Prague Reflections

Sorry for the lag-time on this last Prague post...I know it was a while ago, but I still want to put it up.  Also, London is coming soon!

20. Oktober 2010

Just some things I thought about or found interesting on my trip:

1. I loved Prague. It’s a beautiful city – so full of culture and character – and the history, good, bad, beautiful and devastatingly moving lurks everywhere, just waiting to be remembered. What a place it is that can hold it all with such grace. I hope to go back someday! Being ¼ Czech myself, I’d like to have a greater knowledge of the language and history before I go, and I’d also like to venture away from the capital to see another side of the country.

2. Here are some things that made me react emotionally on my trip: Jewish History and Holocaust remembrances, beggars kneeling on the streets at night with their foreheads to the ground, their hats outstretched for almost before them, street musicians who play brilliantly, but can barely eke out a living, the willingness of so many Czech people to help me however they could in whatever language they could (even their language, when I couldn’t understand), even though I can barely speak five words in their language, the history – it’s everywhere and from every time period – and to me, the care and preservation of so much in spite of all that’s happened there gives me hope for the future. I’ve never seen a city that is so alive – not just the people’s visages, but the face of the city itself is alive with the past, present and future all at once.

3. Traveling alone suits me. I was apprehensive about it, but I shouldn’t have been. It’s freeing to not answer to anyone and experience a new place completely on your own terms. I never once was bored or lonely. Occasionally I was anxious, but that’s not so unusual for me. It was nice to have the company I had, and I’ll always be glad for a travel buddy, but now I’ll feel good should I decide to be independent. I think everyone should try taking a solo vacation once. If you haven’t…do it!

4. Having a student ID is awesome; it saved me so much money. Also, I found out I don’t like having to stop for lunch. It takes too long when I could be seeing things, and it’s too expensive. I took a bunch of fruit with me from home, and I will also bring small snacks with me next time. I honestly wasn’t that hungry because I’d eat a big breakfast at the hotel and by dinner when I was hungry, I’d really enjoy the meal. Win.

5. Prague “things”: colorful patterned scarves imported from Cashmere, Matryoschka dolls hand-painted in the area, ornately patterned, hand-decorated eggshell ornaments, hand-made marionettes, hand-made jewelry made by street vendors on the Charles Bridge, Czech glass and glassware items, hand-carved toys and Christmas ornaments.

6. The Metro: easy to use, fast and awesome. I’ll miss that.

7. It’s hard to get veggie food in Czech restaurants. Many have fixed menus and substitutions aren’t smiled upon. The Czech cuisine in general is meat-based, so it’s not easy. I’d really have liked to try some dumplings, but it really wasn’t feasible. Luckily for me, I can also get something similar in Germany, so I’ll have plenty of other opportunities. The food I did eat was all excellent. If you go to Prague, go to the Lesser Town area by crossing the Charles Bridge, go up Bridge Street turn right as if you were going to go to Prague Castle, and then turn left up Neruda Way. About halfway up the street, you’ll find a sign on the right side “All you can eat vegetarian food”. The restaurant is through the art gallery, across the courtyard and down the steps in the cellar. If you enjoy ethnic food, I promise you won’t be disappointed! The owner and atmosphere are authentic and you can’t beat the price!

8. Pick pockets were a large concern of mine…I wore a waist-belt for my money and passport. It worked great, and I never had to worry!

9. Prague is beautiful at night. Even though I was nervous about being out alone at night, there were tons of people around, and I felt relatively safe. (Minus the gypsy episode!) The lights on the castle, water, bridges and theatres are dazzling, and I wouldn’t have missed my night strolls for the world.

Hope you enjoyed my Prague saga! Get ready for London in two weeks!

Deine,
N*

Castles and Cameras and Hippies, Oh My!

18. Oktober 2010

 



St. Vitus Cathedral - front view





Sunday was a supremely enjoyable day spent at Prague Castle and Lesser Town. I regret to inform you that the only thing marring an otherwise perfect day was the death of my camera. It met a sudden, stony death on the stairs of the St. Vitus Cathedral. Maybe it can be fixed, but I’m doubtful. Buying a new camera in Germany was obviously not in the agenda, but I can’t live in Europe without a camera, now can I? I’ll see what I can do when I get back, but for now I’m doing without since disposable cameras here cost 12 euros…highway robbery. Not happening. Especially not when I’m surrounded by handmade Czech heaven wherever I look; I’d prefer to support the arts if I’m going to indulge in consumerism. Now on to more important things…





Prague Castle and Charles Bridge

 

As mentioned, I decided to visit Prague Castle. I opted for the long tour ticket so the art galleries were included. There was so much to see and read that it was quite overwhelming after a while, but well worth it. In Prague Castle itself, I enjoyed learning about the history of the place, especially about the way records were kept and how central heating was achieved for royalty. The castle experienced many changes along its history, which made the artifacts many and varied. St. George’s Basilica’s austere architecture coupled with well-placed artworks made it a good representative of its time period. Next came two galleries, each housing 19th and 17th c. artworks respectively. I saw my first live Titian in the second – a copy of which actually resided over my desk at school for several years – as well as works by Cranach, Manés and many Czech artists of whom I’d never heard, but whose works I found sweetly moving. If there’s one thing I’d like to



St. Vitus Cathedral - back view

have more time for on this trip, it is art galleries. Then I climbed the tower of the St. Vitus Cathedral (almost 300 steps), saw the complete panorama of the city before me and took many photos prior to my camera’s untimely death shortly thereafter. When I walked into the cathedral itself, what I saw left me breathless. The most exquisitely rendered stained-glass windows line the walls. The colors are so vibrant you can hear them. Looking at the church’s majesty from without, you would never imagine the veritable rainbow of pictures and patters that dazzle your eyes and imagination as you saunter along the perimeter. My penultimate stop was the Rosenberger palace. The set-up of how the rooms used to look was interesting, and it was amusing to imagine a friend of mine’s ancestors living there because he has the same last name. One of the portraits did bear a resemblance, haha, maybe he really is related to these Rosenbergers.

 

 

View down the hill from the castle



The palace tour took me all day and I neglected to eat lunch, so I walked through the Lesser Town Circle in search of victuals. I am a vegetarian, which is a bit of a shame while in the Czech Republic because eating a traditional meal is almost entirely out of the question for me. I’ll admit I was stressing a little about what to eat when the answer appeared around the corner as if by magic: All You Can Eat Vegetarian Restaurant, 150 crowns (About 6 Euros). Score. I walked down the stairs into the cellar restaurant and poked my head nervously around the doorframe. The restaurant owner, a man with long dreads and a young hippy-looking couple were the only ones occupying the small space below me.

“You hungry? Good. I make you the menu,” grinned the restaurant owner as he went over to the country to fill me a plate. In the meantime, the man with the dreads started an intent conversation with me. It turned out he was also from the U.S., but had been living in the Czech Republic for the last ten years. He’s a German lit. loving poet, who honestly stated that the skill to work at a language with enough ardor to speak it fluently is not a gift that everyone has. He said he “barely spoke Czech,” but that he loves the culture, and the people love him for trying. He also gave me the website of a woman who does a technique called touch drawing when he heard that I’m interested in using creative channels to get students interested in learning about Art History. He was quite the philosophical thinker, so I was sorry when he had to leave. It was only when he offered me his left hand to shake and introduced himself to me as Etienne that I noticed his right hand was missing. Etienne gave me his number in case I needed to find another veggie restaurant or wanted to get tea with him and told me where I could read his work. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more brazenly direct person in my life, and after two days alone, such an intellectual and earnest conversation was more than welcome.


 

View of Prague from St. Vitus Cathedral

 After that, it was just me and the owner in the restaurant. I ate delicious food – spinach and potato soup, cooked veggies in a tomato cream-based sauce with rice, a salad with corn kidney beans and olives, spicy apple chutney and yogurt sauce with cinnamony dough balls all accompanied by a cool apple tea. All the while the owner would smile at me and say “Yummy, yummy” or “It’s very tasty.” He also asked me if I’d met any Hare Krishna in Colorado. I had seconds of everything and when I told him it was one of the best meals I’d ever had, he just said, “I know.” So modest. After I finished, I went to pay and he cracked some jokes and then said, “Give me something.” I paid and gave him a tip. Then he gave me a “crunchy snack.” He said this while making chewing motions. I was really sorry to leave.

For the rest of the evening, I strolled through the Lesser Town area and explored the shops there before walking across the Charles Bridge and catching the metro home. The Prague lights make the cityscape into fairyland.

Deine,
N*

A Piece of Paradise

I’ve been meaning to write about my apartment for a while now, but I was holding off until I got the appropriate photographic documentation. Now that I have it, here goes:

I LOVE my apartment. I got so lucky; it’s both super-nice and super-affordable. I live on the second floor (American third floor) in the rental apartment above one of the teachers at my school’s houses. Her daughter lived here at one point, and as H says, “Stine ist zu gut für diese Welt” (“Stine is too good for this world.”), so it’s absolutely gorgeous. The main room is large and has a kitchen area with a long table that can seat eight, a living room area complete with couch, coffee table, two chairs and a TV, and a little working niche under the eaves where my desk is. Since I’m on the top floor, all of my ceilings slope inwards, and some of the dark wood structure is visible, which I love. I spend most of my time in this room because the light and the view are so lovely. The front window looks out on a small park in front of a church (bells!), red roofs, the grocery store where I often shop, and another church steeple, visible in the distance. The view out the back is my favorite, though…the houses on my block surround its outer edge, and the middle is reserved for people’s gardens. The hodgepodge of trees, bushes and flowers surrounded by quaint, red roofs is my permanent mental picture of “real” town Germany. In the evening as I sit and watch the sun set over it all through nearly my whole western wall, I feel like I’ve found a piece of paradise. As if that all wasn’t enough, I also have a HUGE bathroom with a shower and a bathtub, as well as a nice-sized bedroom with a full bed and a nice view. Like I said…I’m really very lucky, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better. The one humorous thing is the indoor stairway…not the stairway itself, but the five, yes five, nude torsos sculpted from bronze. They’re very well-made, but I’m just used to seeing something like that only in a museum. As an Art History major, it really didn’t faze me after the initial surprise, and the Germans don’t even blink twice. Nudity is much more accepted in this society, I guess. Anyways, enjoy the pics!

Deine,

N*

Time After Time

Last weekend, I attended the wedding of two of my good friends from high school. The ceremony was beautiful in so many ways, and I am so glad for both of them. Afterwards, I was at the reception, where I spent time with many people there who I knew from high school. Since I was there alone, I ended up getting to catch up with all of them throughout the evening. At the end of the night, I started a conversation with a friend with whom I had a lot of classes in high school, but I haven’t seen since graduation. He recently moved to a new city for his job, so he’s in a similar situation to what mine in Germany will be, and we talked about it a little. Neither of us is particularly outgoing, so while moving may be exciting, it also means having to put ourselves out of our comfort zone to meet people. I can’t speak for him, but I don’t really mind spending time alone; however, it’s nice to have some friendly people around when I’m away from my family. The problem is finding them.

We agreed that making friends was easier (relatively...friendship is never easy) in high school. Until I left school, I never thought about how hard it can be to meet people when you don’t have chances to interact with others in classes or in a dorm-type setting. Making friends has been something that has been weighing on my mind lately, and it was reassuring to know that my college roommate and I are not the only ones who have been feeling this way. This summer, I’ve been working on my “people meeting skills,” so I’m excited to be a little more confident about being outgoing enough to meet some people my age in Germany. That being said, working through all of this for myself has made me all the more thankful for the friends I already have because finding friends who stick with you through it all is so rare. I just want to take a minute to let all of my friends know how much I do appreciate them. I’m looking forward to continuing to grow together, even though our lives may lead us far away from each other.

It was pretty much the end of the night by the time my friend and I started talking, and when the DJ announced the last song, he (my friend) asked me if I would like to dance with him. It was unexpected and struck me as very thoughtful of him, which meant a lot to me after coming to the wedding by myself. As we were dancing, I realized how much all of us have grown up through college. Four years ago, my friendships were limited by how much I was capable of letting people in, which meant I missed out on some friendships that I’m now open to having. Until I learned more about who I am, I wasn’t ready to have those friendships, or at least not certain aspects of them. Part of growing up is becoming who we always have been inside, so I’m sure I’m not the only one who has experienced this. The really great thing is that friendships from so long ago can change to take on who we are now because there is already a strong base of common experience upon which to build. I want that to happen, so I hope that you’ll take the time to get to know me again, and I’ll do the same for you. Even though so much is different now, some things aren’t and never will be. One of those things is how we’ve been lucky enough to have each other...then and now.

Deine,
N*