Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

For the last 10 day trip, a lot of my normal travel buds were with their families so I was not sure what I was going to do for the week.  I had made a plan with two girls who I had become good friends with during the trip, but one of those girls ended up going home early and our plan started to fall apart.  We had planned originally to go to Edinburgh, Scotland and Iceland, but when she left we had to make some modifications.  We planned on still going to Edinburgh but decided we would visit another town in the Czech Republic for the other part of the 10 day so that we could save money, experience more of the Czech Republic, and visit this really cool resort/spa town where Queen Latifah filmed a movie.  About two days before the trip to Edinburgh, one of the girls said she didn’t want to go anymore and then said she would so I was worried.  We booked an Airbnb and the night before we were supposed to leave it cancelled our trip, so we weren’t going to have somewhere to stay and my friend didn’t really want to go in the first place.  We ended up scrapping the trip and staying in Prague with a few other people that were in town for the weekend.  During that time, I really enjoyed some half alone time! I went to the mall and walked around some markets, worked out a lot, and started my packing. I also hung out with those friends and we played mini golf in a black light room, and I saw the new Harry Potter movie (accidentally went to the Czech one but they let us do English thank goodness!).  We also went to the cool Cat Cafe in Prague which is right down the street from our building and witnessed a cat literally open a door which was neat.  Then we bussed to the snow globe town of Karlovy Vary.  We felt like royalty arriving at our hotel! It was beautiful and they had a doorman and the service was impeccable.  The only thing that was strange was that the town seemed pretty empty (off-season we had assumed) and it was all old people.  We stayed for three nights and utilized all the hotel had to offer- from spa pools to fancy dinners! We also had a fun horse-back riding experience in the hills of the Czech Republic with a really cool guide who was from CR but also lived in Ireland.  Another cool part of our trip were the natural hot springs around the town.  You are supposed to drink from each of them and its supposed to be good luck/help your body.  We tried all of them and they tasted like burning hot blood water, but hopefully my body is on the rise! Unfortunately during this trip, I also clogged my ear.  So I couldn’t hear for a solid two days and ended up going to the doctor where they flushed out a raisin sized ball, honestly a great moment!  Now I have the last week in Prague and I am excited to see my family, but also sad that the program is wrapping up.  I’m not ready for reality to hit.