Prague is a beautiful city! It is the most beautiful city that I have seen in my life so far. The architecture, the artwork, and design of the buildings are amazing. The details are so intricate. You could walk around the city all day doing nothing but looking at them and snapping pictures. I think I took at least 300 pictures there. It’s also a pretty safe city in my opinion. There was not a moment that I hesitated to walk around with my camera in my hand and I saw others leisurely strolling with lots more expensive cameras than I had without a care in the world.

As far as the people, well, that’s a different story. While I did meet some really nice folks, the majority of the people there, in my opinion, were just rude. I’m not sure if it’s just a cultural thing or if they just get frustrated with the English language but for what the city is abundant with in beauty it is very lacking in customer service. There are many examples that I could give but here is one that stands out to me. I went into the McDonalds to get something to eat. Now, I don’t usually go to McDonalds but since Czech food isn’t really my cup of tea it was the only thing familiar that I knew I could stomach. I go up to the counter and order a double cheeseburger and ask if they can put Big Mac sauce on it. They sell Big Mac’s and they also sell double cheeseburgers so I wouldn’t think it would be that much of a big deal. I order it like this in America all the time and it isn’t an issue even if it’s something that they have never done before. The guy looks at me with a confused look and says “No, we don’t do that here”. Okay. Then I ask, “Well can you just put some Big Mac sauce in a cup and give it to me on the side?” He then walks away and asks someone else (possibly a supervisor) and I’m given the same response that it’s just impossible for them to tell the kitchen to give them a side of Big Mac sauce. Now it may seem that I’m complaining over something so small but seriously, how hard is it? When a very large portion of your economy is based off of tourism (60% I heard) I would think that they would try harder to please their customers/cash cows. I guess being an American I’m used to being treated like, well, a paying customer. And I’m not the only one. I ran into a couple of girls from France and a couple of girls from London that all said the same thing about the service.

As for the financial aspect of my visit, Prague may be one of the cheaper cities in Europe but it’s definitely not cheap. I paid $12 USD to do 2 loads of laundry at the self serve Laundromat! And they charge for everything from ketchup packets at the McDonalds to using the toilet. Needless to say, after taking tons of pictures and spending 3 days there I was ready to go. But just my luck, my train ended up being 90 minutes late leaving Prague, which made me miss my overnight train to Paris that I was supposed to get from Berlin. Once I got to Berlin though it was like night and day…..

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