11.Oct.08
Saying goodbye to Jitka and Jirii in Cesky Budejovice was painful. We could have easily stayed longer in their comfortable, welcoming home for ever. Thus is the life of us nomads however, we must move where the wind blows us; in this case we feel a strong southern wind pushing us very quickly via train to Praha! Also known as Prague and without question one of the most popular cities in Europe, we thoroughly await our arrival in the metropolis. Luckily for you readers we can just teleport to arrival right now!
So here we are now in the innards of the train station which is under heavy repair and reeking of chemicals. We manage to find the subway ticket machine and quickly make our purchases for a short trip to our hosts place. The Prague “underground” is an understatement, a crazy steep escalator shot us down to where we could nearly feel the flames of hell licking at our feet. Soon we are on the train car when again for the second time this whole trip we are checked for tickets. Also for the second time this trip we are pulled out of the train and the security guard tries to force another 700 crown ($40) fine for not having purchased the “correct” tickets. We politely explained how utterly confusing their stupid machines are and no other subway system requires you to buy a separate ticket for a transfer, but he was merciless. Asking for our passports and putting his cell phone to ear to get the police, we called his bluff and just walked away. Amazingly it worked; he had to realize we weren’t worth the time and effort and walked away as well. Sweet!
Now of course we became instant fugitives. Too stubborn and nervous to go back and use the subway, and stuck in the middle of nowhere (a nowhere which doesn’t appear to exist on our little guide book map). So we wander aimlessly seeking assistance. First we come to a Gypsy (Roma) man who could only manage to state his own ethnicity “Roma, Roma” he said and pointed at his chest. Well that certainly doesn’t help. Then we showed him the map and he looked at it as if I were aliens showing him our newest Bcklogk machine. We managed to get him to understand it was a map of Prague and he finally pointed us towards the river we needed to get to.
More wandering and we found a street tram which brought us finally to our Couchsurfer host David’s house. Luckily we met him right as he was leaving, and he invited us in, we had a bit of a chat, then he left to do some chores and we ate at a nearby pub.
He gave us a great map we followed to the city center. We came to a currency exchange center which had good rates to change some money, but there was a large line outside. Thankfully there was a man standing outside offering to change our money for a terrific rate 20Kc per $1 (as opposed to the usual 18Kc). Being used to scams we gave him a hundred and checked his Czech note thoroughly. We’d never seen a 2,000Kc note however, but it looked legitimate. His biggest mistake was being too pushy in asking us to exchange one more hundred, and then Jessica looked closer at the bill and saw umlauts (these things: ä, ü, etc) which we know do not exist in the Czech language; it was in fact a note from Hungary worth about 3/4 less to the dollar. We handed him back the Hungarian money and he gave our hundred back still insisting as he snuck away “it is real, it is real.” We had to give the guy credit for creativity and honesty (it was after all real money). Before we could get the police, he disappeared like a ghost. Close call!
Soon we found ourselves boarding an alien spaceship-like elevator which took us high in a clock tower overlooking the entire gorgeous city. We had a great view of the castle in the distance, the massive public square surrounded by cathedrals, and the plethora of old bohemian apartments flooding the city. We stayed until sunset and soaked in the gorgeous view.
We descended the tower and followed the sounds of a large ruckus being made in the distance to stumble onto an anarchist rally. As with all anarchists we would love to see these people try to exist in true anarchy, as the only skills they seem to have is putting together neat costumes, listening to good techno, owning cute dogs, and drinking heavily. We followed the rally for awhile and tried to snap some photos of their freaky ass outfits and decorated cars. As always there was no specific purpose to their weakly organized rally, but it was fun anyway. We were just happy this post soviet society allowed such a crazy rally, yay freedom of speech!
Then we were crossing a massive ancient bridge flanked with dark statues and gatehouses on each side. It gave a terrific view of both river coasts and the splendid city lit up at night. On the other side we made our way back down to David’s house where he was cooking us dinner. His Czech girlfriend saw our “Best Of” picture slideshow and showed more enthusiasm than anyone we have shown it too. She gave the terrific idea that we should put some of the best pictures we have taken this year on exhibition, something we now plan to try! David works as a wine Somelier in a fancy restaurant, and his taste in reds and white was magnificent and complemented his tasty pasta well. So that was our night, then we slept deep on our pull out bed.
12.Oct.08
Our first goal was heading to that gorgeous castle on the hill. We took a street tram up and on the way walking bumped into a little sanctuary with a small but amazing collection of hunting birds. A volunteer with perfect English gave us some very interesting info on each bird, including the bird she owns clinging to her arm. She talked of being a falconer and how she hunts with her beast. It made us want to pick up a new hobby.
After spending a good amount of time with this girl filled with bird passion we made our way to the nearby castle. We queued in line to enter the gothic cathedral towering over our heads. Exploring the Cathedral was worth five times the wait; an absolutely flawless piece of art, second only to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Every inch was awe-inspiring, the bright, intricate stained glass, towering columns, and silver statues. Cathedrals in use close off some of the more beautiful areas only for the catholic elite, but with the Czech Republic’s dwindling catholic population this cathedral is now a free exhibit open to the public and preserved by the state; Czech is awesome.
We bought tickets for the castle area and spent the day wandering from museum to museum in the castle. Each contained different relics and information on the extremely long history of the castle grounds, dating back to times when man just smashed rocks together and grunted a lot (if you are a mormon, or Sarah Palin this might be around the time humans lived with the dinosaurs). There were some great little abbeys, a prison tower, and a very quaint merchant sector with small slanting buildings in a cobblestone alley. Our last stop was through the castle vineyards which boasted another great city view.
On the way to the middle of nowhere we stopped at a bakery for some sandwiches. The server nearly had a stroke when we asked for tap water, something I don’t think tourists usually do (even though the Czech water is great). When we went back for a refill her manager yelled at her for pouring us water…it was kind of an awkward situation, not like we were going to pay for water either way! Then after a long tram ride we followed the steady stream of black shirts for awhile and found the club where Animosity would be playing tonight! Feeling like Charlie with the golden ticket to the chocolate factory we entered the club using the “we know the band” move. We met up with Leo soon, but it was too loud to talk much. We enjoyed the music until it was time for Animosity to play; unfortunately the lead and rhythm guitarist were nowhere to be found, later learned to be at a bar in the city getting drunk with a midget (I’m actually not kidding here). So for the first time in all their many years of tour history Animosity forfeited their spot and Red Chord played early, but finally they showed up and Animosity played a short, but sweet set.
After they played we all went outside, sipped cheap wine, and talked about their current tour, our traveling, and how Leo’s dog Milo was doing after falling off a cliff in SF (full recovery after lots of surgery). There was some fun drama between band members and involving the tour manager, but it was a good night and awesome seeing Leo after so long. The headlining band was Walls of Jericho, which Jess and I were surprised to see a female death metal vocalist for the first time. We were especially impressed that she could manage being the only chick with 32 smelly guys packed in two busses for a month of tour. So that was our night, we caught the last street train home and went sleepy.
13.Oct.08
Our host David had some commitments to attend to, so we had to move in with a new host Irena a ten minute tram ride away. We dropped off our bags and went out to breakfast with her, then she went back to work as a curator for a museum and we went to see some Jewish stuff.
The Jewish quarter no longer has many Jews, for obvious reasons, but all the old temples have been converted into museums on Jewish culture, practice, and history. After buying our unnecessarily expensive entrance tickets our first stop was an old community hall with the names of every Jew from Prague killed in the Holocaust painted in red on the walls. Next was the stunning cemetery with gravestones smushed seemingly haphazardly in a small courtyard. This configuration was necessary with the small amount of land allotted to the Jews over the centuries, but ended up being truly gorgeous formations of Hebrew writing on old moss covered stones.
Unfortunately for us, and people who like our pictures, our camera’s battery ran out at this point. Still we enjoyed our time wandering the Jewish quarter and visiting all the temples and common rooms. There was a lot of cool history and artifacts containing tons of silver. Many Torahs and prayer shawls later we felt like experts on Jewish culture and religion.
Next we had some Goulash at a pub and met with another familiar face from back home. If you read the beginning of this Blog we stayed our first days in New Zealand with the Mulgrew family. Joe Mulgrew was a camp counselor with me at Kennolyn where he met his girlfriend Eva from Czech also working abroad at our camp. Joe flew in yesterday and is staying with Eva in Prague where they plan to travel a bit of Europe before he finally goes home after almost two years away from Kiwiland. We met them in the town square and after a quick chat headed to a really weird art exhibit.
The artist was one of the most famous in Czech, and his photos were all nude pictures taken black and white and painted over with vivid colors. The entire exhibit was very aesthetically pleasing, but some of the pieces were even weird for us, and if you are familiar with all the weird shit we are in to, then you understand how unbelievably insane this exhibit must have been. Overall we found it a very enjoyable and interesting exhibit.
The four of us went out to a unique bar where each table had four beer faucets for filling your own glasses, all electronically measured. We drank a good amount and talked into the night about all of their and our travels. On the way back we had our first blatant anti-American sentiment from this entire trip when a guy walking by us muttered “Fucking Americans.” I turned around and sincerely explained his complete ignorance on the subject. We can dislike Americans because we are and we know the proper ones to dislike (like the red states). He however was making a stupid judgment based on our appearance and accent, which is the same ignorance one could legitimately judge about so many Americans, not that the rest of the world is any better or worse as we’ve learned. After laughing him off we made our way back home and slept in our new loft.
14.Oct.08
Far too early for our liking we were napping on a bus to a city on the outskirts of Prague called Kutna Hora. Our main motivation for visit was a Cathedral where the bones of 40-60,000 skeletons of plague victims were used to decorate. We thoroughly enjoyed viewing every inch of the morbidly beautiful interior covered in namely skulls and femurs. Historically, people buried in church graveyards are only renting the space. After a hundred years or so the bones were dug up and put into an ossuary and a fresh corpse is buried in its place. Lacking ossuary space and overflowing with skeletons from the ‘Black Death,’ one creative monk made statues, chandeliers, and organized piles of the remains in this city cathedral. The Bohemian King Rosenberg’s crest was even made of bones complete with the part of the coat of arms with the Turks skull being pecked at by a raven. This place was right up our twisted alley.
We came here for the bones, but did not anticipate the city itself being so cute. After lunch and a couple beers we wandered around the quaint city and to a magnificent cathedral overlooking a valley of colorful trees. It was like teleporting back a few hundred years walking along the cobblestone flanked by statues with massive gothic pillars and spires in the distance. It was quite a sight and completely unexpected beauty.
We hopped on the bus back to Praha where we continued with more street trains to one of the only parts we haven’t explored yet, the monastery complex. The buildings were closed, but it was significantly splendid simply from the outside. We were surprised with more excellent views of the city and one photo of a lion statue that was particularly dramatic (though the lighting has been digitally enhanced, a cool function on our camera when details are too dark; makes for a sick enough picture though).
We walked a few kilometers back to our temporary home passing by the American embassy where completely unnecessary automobile screenings took place by heavily armed guards for any car driving on the street leading to the big Red, White, and Blue flag. It was embarrassing to walk by as it just showed the nutso paranoia of the US government especially since none of the nearby embassies had anything similar. That was all of our Prague adventure; overall one of the more beautiful cities we have seen!
Prague Flickr Photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/flufflebuns/sets/72157608148102681/
Kutna Hora Flickr Photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/flufflebuns/sets/72157608148256847/
