken on a flip phone—so basically 90% of them.
