I’m so happy to finally be in Prague! After my one-day stay in Paris on Sunday, it feels refreshing to be at our main destination for this trip. To be honest I have been behind on sleep due to my flights, but nonetheless, I’m thrilled for the journey ahead. One of the things I was looking forward to seeing here in Prague was the Astronomical Clock, which I got to see when we did the walking tour with Petr. It was just as I expected and so beautiful in person. During the tour, I also got to see a glimpse of the Christmas market, which is what I’ve been looking forward to seeing the most. I’m very excited for the day we get to explore that. One of my expectations coming into Prague and from what I learned in the predeparture meeting was that we would explore dark tourism. Although we haven’t really done so (yet), there are some things I noticed along our walking tour that can be considered dark tourism, such as the faceless grim reaper statue. I expect that this week, we may delve even further into Prague’s dark tourism and check out some interesting spots. The dinner we had later in the day at Kolkovna Celnice was okay. I personally did not like the goulash as much, but the goose leg and cheesecake were pretty good, and I expect to try out some more Czech cuisine.
In terms of hospitality differences between Prague and the United States, something that comes to mind is the infrastructure. The city of Prague has a lot of vintage architecture and is rich in history (e.g., the Augustine hotel we visit was originally a monastery and it’s located next to a church); meanwhile, in the United States, most of the hotels and restaurants are more standardized and modern.