Magic Water

Back to blogging the rest of my vacation....the next day led a smaller group of us to Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Have you heard of it? I sure hadn't. But supposedly it is a gem of the Czech Republic, a town filled with magic water! Yes, you heard me, MAGIC water. People come from all over the world to partake of the "healing" water. I was imagining some lake deep in the forest with a little village. It was nothing like that, but I was pleasantly surprised at how beautiful Karlovy Vary was. The "healing" water is from a bunch geysers. It was the most picture perfect town I've ever seen. Everywhere we've visited here has been beautiful, but this was the only place with absolutely no graffiti, no bad smells, no beggars, etc. I just wish it wouldn't have been cold and rainy all day.

That last picture is a hotel. It costs one million dollars for ONE night there. Insane. I cannot fathom that.

Can't forget the tour guides. This is Alex. He actually worked for the company we traveled through. He was nice enough to translate this tour for us, but then the Ukrainians complained he was being loud and distracting them. So he just came exploring with us. We practiced our Russian with him and learned words like chuvak(dude). Real useful.

Here is one of the geysers.

Alex and Roman (our main trip leader) bought us a cup so we could try the healing water. You have to drink it through a cup with a straw because it ruins your teeth. Here is the well thing the water came from.

Here is me about to try it when in reality I could barely hold that cup because the water was 160 degrees! It just tasted like warm blood because of the salt. One sip was plenty for me.

Laria's face right as she took her first sip convinced it really was blood.

The group outside of the Black Plague Monument(they have a lot of those here). We once again did "Ring around the Rosies" and made Alex join. He was very embarrassed.

To get the gross taste out of our mouths we got some wafers. They were flavored Vanilla, Chocolate, Hazelnut, Cinnamon, and Lemon. 20 cents each! They were all delicious.

On the way back to Prague they stopped at a beer factory for a tour. We stayed in the bus with the younger kids (there was a school group on our trip) while the Ukrainian adults went in and got drunk. During it some of the kids went inside the gift shop and bought beer! 11 year olds! They were just allowed to buy it and drink it right there! It blew my mind. Welcome to Europe. And that was the end of the day of blood tasting water.