Pr-A HA!

I just got back a few hours ago from my class trip to Prague!  It was tons of fun, but very different from the other trips I’ve taken thus far.  It was amazing to have a professor take you around and show you the sights because they are so knowledgeable.  My professor for this class had spent his life studying Kafka, so every time we walked around, he had a wonderful anecdote to tell about Kafka’s life.  We arrived Thursday evening, and after settling into our hotel, we went to dinner in a restaurant called Café Louvre, which is a very old restaurant with traditional Czech food.  It is on the second storey of a building and has these wonderful long dining rooms with pink walls and gold accents.  I had some great potatoe and cheese dumplings, along with some sort of Czech beer that was really dark and awesome.  Then we walked a bit around the Old Town and back towards our hotel.  Many of the buildings were lit up at night and gave the city a magical feeling.

view of Praha!

The next day we headed out to the Jewish museum for a tour with the curator.  She was very friendly and extremely knowledgeable and ending up taking us on a two and a half hour tour of all the sections of the museum, which included an amazing graveyard where some very important Czech historical figures were buried, and three synagogues.  

Cemetery as part of the Jewish Museum

One of the synagogues is the oldest in the city, and another is brightly decorated in all sorts of patterns.  The most moving part of the museum was all these drawings done by children in the 1940s.  They were from this town where the children were kept before being sent to concentration camps.  The drawings were very creative, and colorful, and while looking at them you see so much into how those kids must have felt.  

The Old Town Square

Later in the day we explored the Old Town further, and saw the amazing clock tower.  Every hour the bell chimes and these little saints rotate through windows.  

The Clock Tower

All the buildings have been relatively recently touched up and painted in pastel colors, which makes them so charming.  The city reminded me a bit of Lisbon because of the colorful buildings, the patterned cobblestones, and the tram system.  In the evening we went to an orchestra concert that blew us away.  It was in a very old snazzy theatre and the orchestra consisted of three sections of French music.  There was an incredible harpist who had a crazy dress that looked like zebra cake (swirls of black and white) and sparkly shoes.  Only in Czech Republic...?  The last section was the best though (Maestoso from Saint Saëns Sympony No. 3 in C Minor, in case you were wondering because it was bomb).  You might recognize it from Babe.  Yes, Babe the Disney movie about the pig.  It is the song the farmer sings to Babe while the other animals watch.  This is what I recognized the tune from!!  I was super pumped when I did because a) Babe is an awesome movie and b) when the farmer sings the song is the best part! The other sweet part about the opera was the conductor.  He had a striking resemblance to Mufasa (yes, another Disney reference…) and had the most expressive hands and quaffed hair of any single person I’ve ever seen. 

On the third day we explored the castle area (Hradcany) and went to St. Vitus’ Cathedral, which contains a stained glass by Mucha (an art nouveau artist from the Czech Republic) that is mind-blowing.  It has the most amazing colors you could imagine.

Mucha's stained glass

The grounds of the castle are amazing with these huge stone plazas and buildings.  In the evening we were supposed to meet the author of a book we read called Of Kids and Parents (I highly highly recommend it if you’re in need of a good book!), but unfortunately he was ill.  We did however meet up with the translator of the book, who was a complete character and got much too drunk.  Later that evening we went to a party in a bar for a Czech art magazine.  It was a very cool scene and we got some crazy iron-on canvas bags with the logos of the magazine.  The bar was downstairs by the river, and was filled with Czech hipsters.  We had a ton of fun and met one of our professor’s friends who speaks thousands of bizarre Eastern European languages and was fascinating to listen to. 

On Sunday, we went to the Mucha Museum, which was small but interesting, and the to Kafka’s grave.  Then we headed back to the airport!  It was too short of a trip for such a cool city, but I’ll be glad to have a few weeks in which I stay in Paris.  Man, all this world traveling can wear. you. out.

  * Note: Praha = Prague in Czech.  And Prague = an A HA! moment --> Pr- A HA!