Halloween

Generally Halloween was pretty quiet. It's not really celebrated here, but we got invited to a party of a friend of Curtis'. Megan was clever enough to have her costume shipped over from the states, but I had to throw something together. In the end I went as an 80's business man (very original), but Megan went as a flapper. Her costume was great but she felt a little self-conscious wearing it on the way to the party. I have basically stolen Curtis' picture since I forgot to bring my camera.

Budapest

In order to facilitate the posting of this blog, I have basically just copied Megan's letter home about our trip to Budapest. Her message was much more thorough than I could have hoped to write, so I will let her tell our story. So please enjoy...

Day 1: The night before we left, our friend and fellow Glossa teacher, Anne, left Prague forever. She’s moved to Berlin so that she can earn real money before heading back to the states. With any luck, we’ll get there at some point to visit her. Anyway, Mark and I didn’t stay long, one because it was an outdoor event and it started to rain; and two, because we did have a train to catch the next day. Anyway, our train left a little before 1pm. It’s about a six and a half hour trip, though the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic before arriving in Hungary. So, I now have two Slovak stamps in my passport, even though I never got off the train. Other than being crowded, the trip was alright. Our train arrived right on time, at 7:30 and we headed right to the hostel.

Unfortunately, our first encounter with a Hungarian was also our first encounter with a rude, unhelpful service-person. We wanted to buy a book of ten metro tickets, because every time you get on a train or a tram, you have to validate a new ticket. Of course, we only had big bills because we had just withdrawn money, and the minute the woman saw that, she “forgot” all of her English and absolutely refused to help us. Luckily, we found another ticket counter with a much nicer lady, and were soon on our way. A note about Hungarian money here, the basic unit of measure is called a forint. 10 forints are equal to 1 Czech crown; and thus, 200 forints make an American dollar. I withdrew approximately 20 000 forints, or 100 dollars for the weekend.

Anyway, we found our hostel without trouble; they gave very good directions. After dropping off our bags we headed to Ferenc ter, a large square covered end to end with restaurants. The one that we wanted to go to was packed, so we ended up at pretty good pizza place instead. Where the Czechs specialize in beer, the Hungarians may well have come up with the whole idea of wine. Needless to say, I was pleased; over the weekend, we tried at least five Hungarian wines, red and white, and enjoyed all of them.

After dinner, we decided to see one sight before calling it a night. We walked down Andrassy Boulevard, the main street of historic Pest (in case you don’t know, Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube), to Hero’s Square. In former times, the Communists staged State events there, complete with parading soldiers and tanks and such. The center of the square is a tower and statues commemorating the Magyar conquest of Hungary in the ninth century. The mounted horsemen along the bottom of the statue are the tribal chiefs who led the invasion, and believe me, they are a scary lot. One of the amusing things we noted was that the Hungarians have a much more militant history than the Czechs and they are quite proud of it. Around the outside of the square are statues of 16 historical leaders of the Hungarian people, such as King Stephan I, the first Christian king (I think the son of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, but I’m not sure) and the leader of the 1858 anti-Hapsburg rebellion (the Hapsburgs, of course, being the ruling dynasty of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until it was dissolved in World War I). After taking bunches of pictures, we headed back to the hostel, as I was cold and tired.

The hostel was pretty nice, much cleaner than the one in Cesky Krumlov. We had a bed in a large dorms, with something like 8 people in each. The beds were a bit hard, but nothing out of the common European way; the pillows, however, would be dwarfed by the average throw pillow in Mom’s house. In other words, they were small. I was asleep before my head hit mine, so not-to-worry too much.

Day 2: I was awoken Friday morning by singing! Our hostel was across the street from a music school, and every morning, there was singing and pianos and all kinds of lovely sounds. One of the lovely things about this hostel is that it provides breakfast, unlike our last one. It wasn’t much, just a bit of cereal and bread with butter, cheese, or jam. There was also the bitterest coffee I’ve ever tasted; apparently Hungarians like it that way [I liked it too]. Anyway, after a filling breakfast and a bit of getting ready, we headed out for our first full day in Budapest.

We started our day in an area of Pest called the Inner City. Our first stop was actually a peak at the Underground Railway Museum. Budapest is home to the oldest underground metro line still in operation in Europe. We used that particular line a lot, and you can feel the age of it; the trains are shorter and narrower than other lines and the stations have a decidedly Victorian era look to them. It took about five seconds for us to realize that Mark was not doing his usual impeccable job of navigating, so I commandeered the guidebook and did my best to keep control of it for the rest of the trip (every time Mark got his hands on it, we got lost!). From the museum, we headed out to see a plethora of churches, an 18^th century university, and a handsome park (I took flower pictures just for Mom). We also saw the Pest County Hall, which is now an EU government building at some point. I was a bit hesitant to go in, as there seemed to be guards and such. We started in but someone immediately asked us something in Hungarian (an impossible language, which I did not even attempt, beyond “ turn left on the street with the long name; then right on the street with the longer name”). I called to Mark to stop him, as he was a bit ahead of me. The man hesitated and then asked if we were tourists. We admitted as much, and then he said “Oh, please, please, go right ahead.” Can you believe it? That’s the nicest reaction I’ve ever gotten to being a tourist. Anyway, the inner courtyards, the purpose of our visit where lovely, brightly decorated walls and lovely statues.

Anyway, our midday stop was the Central Market Hall. The ground floor is a regular food market – so we got to watch some elderly Hungarians do their shopping – and the top floor is a tourist market. We wandered round there for a while, and I was sorely tempted to get Ben a Hungarian costume (I decided against it, since I thought his Daddy might object to puffy sleeves). We ate lunch in a cafeteria style restaurant on the second floor (which despite it’s casualness had a violinist). We both had peppers stuffed with sausage and rice, mine with rice and Mark with potatoes. They were quite tasty, not at all spicy and I believe quite Hungarian.

From there, we saw more churches and historic buildings, including a pharmacy with old fashioned wooden drawers and cabinets, a Serbian Orthodox Church, and the main pedestrian street, Vaci utca. The Orthodox church was quite interesting, as I have never been in one before. There isn’t as clear of an alter, and where we would have a crucifix, there is a wall covered in painting of different Biblical figures and scenes. We ended the Pest walk at the Chain Bridge, which was the first permanent span across the Danube, built in 1849. Like every other bridge in Budapest, it was dynamited by the retreating Nazis at the end of World War II. It was restored and reopened 100 years to the day of it’s original inauguration in 1949. At both ends of the bridge there are growling stone lions. Legend has it that the sculptor committed suicide on realizing that the lions’ tongues had been forgotten. So, across the bridge and beautiful Danube to Buda we went. We took the funicular (a peculiar train-sort-of-thing that takes one up steep hills) up the hill to the castle district, while enjoying the view of Pest across the river). At the exit, there is the statue of an eagle perched on a high tower; this is Turul, the mythical creature that lead the Magyars to Hungary. The palace has now been converted into museums, but is still quite lovely. From there, we headed up to Holy Trinity Square, which should be home to a plague column (cf Cesky Krumlov), but it has been taken down for repairs. It is also home to one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen, known as the Matthias Church. The Hilton Hotel of Budapest is also there; it is an award winning structure which incorporates two ruins. Now, what I don’t understand is why, if they are capable of building something so beautiful in Budapest, they built the monstrosity that passes for a hotel here in Prague. Behind the church and hotel is a hundred year old structure called the Fisherman’s Bastion, named such because if was built on the site of an old fish market. Mostly, it’s a viewing point from which to see Pest. It’s pretty enough in itself but decidedly new.

So at this point we were understandably foot sore and tired. So, we stopped at a little café-bookshop for a rest and a drink. I had more lovely Hungarian wine, while Mark sampled the local beer, no Pilsner but palatable enough. At the point the battery in my camera died, so Mark was responsible for pictures for the rest of the day; luckily, I brought my charger so I do have pictures from the next day. From there, we saw a Medieval Jewish Prayer House, which was turned into apartments after the Jews were driven out of Budapest after the Christians retook it from the Turks in 1686. Another highlight from the castle district is described by the guidebook thus: “This is one of the two streets in the Castle District that are best suited for viewing a mysterious Hungarian contribution to Gothic architecture: niches of unknown function that were build into the entryways of medieval buildings.”

Next came the Mary Magdalene tower, once part of a larger 13^th century church that was destroyed in World War II. After this we tried to go to the medieval tunnel network that runs underneath the entire castle district (it’s 15Km long!), but they were having a private event and it is a lot of walking, so we decided to wait until the next day to tour it. Our final stop was the Museum of Military History, since Mark likes that sort of thing and it was free. On the way, we passed large groups of children playing the most inexplicable game. They had numbers tied around their foreheads, and it seemed that any time groups with different colored numbers encountered one another, everyone had to press their number against a tree. Crazy Hungarians! Anyway, we weren’t in the museum long, as it closed at 5 and we got there around 4:40.

We headed back to the hostel to get ready for dinner. I was looking forward to a bit of sitting, on the funicular and then on the metro. Unfortunately, the funicular was broken, so while we got a full refund (even for our ride up!), we had to walk all the way down the hill. We did eventually find our way back to the hostel and after a couple of minutes of sitting and complaining about our feet (well, I was complaining anyway), we went to dinner. Following the recommendations of the guidebook, we went in search of a traditional Hungarian restaurant. Unfortunately, when we found the recommended place, there was a sign on the door thanking people for their patronage but explaining that after 25 years in business, the owner was retiring. Fancy that. Luckily, we had picked a backup restaurant, which was not closed. It actually turned out to be wonderful. We ended up sharing a couple of dishes – Paprika chicken (so entirely different from Mom’s that we need to change the name of one of them!) and stuffed cabbage (a cabbage leaf wrapped around multiple types of meat and cooked cabbage) – along with red wine this time. The waiter was excellent. He’s been at the restaurant for over 30 years and is a wonderful, old-world, proper sort of man. It was all terribly tasty and filling. After dinner, we found a lovely little pub near the hostel and had a couple more glasses of wine while chatting and local-watching. We ended up having another early night; I’m sure I was asleep before midnight.

Day 3: Saturday was our last full day in Budapest, so mostly we knew that we needed to see everything that we had missed Friday: St. Stephan’s Basilica, Parliament, the Labyrinth, the Terror House, and a bathhouse.

After breakfast, we started out towards the Nyugati Railway Station. It was built by the Eiffel company (best known for the Parisian tower of the same name), but the Hungarians are not overly concerned with its upkeep. It’s a bit dirty and now home to a McDonald’s and a disco. From the station, we headed out to St. Stephan’s and Parliament. St. Stephan’s, named for Hungary’s first Christian king, is the largest church in the country. It is absolutely stunning, and apparently so sturdy that it was used to safeguard important documents and artwork during the bombardments of World War II. The decoration is stunning (gilding, gilding everywhere) and on such a scale that I can’t imagine the mind that conceived of it.

Parliament is equally impressive; “it mixes a predominant neo-Gothic style with a neo-Renaissance dome” and is the most identifiable landmark on the Pest side of the Danube. Unfortunately, do to an unruly protest the previous week (in which the state television station was temporarily overrun and 150 people, 102 of which were police officers, were injured) the building itself was heavily guarded, with barricades preventing anyone from getting too close. When we were there, the protests had turned into a cultural fair. Crazy Hungarians.

At about 11am, we arrived at the House of Terror, 60 Andrassy Boulevard. This seemingly innocuous residential building was home to political torture and murder under two separate, bloody regimes. Near the end of WWII, the Nazis set up a Hungarian puppet regime, know as ArrowCross. Under this government, Budapest’s Jewish population, which had thus far weathered the war relatively intact was set upon with an unmatched vehemence (including people being tied together and thrown alive into the freezing waters of the Danube). In addition, anyone considered politically dangerous was imprisoned and tortured and at times executed at 60 Andrassy. As the Soviet Army rolled through Hungary, which much difficultly, especially in moving from Buda to Pest, they brought with them the obligatory political officers, whose first task was to set up a political police (indeed, Orwell’s “thought police”), which immediately took over the Andrassy building, settling into nearly 50 years of uninterrupted savagery. Boys as young as 16 were imprisoned, tortured, and executed here. One famous case had to do with a priest and several Catholic schoolboys, accused to killing Soviet soldiers (a ridiculously invented charge), the priest and three of the boys (ages 16-17) were executed and the rest sentenced to hard labor. It was an incredibly moving, difficult tour. The history, the suffering of the place was incredible.

The final room of the tour was the “hall of victimizers” where the pictures of members of ArrowCross and Communists were hung. I was amazed as to how many of them were alive and seemingly unpunished. I really want to believe that at least some of those people were not truly “evil at heart” but instead maybe through coercion, confusion, or simply the need to protect those closest to them, ended up in a role they didn’t really want. But then, who really knows?

So, after the Terror House tour, it was about 1pm and it was lunch time. We actually ended up back at the same restaurant that we couldn’t get into on Thursday. It was maybe the best meal I had in Budapest – chicken with mozzarella and tomatoes and potatoes. It was lovely. Anyway, the Terror House had taken longer than we anticipated, so we were left with some choices to make. There were three time-consuming things left that we wanted to do: the caves, the bathhouse, and Statue Park (where all the old Communist statues are on display). After some discussion, we decided that we were Communisted-out so was nixed Statue Park and compromised on the other two – the caves we would do that evening and go to the bathhouse the next morning, since our train didn’t leave until 2:30.

The caves were quite interesting; they are a natural formation, though further excavated and fortified by generations of people. They are now decorated in a kind of “evolution of humanity” theme, starting with reproductions of cave drawings until you get to what’s called the Renaissance grotto, with a fountain that flows with red wine instead of water (a waste of perfectly good wine, I think). There’s also a sort of puzzle room, intended for kids, but I found I was almost too much of a wuss to do it myself. The game is that, while you were exploring the caves, someone has stolen the sun, and you have to find it again. You enter through a door and grab hold of a little cord along one wall. Once the door closes, you are plunged into absolute darkness, and you have to follow the cord around a maze to “find the sun.” It’s quite an experience if you’ve got a bit of claustrophobia or you’re just a big old scared-y-cat (like me), because at times, it feels as though the walls are closing in around you or that with your next step you’ll drop off the face of the earth. Neither happened, thankfully, and we eventually “found the sun” and our way out. The final section of the caves was the “caves of the future” which was a mock archeological dig from 40 million years in the future. They found things like shoe prints, cell-phones, and coke bottles embedded in the rock. Very amusing, though a bit silly.

The caves took us several hours to complete, so it was nearly dinner time before we got out. We wandered around the castle district and looked at some souvenir shops (I ended up buying myself something, I can never resist spending money) before heading on a tour that would take us towards our chosen restaurant in an area of Buda known as Watertown. We walked for a bit down a prettyish main street known as Fo Utca until we reached our dinner destination for the evening, which was a French restaurant. It was a bit more expensive than I had hoped, but the food was very good and the service excellent. In general, we were amazed by the level of English and general politeness that we encountered. Most places like Prague get a bit tired of us tourists, but we were made to feel very welcome in Budapest. Mark had some sort of sweetbread thing (which I think is not really bread, right?) and I had a turkey and curry dish. It wasn’t the least be spicy but still quite tasty. So, after dinner, we headed out around Watertown to see several churches, a Capuchin Church and two Catholic ones – St. Anne’s and St. Elizabeth’s. St. Anne’s was almost destroyed in the 1950s by the communist leader who thought that Stalin would be offended by seeing it from the Parliament windows across the river. Fortunately, that plan was never carried out. We ended our pleasant, if not spectacular walk at the Margaret Bridge (there’s also an Elizabeth bridge!) and headed back to the hostel. We were both so exhausted that we turned in almost immediately on getting there.

Day 4: We got up very early and pack everything we could, except our bathing suits, so that we could head to the Gellert Baths for our last morning in Budapest. Gellert is both a stunning, five star hotel and Budapest’s most famous bathhouse. The entry fees are a little confusing, but in the end we figured out that for 3000 forints each, we got up to four hours in the pool and thermal baths as well as private changing cabins (one for each of us, of course!). If we stayed less than four hours, we would get a bit of a refund. After changing, we headed into the main pool area. It’s absolutely beautiful. Our first stop was the mixed gender (thus fully clothed!) thermal bath area, where we sat and enjoyed the waters. It was just perfect after two days of hard walking. After relaxing, chatting, and people watching, we went into the pool for a while. The water was so cold, I almost couldn’t get in. To own the truth, Mark had to pull me in. We swam a couple of laps and enjoyed the jets and cool water for a while before heading back to the thermal bath again.

Unfortunately, we could only stay about 90 minutes and then had to leave so that we wouldn’t miss our train. After a good shower to get the sulfur water out of my hair, we left and headed back to the hostel for lunch and our bags. We went to a restaurant recommended by the hostel manager, which was quite good but turned out to be very expensive. In fact, we ran out of forints! Thankfully, we both had Euros on us and they let us pay the remainder in that. Unfortunately, the waitress did the math very wrong and charged us 20 Euro for what should have been 2 Euro. It was clearly an honest mistake which we didn’t catch until after we left. I was really upset, and Mark offered to go argue, but I figured it wasn’t worth it.

So all that was left was to go to the train station. The beginning of the ride was nice and quite comfortable, until we reached Bratislava. I think the entire population of Slovakia got on the train. There were people and bags completely filling the hall. I was getting hungry, but we decided to wait until Brno, hoping people would get off. Enough did to let us squeeze up to the dining car. Unfortunately, however, it was full, mostly with people not interested in eating, who just wanted a place to sit. I can’t blame them entirely, in retrospect, but at the time I was so hungry and exhausted that I just lost it and started crying. We stood at the door to the dining car for about 30 minutes when finally somebody from first class got up and left and we took their table. The food was passable, if not great, and mostly it was food! After eating, we went back to our seats for the end of the journey. I got home around 10, I think. Exhausted but pleased. Pictures.

Cesky Krumlov

Megan and I finally decided to do a longer trip. There are several very picturesque locations around the CZ, and we landed on Cesky Krumlov. This little city in South Bohemia is entirely protected as an Unesco Historical site. This of course means that the whole town in old, and mostly beautiful. While I'm sure this must sometimes be annoying to the residents, it makes for a wonderful weekend getaway. We woke up very early on Saturday to get to the bus and spent much of the early morning snoozing on the long ride there. When we arrived however we walked down the hill toward the town, marveling at its beauty as it came into site. We made it to our Hostel and dropped of our stuff, grabbed our guidebook and hit the town. The whole town is on a tight peninsula in the river, and so is actually quite small. After grabbing a light lunch we spent the entire afternoon wandering the streets taking photos, and reading about the history of this quaint little town. This is also where I learned about sgraffiti, which is a form of decoration on the outside of buildings. You will see many examples in my pictures.
We basically exhausted ourselves wandering the town, beginning with the castle, and then moving through every site we could find. By nightfall we were exhausted and hungry. A friend had recommended a little restaurant on the Vltava that prepares authentic medieval food. Though it was chilly, Megan and I managed to find a table sitting on the bank of the river (which we shared with several other tourists throughout the evening, though none of them spoke English). The food was excellent, though I did gorge myself a little much.
After dinner we wandered about the town looking for a reasonably quiet pub, and accidentally found ourselves in a residential part of town. We turned around to go back, when we heard music coming from the river along a little alley. We followed the sound (johnny Cash) to a little locals pub, where we ordered a beer and spent a couple hours talking, drinking and listening to music. After this we decided we had had a long enough day, and went to bed early.
The next morning we decided to go for a little horseback ride through the nearby hills. They insisted we wear helmets which was briefly a problem when they couldn't find one to fit my giant head. The ride was quite nice, but a little restrictive. Afterwards we basically had lunch and sampled one of the local beers and then headed back up the hill for our bus. Pictures.

Krivoklat

We made a short day trip to a castle called Krivoklat on Saturday. The town was tiny leaving little to do outside the castle, and while the castle was very interesting, it was also quite small. We had to hike up a little hill to get there providing a lovely view of the Czech countryside, and we got to play around on the walls a bit, and visit the Krivoklat dragon. Afterwards we had a very good traditional Czech meal at a little restaurant situated below the castle walls, but sitting on a cliff overlooking the river. Pictures

Scottish Festival

This weekend we made a trip with our friends Rob and Marta. Rob claims Scottish heritage and definitely enjoys their history and such, so we went to the Czech Scottish Festival. It was being held in North Bohemia at a relatively new castle. The grounds were beautiful and we spent a good portion of the day just wandering around enjoying the nature. There were a few problems like the overwhelming presence of yellow jackets everywhere and the lines for refreshments and food were ridiculous, but otherwise it was the weather was very nice and we got to see a lot of kilts. They had displays form several different Scottish eras, and we saw a little parade. In the end the most important event, the Tabor Toss, didn't start until after we had to leave to catch our train. I did get to see most of the birds of prey show, however, which really made my day. Check out the pictures

Kost

So we found a castle that has never been Baroqued. Dead in the center of a part of the Czech Republic called Bohemian Paradise. The castle is unique in that it was not built on a hill or mountain. The owner wanted it to be hard to find so he built it on a small stone outcropping in a valley. You hardly notice it until you are upon it. In fact we had to hike there from the nearest city in the rain, and we didn't even realize we had arrived until we were practically at the door. However the castle was really impressive and still maintains the impression that it was built for war or defense, not for rich people to hang out in. Also Kost is still privately owned which is where I got the idea that it would be really cool to own a castle. How cool would it be to wander out of your castle in a bathrobe and cup of coffee and chat with your tourists?
Anyway we took the castle tour and lots of pictures of the surrounding countryside. This part of Bohemia has dozens of castles in close proximity so you can even see several of them along the way. We had lunch at a little local place where I think I ate a sparrow, but am not quite sure. It was after this trip I think that Megans mom coined the term "castling" to describe our weekend jaunts. Pictures...

Konopiste

Going through the castle map we happened upon another nearby castle, that I noticed was right next to my friends Kate's home. We decided to give it a shot, and I texted Kate to tell her we were coming. We took the train, which took almost an hour, mainly because it's a communter train, and Kate met us at the station. The walk up to the castle is mostly through the castle grounds which are now a state park. The day was sunny and warm and a walk through the gardens was very relaxing and fun.
The castle is the first I've seen that has bears in residence in the former moat. So you see several pictures of that. We wandered the grouds for a while, includin gthe famous rose gardens. Eventually Kate had to leave, and Megan and I stopped for lunch at the Barrel Restaurant for some Klobasa. We went back up to the castle and did one of the tours which I think we both really enjoyed. The last owner of the castle was the guy whose assasination sparked WW1. Afterwards we walked back into teh nearby town of Benesov and got some pictures of their cathedral and what appears to be a single remaining Cathedral wall fragment. Someday I will translate all the explanatory sign I take pictures of. Speaking of which...

Dresden

My 90 days was up. I had to get out of the country, but I was also broke, so I decided on Dresden Megan had been there twice before and had had a reasonably bad trip each time. I was hoping to at least have a pleasant day. In fact I was very happy. We followed a walking tour out of Megan's guidbook which took us around the city to see all the beautiful and historic buildings. This year is a big anniversary for Dresden and they have been trying really hard for over a decade to get the place repaired from WW2 and 50 years of communism. They've done a great job. The only scaffolding was over the front of the royal palace. You can see from my photos that the skyline has been fully repaired. We had lots of time so we strolled for most of the day, and it was mostly not too hot. There are some really romantic spots and lots of fountains and parks in Dresden so it was nice to be strolling along. We managed to have some traditional german food in the shadow of a beautiful cathedral. I also had my first opportunity to compare authentic German beer to my beloved Czech beer, and while the German beer was good, I must say it doesnt compare favorably. In the end Megan finally had a nice visit to Dresden and I got my passport stamp. Pictures...

Stare-Boleslav

Aidrian informed us of a little town practically on the Prague public transit system that has a castle and such, so Megan and I got up Saturday and made our way to Stare Boleslav. This is actually two towns on either side of the Elbe (Czech Labem), that united as one town. One one side is a little "castle" that protected the river crossing and on the other are several very pretty churches. We went to the castle which is not fully renovated but very cute, and then crossed the river. The main church is very old and while the Romans were never in the town it's built in Romanesque style. Inside are some of the earliest frescoes in Europe. There was a wedding in the church so we moved on and explored the town a bit promising to return. When we got back the wedding was over so we went in. While we were looking about this young man came and said something in Czech I responded telling him that we didn't speak Czech. THen he fetched an older woman and said something to her. Finally in English he asked if we would like a tour. We said sure and we joined a group who was following the older woman and he basically translated for her to us. The church has a shrine that was an older church and is the place where Saint Winceslas was murdered. For many years his body was entombed here, but was later removed to Prague.
After the main tour, the young man took us out and showed us the fresoes, which had been locked up before. He offerred to take us to see the other church as well, but we declined, having accepted enough from the young man.
Afterwards we went to a late lunch in town, and then headed home. Pictures...

Karlstein

The nearest and most popular castle to Prague, besides Prague castle, is Karlstein. It's a fairy tale hilltop castle surrounded by woodlands and a quaint little town that has basically been renovated to serve the tourists. Curtis had been there before but had told me that he would want to return. So Megan and I grabed him for a daytrip out. The train trip is really quite short, and we were walking up the hill before we knew it. The castle is really everything everyone says it is, especially when you see it for the first time from afar. We toured around the castle, and then went for a trop on the wooded trails. I felt a little bad because we happened upon a mother deer in a clearing and scared her away form her baby, but we left the baby in peace, so hopefully all was well. What's worse is that on the way home I got hit with a huge allergy attack and was sick the rest of the weekend. Megan was very kind and took care of me, and even wandered around aimlessly trying to find a weekend pharmacy to buy drugs, but we failed. Pictures...

Megan's Birthday

So I write this at the conclusion of a birthday party. I have spent the last two days making the Megan's daily routine and the preparations for her party appear as effortless as possible. On thursday night I snuck a decent frying pan into her house, and on Friday morning (after a secret trip to the grocery store) I prepared home made pancakes. I also created a wonderful apple syrup from scratch which was just perfect.
For the party saturday night Megan wanted a pretty wide variety of snack foods from a list of potentials I had sent her in advance. I cooked a few of them before the guests arrived, but kept a few in reserve. Once everyone began to arrive I basically turned myself into host so that Megan could mix mingle and drink without worrying about everyone else. I kept the food table fully stocked so that everyone had plenty and the wine and booze flowing. Curtis ans Anne began doing yoga and Adrian and the girls ocupied the "jukebox" to keep the music entertaining. In the end I let the last few people out around 6am (Megan had been asleep for hours).
Overall I would say that Megan had a very pleasant birthday, and that I helped make that happen.

The Golden Pig

I was teaching a class the other day that mostly revolved around advertising. I asked the student to describe for me her favorite tv commercial. She thought a bout it for a while and was describing it. Basically it's a scene of a father and daughter in the woods talking. They are having a nice little chat when the conversation rolls around to the christmas golden pig...
"Excuse me?" I interrupted, being a terrible mistake for a teacher when the student is producing well, but I thought there might be a translation error.
"The Christmas golden pig," she repeated.
"Pig? Like oink oink pig?"
"Yes"
"It's golden?" She gave me a couple of czech words which basically mean gold covered or gilded, which verified that I had not misheard, and that she had not mistranslated.
"What does this have to do with Christmas?" I asked a little befuddled. I mean I understand that all cultures celebrate holidays differently and I have already come to terms with the fact that the presents at christmas here are delivered by a flying baby jesus, but golden pigs?? Come on! I thought she was pulling my leg. However it turns out that children here are taught to fast all day for Christmas until the evening meal. If they manage not to eat at all they are promised to see the golden pig. Apparently if you see the golden pig then you are supposed to get a wish or something to that effect.
I had basically forgotten whatever it was I was supposed to be teaching, and kept mumbling things about gloden pigs for Christmas.
For the next week I went around asking everyone if they knew that there was a Golden Christmas Pig. I keep imagining gilded pigs running around the Czech countryside hiding from naughty little children who eat on Christmas.

Melnik

On the long train ride back from Kutna Hora, Megan and I read through the guidebook that we had carried there. One of the more interesting and easily reached places is a small town just north of Prague called Melnik. There is of course a cathedral of note, a small castle (really more of a palace), but most interesting is that it lies at the heart of Bohemian wine country. Generally Bohemia is not known for wine, but this little town and the fields that surround it are dedicted to this and have been for centuries. Most of the vines orginated in the burgandy growing area of France. After the last few weeks of heavy walking, Megan and I thought wine country sounded just fantastic, so on Saturday morning we got up and headed to the bus. It was a quick one hour ride and we had stopped to get a map in advance this time, so that we might not get lost repeatedly. Melnik was actually quite small and we managed pretty well. Shortly after we arrived, there was a small parade through the center of town and we stopped in the square to watch it pass. After that we went for a little lunch, which unfortunately took forever, but soon we were on our way to the wine cellar. The church was definitely worth seeing, and has an attached bone church, which we missed (though I have heard it is unimpressive compared to the one at Kutna Hora). We went into the castle and found the area for the wine cellar tour. Here's how it works. You pay some money and they send you alone into the wine cellar to look around and read about it's history and the history of the region. Then you go back to the shop and they hand you a small wine glass, and send you down into another part of the cellar where there are several barrels topped with the various vintages from the winery. They give you a description of the different wines to read and leave you alone to taste and try them. Megan and I managed to get through most of them and it was fun to try them and compare them. Oh I almost forgot, they give you little bits of bread to clean your palate between bottles. Finally the place was closing up, and Megan and I had to make our way back to the bus and head back to town. we cooked dinner that night creating a fun little chicken parmesan, and then we were both beat so we crashed out. Pictures..

Kutna Hora (take two)

It turns out that Megan had never been to see the bone church, and when I went to Kutna Hora that's all I saw since the group ended up at a pub getting drunk (http://markwright.blogspot.com/2005/11/rest-of-weekend.html). We decided to take a daytrip down there and this time see as much as possible. We got up early on Saturday and hopped a train. An hour later we were walking over to the bone church (kostnice). I made the trip inside a second time, and it was worth seeing again. This time there was more daylight which made it less creepy, but still very interesting. Megan took lots of pictures, and we headed off to explore. The first thing I wanted to do was find the little pub that we had stopped in at last time I was there, and despite a few wrong turns I managed to find it. It had started to rain a bit while we were searching so I hoped that we could go in and have a drink while we waited out the rain. unfortunately the place was closed, so we had to continue to walk in the rain.
From there we were heading into the main part of Kutna Hora where there is an incredible church and several other sights worth seeing. unfortunately I took a wrong turn and the map sucked so we had a little touble finding the place, but eventually we got there. I was very excited and we wandered around looking at everything for several hours. The big cathedral (St. Barbara's) was really something. Anyway, after that we headed off to get something to eat and drink and found a great little restaurant and brewery called Dacicky's and had some spectacular food and great beer. After that we headed back to the train, but I managed to get us lost again, and we took a very scenic route. In the end we made it back, but the train was rerouted and took us two hours to get home stopping at every little village that had put out a wooden patio by the railway.
We finally made it home however, and met up with Scott, Adrian, Matt, and several others for some fun latin dance music at a little local dance pub. Megan and I called it a night around 2am however, as it had been a long day. Because I had been there before I stupidly didn't bring my camera so the photos are from my camera phone. Pictures...

Vysehrad

Megan had never visited Vysehrad castle which is a shame because it's actually on the Prague metro, so I decided to take her. I myself had not been there since Curtis and I went in November (http://markwright.blogspot.com/2005/11/day-out-with-curtis.html). This time the trees and flowers were all in bloom, and it was realy much more like walking through a great big park with small ruins laying here and there. I was able to guide Megan a bit, since I had been there with Curtis, and I knew a little more about it from studies sinec that time. Also, though I can by no means speak Czech, my ability to read it has made some small progress, and I was able to read more of the signs and such since last I was there. Also since I had been there last, they have opened a new little museum called the Goticky Sklep (Gothic Cellar). There were several wonderful displays from the architectural digs about the site, as well as history and legend about Vysehrad. I found it very educational and entertaining.
The weather held out for us most of the day and we wandered through the parks and flowering trees. Eventually we headed to the beer garden that sits atop the hilll overlooking the city. We ordered drinks and sat outside, but the weather turned on us finally and we had to head indoors. Fortunately the bad weather was shortlived and we headed back out for some sausage outside. Shortly after that we headed back home and relaxed after all the walking.

Eight Years Ago!!

I was teaching a class that largely revolves around different types of national issues from homelessness to crime. The interesting thing about many of the Czechs is that they have lived for so long in a closed society. Though travel has of course opened up for them dramatically since the revolution, they are still sometimes restricted by money or motivation. In any case, I am often astounded by the perspectives they have. Today the issue was crime.
One of the more interesting things about living in the Czech Republic is the near absence of violent crime. In fact, except for a few pickpockets and the occasional mugging there is almost no crime at all. You can see this exemplified every day in the way they behave. The first time you see an 8 year old riding around the city's public transport alone be prepared for a little holier than thou shock. However, the one that really gets me is that mothers out for a days shopping will often leave their babies in their strollers outside the front door while inside. I'm not kidding. At first I thought this was insanity, but then remembered where I am. It's simply unthinkable for most Czechs that someone would do something horrible to their baby.
The point is that when I brought this topic up in class, the students' first reaction was to say that crime was out of control. We talked about that for a while, until I got them to admit that it was worse than it used to be, but that in comparison, was quite low. As part of my arguement I brought up the story about the babies. One of my students was quite surprised. She said Czech mothers are very responsible (which I have found to be very true), and that she thought they were being more careful. I asked why, and she said "well, we had a kidnapping eight years ago, and everyone was very concerned." I rest my case.

Many Cultured Weekend

Thurdsday night I had a bender. My friend Ian showed up at pub night and mentioned that it had been a while since he had a 5am night. This seemed like a challenge, so after pub night we went off with Scott and played darts and pool, and drank until well after 5am.
On friday, Megan decided to cook me dinner, having partaken in my culinary skills now for several months. Our plan was to have another outdoor weekend, but the forecast was against us. In any case Megan prepared a chopsky salad, paprika chicken, and dumplings. It was of course delicious, and there were plenty of leftovers. After dinner, we headed over to Matt's place for a little house party. We were the first there, though we arrived over half an hour late, and the party was a little slow to get moving. Eventually Chris and Scott arrived, and everyone started drinking and having fun. I went out on the balcony with Scott for a while, whicle Megan discussed poetry with Chris and Matt. Later in the night four Spanich girls that Matt's roommate invited came in, drank 2 bottles of rum, and began dancing and singing. It was an interesting introduction into their culture, as they showed us a traditional dance of Southern Spain, and sang what I gathered were traditional songs. One of them was even so nice as to give me her address and phone number in Spain should I ever visit. However, I was still pretty beat from my bender on Friday, and the girls didn't speak much English (Scott and Matt's roommate speak spanish), so I headed home with Megan around 1am.
Saturday night we met up with Scott for what is arguably the best svickova in town. We ate dinner and chatted over pivo for a couple of hours. After that we went off to see a band that includes Scott's celebrity student Mira. This man is some kind of local Czech rock star, and simply oozes charm and goodwill. Apprently his wife is also pretty famous. At least famous enought o be recognized. In any case the band was an interesting mix, and played a wide variety of songs though the most fun for me were The Girl from Ipanema and Lili Marlen. These were two of their softer tunes, but there was plenty of good rocking and a little pop as well. As Scott said you never what's coming up next. Megan and i left Scott with Mira around midnight or so (might have been earlier).
Sunday the weather was cold and rainy, so we just stayed in, but on Monday the weather cleared up for Mayday. The first of may is something akin to our Valientine's Day. Traditionally you are supposed to take your girld to the top of Petrin hill and kiss her under a flowering tree (there is some dispute as to specific types of tree). I couldn't miss the opportunity so Megan and I headed out to Ptrin Hill. Curtis wanted to meet us and spend the day, since we hadn't seen each other in months, so we met at the bottom of the hill and began the climb. There is a small moastary called Strahov at the back of the hill. This was our destination. Megan and I went in to take a peak at the interior of the library, though very little is accessible as the monastery is still in use. We found a lovely little flowering tree for our customary smooch, and then met back up with Curtis for the walk down. Back in mala Strana we ate lunch at a spectacular Mexican Restaurant, and decided we were not ready to call it a day. We walked over to a spectacular baroque garden called the Wallenstein garden. After that we took a tram up to the Royal Gardens, and strolled on through those into Letna Park. We walked past the anti-communist rally held at the base of what was once a giant Stalin statue, and on over to the beer garden that overlooks Prague from the north. We had a drink and the sperated with Curtis. Megan and I walked back to her place, where I gathered up my stuff and headed home. I had not brought my camera, so pictures will have to wait on Curtis and Megan.

Zoo

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love animals. They bring out the little kid in me, and often make me a little giddy. This of course translates perfectly to a love of zoos. Zoos are the perfect blend of child and adult themepark. A proper zoo has rides, balloons, bright shiny colors, and if possible touchable animals. Combine all that with the educational plaques, beautiful views, and hopefully decent food, and you get a wonderland of entertainment. I could wander a zoo for days, and come back a week later and be amazed. Needless to say I have been anticipating a zoo trip since my arrival in Prague. The worst part is that the zoo is walking distance from my house. The day finally arrived on Saturday. The weather was beautiful. Sunny with just a few clouds in the sky, warm enough not to wear a jacket, but not so much as to be uncomfortable. Megan and I started the trek from my house, which gives us two options. We can follow the road around, which is the easier route I would say, or we can cut over Troja hill and go through the large botanical gardens. We, of course, chose the latter. The large park is beautiful, and just beginning to flower and bud. Lots of people were of course out on this fine spring day, and we made a few discoveries, including some spectacular childrens playgrounds (that it took great personal restraint to stay out of) and some community firepits (which I hope to take advantage of). The long walk ended in our arrival at the zoo. The Prague zoo is magnificent, though not all the exhibits were ready for the season, yet, so I will have to go back. Megan and I managed to show up at every exhibit just before the crowd arrived, so we were lucky not to get trampled too much. About midday we stopped at a little grill and got some klobasa, then headed down to the chairlift that runs between the top part of the zoo and the bottom part. Finally we headed into the childrens zoo to pet the sheep, goats,and Llammas with the other kids (though Megan clearly has more difficulty finding her inner child than I do). We ended the day with the walk home, which was uphill, and so more difficult after a day of walking, and dinner at the italian restaurant in my building. Pictures

Easter Weekend

Easter weekend was mostly quiet. I had very few plans. I went to Pub night as usual on Thursday with dancing after. On Friday my friend and colleague Anne had planned a little dart night at Harleq'in. Megan, Aidrian, Rob, Marta, Matt, and I all showed up to toss a few darts. most people slowly dissappeared, but as the night grew long, Anne talked Megan, Aid and I into going to the Piano Bar, though i'll admit I needed little convincing. Aid and Megan were the toughest. Aid had plans to go out of town with Rob and Marta the next day, but in the end he joined us. We wandered over to the Piano bar making a couple of stops on the way. At one bar we were refused draft beer becasue they were "out". This was my first lesson in attempts by bar owner to increase their margins using the late night crowd. In the end, we made it to Piano bar. Unfortunately there was no Piano playing for the night, but we did get a very fun drag variety show. Lip synching, dresses, wigs, et al. Around 4am Megan and I decided to leave, though Aid and Anne stuck around. I got directions from Aid to make sure I got home ok, and verified those directions with Anne. That's really when th night started to fall apart. Megan was exhaisted to the point of being nearly incapacitated. We followed the directions given, but after a fw minutes of walking realized we were going in the wrong direction. We found the nearest tram stop, and decided to wait for the next tram in our direction, as it was not long due. It came promptly, and took us over to IP Pavlova, where we could catch the last night bus back to my neighborhood, at 4:45. We hopped on , and to keep Megan distracted from her exhaustion, I went through her Czech flash carsd with her. Apparently the driver decided not to finish his route, something I still don't understand. We realized this after about 20 minutes on the bus and we were passing Muzeum. Shortly thereafter we arrived back at IP Pavlova. Now about 5:15 we went down to take the Metro which starts at 5am. Eventually it rolled into the station and took us to Kobylisy, while Megan tried to catch a nap. At Kobylisy we had to wait for the first morning bus to take us home, which didn't pull up until almost 5:45. We finally managed to get home around 6am or thereabouts. Sometime during all of this, I had promised Megan that she would have a completely lazy sleep day on Saturday, so that's what she got.

The search for Einbahn

Megan and I went to Vienna on Saturday. I was well overdue for a trip out of the country, both morally and legally, but I wanted to do something different than the standard trip to Dresden which is by far the shortest and easiest trip to make. In any case we bought the tickets Friday afternoon and had an early night as the train would be leaving at 6am. We were runninga little late on the way in in the morning, but so was the train so we got on our way a little before 7am. The train ride was mostly uneventful as we were both very tired and slept for the bulk of the trip. Unfortunately the listed time it takes to get to Vienna is incorrect so we got a little concerned as we passed our arrival time while still in the Czech Republic. There was also a brief fright when the Czech border guard stared a little long at my passport, probably wondering why this was my first trip out of the country (Americans are only allowed to stay for 90 days at a stretch). In the long run we finally made it to Vienna at about noon. The map I had downloaded of the internet only included historic Vienna, so we had to find our way from the South Train Station to what is called "the Ring". The Ring is basically a semicircle around Vienna where most of the historic buildings are. The plan was to stroll around this boulevard, ad then cross the center to see St. Stephens Cathedral, then head up to the Danube and maybe get a glimpse of the giant Ferris Wheel. The problem of course is finding the Ring from the Train Station. On the bright side, I picked the right path and it led us into town. Once more or less near the ring it can actually be a little hard to figure out which street it is, until you know. There were lots of signs that said where to go and what to see, so with a little triangulation we managed to find our way onto the ring. This might have gone quicker excpet there was one sign that kept confusing me. it pointed in several different directions and seemed often to conflict with the other signs that were slowly but surely leading us to the Ring. I finally decided to ignore it and find the site on the map later after we were on the ring. Later in the day I compained to Megan that I kept seeing this sign everywhere and wondered what it was. It must clearly be an important site, because there were signs all over the city. She looked at the sign which read "Einbahn". She looked at me and said, "that means 'one way' dear." I laughed. Good for me, at least I didn't try to follow them.
We had lunch at a South American restaurant that was very good, and ten wandered the city for most of the day. We managed to circle the ring and see many of the historic buildings, and also have some time wandering the cobblestone streets in the center around the Cathedral. We took a tour of the catacombs, but though it was very interesting, they were by and large disappointing. By the time we got to the Danube we were pretty beat, and decided that the distance view of the giant Ferris Wheel woudl have to do, as we still had a long walk back to the train station. On the way we stopped at a cafe to have a drink and then, xince we arrived quite early at the station, I sat down for a cup of coffee. Eventually we boarded our train which left at around 6:30, and started the long journey back to Prague. We ate dinner on the train, a first for both of us, and then napped and talked in our compartment until we finally got home around midnight.
All in all Vienna was a spectacular city. The architecture is grand, and elegant, and everything is gilded. The parks were already green, and the trees were budding, and we were blessed with a warm and sunny day. However, it was good to get home to Prague. Pictures.