Czech Me Out, I'm in Praha

Hey everyone!!! Sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I just got back from travel break number two of two. It is really scary how fast everything here has gone (I am warning you now, I am sure just about every post from here on out is going to say something along those lines at least once). It feels like yesterday that we were on our first travel break at Paddy's Palace and going to the wrong airport in Scotland, and we are already done with our second travel break more than a month after that! Anyway, just like most of my travels, this past break was incredible. We started off with all 78 students at the castle for our "required" trip to Prague (Or Praha as it is spelled in Czech). Again it was like, "Oh no...I HAVE to go to Prague for 4 nights...Damn." After Prague I met up with my friend Allie from back home in Paris.

Like our London travel break, this one started on Thursday (November 15th) morning with a 5:30am wake up call. It was tough, but I was excited for Prague that I barely realized how early it was. Someone here called it the "Disneyland Effect." When you were little and you went to Disneyland, you had to get up super super early, but you didn't really care because you knew you were going to Disneyland and were so excited. Now just picture Disneyland as a former communist Eastern European country, and you know exactly how I felt. We got on a bus and drove to the Cologne airport. We did not fly Ryanair (Thank God) so we were allowed to bring one bag with us. Of course, knowing this, I over packed like crazy so I had to drag around this big heavy bag with me the entire trip. It wasn't that bad though.

We got on the plane and landed in Prague in under two hours (I love how short European flights are). We picked up our bags and loaded onto another bus that would take us to our apartments. Yes. You heard right. Apartments. We went from the shitty County Hotel in London, to GORGEOUS apartments in Prague. I was staying with Blake, and Anh Phan (one of the RAs) in an apartment fit for 5. It had a full kitchen, two floors, and a terrace that overlooked the city of Prague.




The downstairs




Upstairs


The way out to the terrace


Me and Blake on the terrace




Our view.

After checking into our apartments, we walked around for a little bit, made some dinner (It was really nice to have a kitchen because we were able to save a lot of money on food), and went to bed early.

The next morning I woke up around 7:30 or 8. I took a shower and got ready and then went downstairs for breakfast. After breakfast we took a walking tour of Prague that was kind of boring, but it was nice to see the amazing city. A lot of us were talking one night, and we were saying how we can't describe what it is about the city, but something about it is so incredible. You just get such a great feeling in the air. It was one of my favorite cities I've been, and I think a lot of people felt the same way.













Rene and Chester Lee with a map of Prague

We had a short break for lunch, and then we went up to the Prague castle. It's not really a castle like where I am staying, more like a big fortress on the hill where the King lived. To get there though, of course, you had to climb a million stairs...




Blake and my friend Amanda climbing the stairs (This picture describes why Amanda is so amazing)

The stairs were a bitch...


But the view from the top was amazing!

The entire time we were in Prague, I just felt like I was in a movie set. After looking, I found out that a lot of movies were surprisingly filmed in Prague.

The castle was nice, but nothing really special. We were done with the castle and started to walk back to the apartments when someone told us we should go see the John Lennon wall. I had never heard about it, but it was really cool. It is a wall with a bust of John Lennon in it, and everyone signs the wall and there is cool graffiti on it.




After a quick dinner, I walked over to the opera. People in History of European music was required to go see it, but I paid a few euros to get a ticket for myself. We saw Don Giovanni at the same theatre where it premiered back in 1787. It was a beautiful theatre and after walking in, I realized that it was the same place where they filmed part of the movie Amadeus. At the end of every year in high school chorus, we would watch that movie, so it was cool to see where it was filmed.





The opera was good. I had never been to the opera before, so I am glad I will be able to say that not only did I see an opera, but that I saw it in Prague. However I think that I need more of a plot to enjoy myself.

The next morning (Saturday the 17th) we broke off into groups again and went back up to the castle for a tour of a museum. I don't know what museum it was, all I know is that my guide talked about one picture for 45 minutes. It was really boring. I like museums, but I like to go at my own pace. I get really really bored and irritated when we have to focus on one piece of art for more than my attention span can handle. Luckily that was the only thing that we had to do that day.

Later that night, the Residence Life staff (Johnny and Rene) organized a dinner at a traditional Czech restaurant. It was good, but I didn't really notice much difference from food I am used to.


Me and Caroline at dinner


Me and my friend John


Spencer, Blake, Me, John, and Rene

After dinner, everyone was going to "The Biggest Club in Central Europe." I was already tired and clubs are not my thing to start with (They make me really anxious and uncomfortable) so I decided to just go back and sleep, which turned out to be the best choice.

The next morning everyone was hung over and running on about 3 hours of sleep. We ate breakfast and then boarded a bus to go about an hour outside of Prague to Terezin, a former Jewish ghetto and prison.

This was the most emotional day I have had since I got to Europe, and probably one of the most emotional days of my entire life. In Terezin there is something called the "Small Fortress." It was built in the 1800s as a fortress but was never used. It then turned into a prison for people who went against the government. During WWII It was also used to send Jewish prisoners. It was not a concentration camp. There was no gas chamber, no one was killed on purpose, and it was not only Jews who went there (The guy who shot Archduke Ferdinand was sent there). There were tens of thousands of people however who died there because of malnutrition, overwork, and disease. The living conditions were horrible and it was so eerie to think about what used to go on on the exact soil that I was standing on. The entire time we were in the small fortress, people were holding back tears. After we were done there, we got back on the bus and drove over the crematorium.

The crematorium was not built for any inhuman reasons, it was purely a place to be able to get rid of all the thousands of dead bodies. However it still had this evil feeling inside of it. You walked in and there were two furnaces, then you walked down two of three steps to a small empty space, then you walked up two or three more steps and there were two more furnaces (I could not get myself to take any pictures of anything because I do not want to remember it besides what is in my head). As I was about to pass through the small area of open space to get to the other end, a group of students and a few adults from Israel started saying prayers. They were all standing in a big circle crying and chanting these prayers. I stopped and was mesmerized by them. The entire time I was there, I just wanted to do something out of respect for everyone that had died here, but not being Jewish, I didn't know what to do. So when they all started saying these prayers and singing, I lost it. I looked around and everyone in the room, like myself, were hysterically crying. After about 10 or 15 minutes, they finished and everyone walked out. I didn't even see the other half of the building because I made eye contact with my friend Jessye and we just walked out arm in arm crying. When we got to the door, she turned to me and asked if I wanted to say a prayer with her. I said through big tears, "I don't know how to, but yeah." That was the first thing i could bear to say from the time we got off the bus a few hours earlier at the small fortress. We went out to a grave, and she said some prayer in Hebrew. We then were walking around the graveyard. At this point everyone was back on the bus except for me, her, David Packman and Ralph Trost (My World Since 1914 professor). We walked over to David and Ralph, and Ralph was amazing. He let us just stand there and look around, and then at the perfect time he said, "Alright, shall we go back on the bus?" We started walking toward the bus, and at the edge of the graveyard, he turned around and said "Now let's say goodbye." It was the perfect thing to do, and made me like that man even more than I did already.

On the bus ride home, I started feeling really really good. I think that I got out every single emotion that has been pent up inside of me for God knows how long. It was a very cathartic (Ooo SAT word...) moment.

We got back to Prague around 6. Knowing that everyone was going to be depressed and sad, Blake, Spencer and I decided to throw a party at our apartment for our last night in Prague. We were going to have a dinner party, but decided we didn't want to cook food for everyone, so we made it a pot luck dinner. At first we were just going to invite a few people because our apartment was not big enough to hold too many people, but when we tried to make a guest list, it just kept growing. It turned out that a lot more people came than we wanted to originally, but it worked out perfect. Everyone brought food and everyone found room to sit or stand or lie. Everyone had a lot of fun and it was one of the highlights of this semester.


Some of the food.






(I am not going to say who everyone is, because I will be here all day)


Jessye, Amanda, and Lauren


Me and Jessye


Me and Amanda


Blake, Spencer, Meredith, and me


Yup. Johnny and Rene (RD/Residence Life staff) came to our party!!


Jenna, Caitlin, John, and me


Blake and Spencer


Meredith eating the chocolate moose that David made, out of the pot.

The next morning (Monday the 19th) we woke up, ate breakfast and broke off into more groups. We toured the Municipal House, ate lunch, toured the Jewish quarter, and then were free to go on our travel breaks...

I am going to stop this entry and make a new one for the second leg of my travel break. Go get a drink of water, use the bathroom and come back to read the second half. I will however, leave you with the Prague shakey face picture...



I might not have the second half done until later tonight/tomorrow because I have to go to class. After 10 days without class, it is so hard to get back into the swing of things...Oh well. I live in a castle.