Prague: Trust Without Borders

“We must learn to trust and depend on Him to take care of us and guide us. We place ourselves in the hands of our Father by submitting to God’s mercy and forgiveness. Our hope and confidence is fixed on God and God alone; therefore we will not hesitate to ask for His help and guidance.” These are the words regarding the first pillar, trust, of the covenant I signed when I was inducted into Daughters of Zion. This semester has taken me back through the pillars of this covenant in a very real way.

If last weekend was about abandoning myself to the will of God, this week was about trusting in His Will. Let me start from the beginning. We were supposed to go camping and kayaking in a small town in the Czech Republic. We rented a car, had a solid group, and were excited. Then we learned that you had to be 21 to rent the car (that stipulation was not included until after we reserved the car). None of us were 21 and there was no other way of getting there so our group split up. One girl got in with a group to Munich, another went with a group to Venice, that left 3 of us to plan the weekend. 16 hours before we ended up leaving. We decided to go to Prague…easy enough trip. Except two of us had credit card trouble. We started looking into train and bus tickets at 1:30 pm and finally made our last transaction at 12:00 am…5 hours before our bus left. The route was a bus from Gaming to Scheibbs, trains from Scheibbs to Vienna, a bus from the Vienna train station to the Vienna airport, then another bus from the Vienna airport to Prague. Our trek began at 5:09. At 5:04 I realized I left my wallet in my room, my key to the room in the wallet, and my roommates were already gone for the weekend. I told the guys I was traveling with and said that I’d just stay behind. Joe Wattenbarger had the best response: “Do you have your passport with you? Yes? Dakota—this is Jesus telling you to trust. Let’s go” and proceeded to push me out the door. 

Nine hours later we were wide-eyed and speechless as we saw the skyline of Prague. Chris Bradley put it right when he turned to me and said, “100% worth it”. We got off the bus and took our time walking across the city to our hostel. We saw the Astronomical Clock, the Powder Arch, Olde Town Square, and spent a ton of time enjoying the street vendors along the Charles Bridge. We checked into the cutest hostel (I’ll take credit for finding that one). The room was great, had a nice view of the street below, was a 5 minute walk from the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle. There was also a rooftop restaurant attached to the hostel that overlooked the city. After we got settled in the hostel, we explored the city and took some incredible pictures (that Chris and Joe have yet to send me *cough, cough*). We realized that we really hadn’t eaten all day so, after getting 3000 crowns from the ATM, we found a nice Italian restaurant and all got delicious pizza like typical Americans. After dinner, we went to a microbrewery and drank some really, really bad beer while we waited to meet up with the other two guys. Once we met up with the other two guys (and one of the professors from school who literally took thousands of pictures) we headed to an Irish pub and had a pint (that’s still so cool to say). It was already pretty late at that point so even though we had the intention of making it to one more bar, it didn’t happen and we all just went back to the hostels and decided to meet at the Prague Castle in the morning.

Even though I didn’t think it was possible, Prague treated us better on Day 2 than it did on Day 1. We spent the entire morning at the Prague Castle and St. Vitus’, the cathedral inside the castle. Pictures and words would never even begin to explain, describe, or portray the immense beauty of this cathedral.  Unfortunately you have to pay to see the whole cathedral and the crowd was ridiculously big so we just stood at the back but it was still great to do just that. We also got to watch the changing of the guard (Arlington is still better, sorry Czech Republic). On our way out there was a small food market set up so we all got lunch there. I just mooched off of everyone else because I didn’t have my wallet with me so I was lucky enough to get a taste of everything and it was all wonderful. I won’t go into enormous detail about everything we did but we did…everything. We saw the Dancing House, hiked up to one of the highest points in the city and got to see the view from there, made it to the Spanish Synagogue, spent more time on the Charles Bridge and in Olde Town Square, ate a lot of trdelnik, and had a beer by the river. It was an awesome day. As if the day wasn’t good enough Chris, Joe, and I decided to go get dessert on the rooftop restaurant attached to the hostel and as we got upstairs, someone started lighting off fireworks. It was the best possible ending to the day—the chocolate cake helped too.

Leaving Prague on Sunday morning was a bitter experience. All of us fell in the love with the city and the last thing we wanted to do was leave it behind. But…..getting back to the Kartause in Gaming is one of the best feelings in the world. It really is like coming home. I remain grateful for the opportunity to be able to step out of my comfort zone and explore the world one city at a time while still having the comfort of a home to return to. I’m also beyond grateful for Chris, Joe, Tony, and Adam for taking complete care of me this weekend and for letting me mooch off of them for food, beer, and souvenirs. Thanks for teaching me to trust.