Photos!

Good news folks, I loaded up a whole bunch of photos onto my Google-Picasa online web albums. I also added a little slideshow of the photos from Budapest onto the toolbar on the side of my blog. I think if you click on that, it should take you directly to the online album. On the top left, there should be a link that says "Alex" somewhere, it will be blue. Click that and it will take you to the rest of my photo albums, which are conveniently named as per the country of origin.

Enjoy!

My Bonkers Trip to Eastern Europe: Prague

1 January 2009 - 4 January 2009

Well, it was more Central than Eastern Europe, geographically, but right on the border so I'm going to go with Eastern cause it sounds more intense. Also, 2/3 of the cities were, in fact, Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War so that's good enough for me.

First stop: Prague, Czech Republic

I was traveling with my good friend Anna, who is also a study abroad student at the LSE from Boston College, and our friend Lilly, a Canadian masters student at LSE. Everyone knows that Canadians are silly, and Silly Lilly is no deviation; she introduced the word "bonkers" to us, and since Anna is SO CRAZY I decided Bonks would be an appropriate nickname for her from now on. So if I refer to Silly Lilly or Bonks for the rest of this post, now you know who they are, kind of.

The first thing we saw in the Old Town of Prague was a statue of King Wenceslas. You may know Good King Wenceslas from the Christmas Carol: "Good King Wenceslas looked out/ On the Feast of Stephen." I think Hugh Grant sings this carol to those little English girls when he goes knocking on Doors in Love Actually. But that's neither here nor there. The fact is that Wenceslas, or Vaclav in Czech, was never actually a King; he was only a Duke and didn't do anything particularly notable in life, besides getting tricked and killed by his brother. A cult formed around Wenceslas to the point of legend becoming confirmed as fact - by the Pope no less - and his canonization as a Saint. Now, his statue - the one I saw - is, according to legend, supposed to come to life and lead an army to defeat the enemies of the Czechs in the case of war. Pretty awesome tale.

Clearly, I got my fix of medieval history on this trip and I'll try my best to spare you most of the stuff that isn't a big deal. Prague itself is a gorgeous city, I'd say the most beautiful of the three I visited on this trip. Miraculously, it was untouched in the Second World War, which means that its buildings and bridges are still intact and most are incredibly old. One such building is the Old-New Synagogue, and while its name leaves much to be desired in the way of creativity, it was quite interesting to step into a structure built in the 10th century and still functioning. It wasn't an architectural masterpiece to be sure, but it is rumored to hold the remains of the Golem in the attic. When Prague was under attack sometime in the Middle Ages, the rabbi summoned the Golem - a creature made of brick and clay - to defend the temple and the Jewish community of Prague, which it successfully did. In addition, legend has it that the foundation stones of the synagogue were brought by angels following the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, but they have to be brought back upon restoration of the Temple.

The synagogue is right in the center of the Jewish quarter, and directly around the corner is a medieval cemetery. Because the Christian rulers would not sell the Jews more land to bless as a cemetery space, they were forced to bury people on top of one another, up to 12 deep. When you first look into the cemetery space it's shocking, because all of the gravestones seem to have been slammed into the ground wherever there was space. They literally stick out in every direction and cover nearly ever last inch of the ground. Bonkers.

The Jewish quarter of Prague is in the Old Town, along with other less than notable places, but each building was architecturally beautiful. Actually, one place I should note is the Sex Machines Museum. Yeah, don't ask me what it entails because the girls absolutely refused to go in and I felt that going alone might be slightly creepy and/or damaging to the image I hold of myself so, unfortunately, I have no good stories from that particular museum. Definitely notable though. Anyway, we made our way toward the main tourist attraction across the river: Prague Castle. However, in order to get there, you have to cross a bridge (obviously) so we went over the famous Charles Bridge. It was the first bridge across the River Vltava in Prague, and it is now adorned with ornate statues about every 10 meters on each side. Most of them are of Jesus or the Saints, but I'll comment on two. The first is a statue of Jesus on the cross. Sometime in the 17th century, a Jew was punished for blaspheming the cross, and his punishment was that he had to etch into the statue a phrase, displayed now in Hebrew across the front of the statue. The translation reads "Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts" which seems to be a rather offensive punishment, though I suppose it could fit the "crime" as it was at the time. The second statue is of St John of Nepomunk, one of the patron saints of the city of Prague. In the 14th century, as legend states, John, a priest, received the confession of the Queen but refused to break the seal of confession to the King, Wenceslas (not Good King Wenceslas, this is an actual king and 300 years later). Becoming enraged, Wenceslas had John thrown off the bridge to his death. In reality, St John of Nepomunk was just a legal scholar who happened to get himself into the middle of a power struggle between the King and the Archbishop, and was thrown into the river because he ultimately sided with the Archbishop whom he worked for. Anyway, his statue has a picture of him being pushed into the river on it, and you're supposed to rub it for good luck. It obviously has been taken to heart, because while the rest of the statue is as green as Lady Liberty, this one spot is shining a beautiful bronze. The photo at the top of this post is me, getting in on some luck.

Prague Castle is amazing. It dominates the skyline; you can see it looming on a hill in the distance from nearly anywhere in the city. It consists of a number of residences and buildings within a walled structure, and St. Vitus' Cathedral lodged directly in the center. We were lucky enough to happen across the changing of the guard, which was probably not as good as the one at Buckingham (I wouldn't know, haven't been there yet!), but we got into the cathedral as soon as we could because it was incredibly cold. The cathedral itself was built in the early 20th century so it's not as old as many of the others in Europe, but it is equally spectacular, the stained glass especially. It has all the normal features of a Gothic cathedral, but an incredibly ornate and elaborate shrine to St John of Nepomunk sits just under the altar and is made entirely out of silver, which was original and cool. At this point I've been in so many cathedrals that it's easier to see the original parts of each, and indeed that's what I focus on. Next to the cathedral is the Prague City museum, which includes a detailed history of the city with interactive exhibits and the crown jewels on display. Also in the vicinity is St George's Basilica, an 8th century structure that you can visibly tell is from the 8th century. As we walked out, I noticed a shrine that seemed to contain the bones of a saint. Perhaps it's St. George, but I'm really not sure.

The castle was by far the most exciting and most interesting part of the city, but we also made our way to the Franz Kafka museum which was weird enough to get me to want to read his books. Outside there was a sculpture of two men urinating into a pond, and their hips and penises moved in different directions so if you text the number on the side of the pool, they pee your name into the pond. So that was pretty cool. But the rest of the museum was downright weird. We also wandered around the city aimlessly for an entire day and stumbled across the old Citadel, which included another cathedral and an extremely ornate cemetery.

Before I sign off for this post, I have to comment on the cuisine. Czechs are used to eating copious amounts of meat and potatoes - in part because that's all they could get under Soviet rule, but I must admit they've gotten quite good at it. We visited an "authentic" Czech restaurant with one of Lilly's college friends who is now working and living in Prague, and it was delicious. I think I had a plate with 3 types of meat, bread dumplings, potato dumplings, and a healthy amount of sauer kraut drenching everything. SO GOOD. Seriously, I felt as if my heart would explode with joy, and my arteries explode with... crap. And of course we had to follow up with a thick dose of Pilsner Urquell, the Czech beer that they are extremely proud of. The only downside was that there are no smoking laws - the only place you're NOT allowed to smoke is on the public transportation. So when you go into any building in Prague, or Budapest for that matter, prepared to inhale a ton of smoke and leave smelling entirely of cigarettes. It's disgusting, but for three days in an awesome city, a small price to pay.

Check back soon for the Vienna edition of "My Bonkers Trip to Eastern Europe." Until then, ciao!