Prague- Day 3

My new favorite city? A view from Prague Castle.

Sorry for the lack of new posts the past few days but Kristina Connolly and Carolyn Wott are here visiting and I have been gallivanting around Ireland with them, but more on that in the future.

Our last day in Prague we woke up and were down for breakfast by 9 o’clock. We then checked out and started our day. Stacy was feeling good enough to leave the room by not quite ready to take the hike up to Prague Castle so she went to the Communist Museum while we started our trek. (Afterwards she went shopping and likes to quip that she did the best of communism and capitalism back-to-back.) Prague Castle overlooks the whole city because it is on a hill above the river and there were some wonderful sights to see when we finally got to the top. It was a long walk uphill and after climbing it we knew that Stacy would not have wanted to climb that way feeling as sick as she did.

Not only were the views great but St. Vitus Cathedral was a sight to see as well; we spent a lot of time getting the perfect picture of us with the cathedral in the background. Unfortunately we could not stay up there very long because we were on a schedule and had to finish everything before our 2:30 train to Vienna.

One of the things that we needed to accomplish was buying the garnet jewelry I had been after since I first read about it in my travel guide. Laura, Brittany, and I had already scoped out some of the jewelry stores and we were ready to start spending Czech crowns.  We went to the first shop we had scoped out and Stevie bought some pieces and Brittany bought a pendent but Laura was keen to go another shop so they are left me while I pondered which pieces liked best. I am a very indecisive shopper and kept going back and forth so after a while of trying to figure it out on my own I decided to leave the store to try and find the others. I could not find then but I succeeded in freaking the sales clerk out which probably helped me with haggling (my new favorite hobby).

After getting back I got down to business of getting the best deal as possible. I had taken out 3000 Czech crowns (about 160 USD) and was not going to spend more than that (and I couldn’t because that was the only Czech currency I had). Once I had picked out three pieces that I was going to give as gifts I picked out a pair of small garnet earrings that I wanted for myself and was at 2880 crowns so naturally I asked how much it would be if I got the bigger earrings that I saw on display. The clerk told me that it would be 3500 Czech but I said that I only had 3000 in cash so I couldn’t do that. She said that the lowest she could go was 3300. At this point I was getting nervous about finding the other girls and catching the train so I told her that I had to try and get a hold of them. She then offered me 3200 but I told her that I couldn’t pay that. I knew that I had here where I wanted her and picked up my phone to try and call them. As soon as I open the phone she says 3000 and I handed the money over. I can attribute part of my success at haggling to the fact that I almost walked away because I was so worried about finding the other girls but I think that my determination to get the most for my money helped as well. I might have also worn her down because it took my about an hour to decide what I wanted. The moral of the story: don’t mess with Claire when it comes to jewelry. Now I hope that every time I wear my new garnet earrings people compliment me so that I can tell them the story of bargaining in Prague.

After paying for the jewelry I was able to locate Stevie who was shopping in Wenceslas Square with some of the other girls. I walked over there and then we all met up at the hostel at 1:30 to check out and head over to the train station, which was very close. Trains are my new favorite way to travel. As I’m writing this I am actually on a train to Dublin from Galway after spending the weekend with Kristina and Carolyn. Who would have thought that the girl who first rode a train alone to the city at age 19 would be riding across Ireland and international borders? Trains are more spacious than buses and the ride is so much smoother. You can also move around a lot, which came in handy when Jen wanted to do lunges down the aisle. One of the people on the train also brought their dog, which did not have leash and was free to roam around the train. Good thing none of us are allergic to dogs.

Travel Warriors

Prague- Night 2

Touring Prague and Terezin made us work up an appetite and lucky for me the others were on board when I said I wanted some authentic Czech food.

We got off the bus and ended up going to a small restaurant that was serving only one other party. As we looked over the menu Jen bought us all drinks; by the way, she is the sweetest girl ever. I decided to get something that may or may not have been called the Prague Feast which included: bacon dumplings, potato dumplings, bread dumplings, duck, pork, smoked meat, and forcemeat with sauerkraut. Needless to say I still get made fun of for ordering a plate of meat but it was a good decision. The bacon dumpings were especially tasty.

As I was leaving the restaurant I spotted none other than…

A LAMB CAKE MOLD!

For those of you who don’t know, every Easter my family has a spice cake that is shaped like a lamb. When I was younger my great-aunt Lola used to make it but now my mother has the sacred duty. I never thought of lamb cakes as a Bohemian thing but it seems like my mom’s side of the family would fit right in living in Prague, which of course makes sense because they are Bohemian.

A couple nights in a row we put in a little too much for dinner and we had taken that excess to form a dessert fund which we used in Prague. We went over to Bohemia Bagel, a place we had gone on the walking tour, and got some delicious cheesecake and carrot cake with our seven euro. While sharing it we went around the tables and shared our “pits and peaks” for the day and the trip. This quickly became a tradition and every night we shared the best and the worst part of the day. We then talked about how amazing it was to be traveling and sharing this once in a lifetime experience with one another. Wolf pack love!

We had be bugged on numerous occasions to go out on the Prague Pub Crawl by guy that runs it and although we were feeling tired we decided to head out anyway; it was a great decision! The pub crawl started at Bohemia Bagel (I know, bagel places don’t usually make the best clubs) and then went over to the club across the street. The club wasn’t too crowded so we had plenty of room to bust a move. We had a great time just letting loose and dancing.

On the way back to our hotel another tradition was started- walking arm and arm. It must be a sight to see to see five girls strutting down the streets of Prague with their arms linked and it is a fond memory.

Prague- Day 2

I loved being in Prague!

After a tiring first day we woke up in the Hotel Musketyr and headed down to breakfast which was in the restaurant downstairs. It was a nice restaurant in what looked like a cellar. It had a pretty good selection so we filled up before our big day. Stacy, unfortunately, was very sick so it was best for her to just take it easy so she could be in great health for the rest of the trip.

After breakfast we decided to go and take pictures at all the beautiful places that we saw yesterday. It was a sunny day and we exchanged cameras so we would actually have pictures of ourselves. Our first stop was Old Town Square and then we made our way over to Charles Bridge. We were in great moods just loving life and frequently bursting out into song. Life is good.

Once we got to Charles Bridge we headed over to the statue of St. Vitus, a unfortunate priest who got pushed off Charles Bridge. It is good luck to rub the eching of St. Vitus, but the locals also played a prank on every tourist because one night they came and polished off the picture of a dog as well so it looks like it has been rubbed for centuries too. James told us that rubbing the dog was bad luck, but, sure enough, every person we saw on the bridge first went up and rubbed St. Vitus, then immediately rubbed the dog. Guess the bad luck will cancel out the good.

Charles Bridge

Brittany rubbing St.Vitus

(By the way that is Jen's hat that she wore the entire trip)

After playing around on the bridge we headed to a small cafe to get some hot chocolate, and then divided and conquered. I have been talking about getting Czech garnets for the longest time now and Brittany, Laura, and I used the time before our trip to Terezin concentration camp to look over the merchandise. I love jewelry shopping and we had a lot of fun playing with all the garnets.

Before meeting up with the tour guide for Terezin we got home sausages in Wenceslas Square. I personally like the Wenceslas sausage but I also tried the Prague sausage and that was delicious as well. We then headed over to the Grey Line Tours kiosk to catch the bus to Terezin, the only concentration camp in the Czech Republic.

We took the bus to the Small Fortress of Terezin and on the way I bonded with our Czech tour guide. It started when she talked about how the locals go looking for mushrooms in that area but the tourists think it is weird and I let her know that I go mushroom hunting as well and that I am Bohemian. She was beyond excited to hear this and wanted to know all about my family, including my family name, which is Nejedly. She asked if any of my family spoke Czech but I told her that the only words I knew were the ones for butt and bellybutton, and she acted as though the word for butt was a dirty word, and for all I know it is. It was an exciting time because I was actually in the homeland talking with the locals about my roots and mushrooms.

The concentration camp itself was not so fun. It was located in what used to be a fortress and near a ghetto. It was everything that you would expect from a concentration camp and hearing about the living conditions and the prisoners' treatment was heartbreaking. Our tour guide's father had even lived and died in the ghetto.

After getting the full tour we headed over to what used to be the boys' dormitory which has been turned into a museum. There we watched movies on Nazi propaganda whcih depicted the ghetto as a great place to live. Against these idyllic scenes were voice-overs of how many were transported out of Terezin and executed. They also showed drawings that were made by the prisoners that depicted the far less than ideal conditions.

The most heartbreaking part of the day when we saw the pictures that the children drew while in Terezin. During their stay the teachers gave them art therapy and they were allowed to draw whatever they felt. There are pictures of their homes as well as scenes from the concentration camp. They also had their dates of death and the one silver lining is that some of them survived. If you have ever met me you can probably guessed that I began to cry.

The next stop was the women’s dorms which had displays of drawings created by prisoners there as well as information about the operas that were put on by the children. Boys in one of the dorms also put out their own magazine. It’s very inspiring that these people chose to go on living their lives and making the best of it even though they were in the worst conditions imaginable. There was also a recreation of a dormitory which used all authentic “props” that were actually brought by the prisoners.

It was a tough and unforgettable afternoon. Even after seeing these places in person it is hard to believe something this awful could have happened.

Prague- Day 1

Onto Prague, my ancestral homeland.

The Wolf Pack woke up at 4:45 am to get ready for the train which was leaving Berlin at 6:30. We got out of the hostel by 5:20 and we stumbled over to the train station. Once we got there we got some food at the food court and every popped a Dramamine to insure that we would sleep during the train ride and be refreshed for our first day in Prague. I slept about three hours and eventually ended up moving to a row of seats of my own to stretch out. When Brittany awoke and saw that I wasn’t sitting next to her she was worried I was kidnapped. It’s nice to know she cares.

View from the train

Trains are really the way to travel and the scenery was gorgeous. Unfortunately our train was an hour and a half late so we really had to hustle to drop our stuff off at the hotel and make the 2 pm walking tour. We did meet up with the tour and our guide, James from Belfast, at Old Town Square just in time to hear the history of Prague. The tour was nice because Prague is the most fairytale city I have ever been in. Every street has so much character and all the buildings literally have faces that look back at you.

Here is the clock in Old Town Square that shows not only the time but the date, moon, stars, zodiac sign, and whether it is night or day. The clock also does a little routine on the hour and a man comes out of the top and blows a trumpet. The designer of the clock was blinded after creating it so that he could never share the secrets of the clock to anyone but he cursed it so that it would not operate for one hundred years, and it didn’t.

Around the edges of the clock are all the names that a Czech boy or girl can be given. Each of these names corresponds with a nameday which is when that boy or girl has to buy drinks for all their friends. Needless to say people don’t broadcast their namedays.

On the other side of the square is the Tyn Church which is simply beautiful and a symbol of Prague. It is also pretty when it is lit up at night. And how blue is that sky?

The Estates Theatre was our next stop because this is where Mozart premiered don Gionvanni and performed The Marriage of Figaro. It is the only theatre left standing that Mozart played in.

Wenceslas Square is a nice and busy part of town and right by our hotel. There is a statue of Good King Wenceslas on a horse in the center that is supposed to come to life when the Czech need him. As you might I have guessed I also sang “Good King Wenceslas” about three thousand times during our stay at Prague. It’s a catchy tune.

The Powder Tower where the gun powder was stored.

This church has a severed arm hanging from the wall for an unknown reason. The common story is that there was this one priest who carried an axe under his robe and one day caught a thief in the church and cut off his arm, then to make him a lesson to others he hung it from the wall. And believe it or not, this is the first of two mummified arms I saw in churches while on vacation.

Franz Kafka was from the Jewish Quarter of Prague and this is a statue commemorating him and his odd dream.

The Jewish Quarter of Prague was meant to be a museum about the Jewish people after they were all exterminated so it was kept in good shape by the Nazis. One of the synagogues is now a memorial where the names of all the Czech Jews who were murdered are written on the walls.

The Rudolfinium is the arts center of Prague and has statues of composers on the top. When the Nazis came through they were told to push off Mendelssohn because he was Jewish but they pushed off Wagner, Hitler’s favorite composer, by mistake. I would not want to be them when Adolf found out.

After the tour we got back in Old Town Square just in time to see the Astronomical Clock chime 5 pm and then headed back to the Musketyr Hotel. Stacy really wasn’t feeling well and Jen called her parents who suggested we find Stacy a doctor. Easier said than done because although my trusty guidebook had a doctor listed the cab driver could not find the clinic. Instead Stacy, accompanied by Brittany and Jen, went to the Prague Hospital, which I understand was quite the adventure. Of course, while they were having this new experience Laura, Stevie, and I were shopping and eating cake; there was no point for all six of us to go to the hospital.

Discussing what to do about Stacy

After Stacy got back to the hotel we had to find somewhere to fill her prescription, like a 24 hour pharmacy. I made it my job to find one, and after receiving no help from the front desk I did. For future reference, pharmacy is “lekarna” in Czech. Jen, Brittany, and I headed to fill the prescription at the 24 hour pharmacy while Laura and Stevie got Stacy some good comfort food at KFC (there are about 12 KCFs in metropolitan Prague.) Taking care of Stacy proved to be a bonding experience for the Wolf Pack and now we know we can handle anything.