Serious and then not so much

Yesterday morning, we bought a ticket for the Jewish Museums of Prague, which actually consists of 7 sites scattered throughout the tiny Jewish quarter in the old town. Having seen a lot of Jewish history as well as World War II history on this trip, I found Prague's Jewish sites to be particularly poignant. Less than 10% of Prague's Jews survived the war, and today only a few thousand Jews live in the city. However, many many Jewish treasures were saved and warehoused here in Prague as synagogues across Europe were liquidated and Jewish communities deported east. The Nazis planned to build a "Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race", and they saved and catalogued huge amounts of objects. We saw war-time pictures of the synagogues we visited today full of shelves holding rows and rows of silver torah finials, torah shields, spice cups, embroidered linens, and more. Pictures weren't allowed inside the synagogues, and we're both rule followers, but we did get to take pictures, for a small fee, inside the old Jewish cemetery.

The history lesson portion of the post is complete for today.

We split up to do some more wandering and shopping in the afternoon. Donica found, to her great delight, a 7-floor shoe store, the largest Bata store in Europe, where she satisfied her quest for cute Euro tennis shoes. I refuse to let myself go there because I already have cute Euro tennis shoes waiting for me at home, and because if I bought shoes I'd have to leave some shoes behind; I already don't know how I'm going to carry everything back. I did, however, purchase and enjoy a nutella/banana crepe. Very satisfying.

In the early evening, we headed along the river to a beer hall called U Flecku that had been recommended by a friend of Donica's. U Flecku has been serving beer in this location since 1499, and it was quite an experience. There is no dithering, asking what beer is on tap, trying to choose - as soon as you sit, a waiter comes with two big glasses of the only beer they serve, and as soon as you empty one, another will appear. They leave a slip of paper on your table and make hash marks to keep track of your consumption. We ordered very Czech-sounding specialties like sausage, cabbage, potato dumplings, and settled in to enjoy the surroundings. It was loud, but got louder when an accordionist and tuba player showed up and played at each table. People clapped and sang, and made requests.

view of the castle on the walk to dinner

We met the family next to us - he was born in Prague, she's from Moscow, but now they live in Long Beach, of all places. I wished we could sing along with the music, but it was enjoyable all the same. Here's a tiny taste:



We walked home past the now-lit castle and slept very well.

Arrival in Prague

The drive back from Cesky Krumlov was very smooth, especially now that I know how to put the car in reverse. So useful!

We arrived in Prague, walked to our pension, and then Donica headed out to explore while I unpacked and settled in. I noticed a church that was advertising a classical music concert this evening, and I went back for it at 6 pm. (Donica preferred shopping, and there are ample opportunities to do so here in Prague). I was delighted to be seated about 3 feet from the musicians, and the chamber music program they did was fun. Kind of a greatest hits selection, and it was pretty good, save Pachelbel's Canon, which they played so fast it was a bit disorienting.


We met back up again to eat and walk around more. I couldn't resist these berries:


We joined the crowd for the requisite viewing of the astronomical clock on the town square:


And we turned down this dessert option:


in favor of ending our day in a pub like so:

Special Shopping Post

I'm not a big shopper - at home or traveling. I like to get a few meaningful mementos that won't just gather dust when I get home, and on this trip, I have.

But the other day in Berlin, Erin, Barbara and I were walking by a little shop in her neighborhood and she pointed it out. They sell bags. Made in the back of the shop. Maybe that alone isn't so special. But what's so cool is the bags have tops that zip on and off, and when you buy one, you get two tops, and of course can always buy more as the styles they make change. Cleverest of all, the shop is named "Ta(u)sche". My German is terrible, but apparently "Tasche" is bag, and if you put a "u" in, it means "to swap".

We each bought one. We each bought the same one, actually, without meaning to. And for the rest of the day, whenever we thought about them, we smiled.

CHESS-key KROOM-loff

After all the craziness last night, today was calm, the weather was mostly sunny, and we had some delicious beer. All good things. Cesky Krumlov appears to be mostly famous for being very cute. It has a huge castle dominating the hill above the old town.

We started off the day with a walking tour - I continue to be blessed with fellow travelers who will do this with me - and we had a great tour guide. She was born in the 70's and has lived in Cesky Krumlov all her life; she talked about life in the "socialist times", her relatively happy childhood, and lots of little anecdotes and tidbits that made the whole thing so worth our short time here. We finished off the tour near the river, and we found a place to eat lunch near where folks were floating by on the Vltava River that loops around town. The best thing about lunch? The dark Budweiser beer we had - nothing like Bud at home, AND it cost $2.


There were several interesting sights around town:

The main square, surrounded by baroque buildings and location of some amazing historical events. Hitler stood on the square to celebrate the annexation of the Sudetenland, the church burned Jesuit books, Russian tanks rolled through, witches were burned...and in modern times, McDonalds has tried three times to open here and been turned down.

For D. Cunliffe and fellow CWOWers - I saw this in a few places around town. This in particular was at the town hall.

The place we're staying in Pension Olsakonsky, the white building in the right foreground.

Very old Jesuit sundial. You can tell the time (obvious) AND the date (small round shadow in the middle)

The castle had bear pits. This bear looked pretty tired.

We spied this delicious looking treat and waited in line to get one...rolls of dough are put on a revolving metal drum over an oven, then rolled in cinnamon, sugar, and almonds. Very clever, very good.

After an afternoon siesta (me) and more walking around (Donica), we headed out for dinner and a mission - to taste the very local hometown brew. (We saw the brewery on our walking tour). We walked around to a few crowded places, we finally found some at a bar. I chose a liqueur that's very popular here, the taste of which I can best describe as...Christmas. I love it. Donica had the local stuff and reports that it tastes like...Bud Lite.

It was all OK in the end.

Most vacations have at least one "bad" day, yes? When things go wrong, flights are delayed, something important lost, a family fight...something. Until yesterday, my trip had been astonishingly free of such things; sure, our flight to Krakow was cancelled and we had to wait, but it was pleasant waiting and in the end no real harm was done.

And yesterday started out just fine...breakfast at our B&B in Berlin, easy trip to the main train station, and a beautiful 5 hour train ride through southern Germany to Prague.

Once we arrived, our main task was to find the hotel where our rental car awaited, then drive about 2.5 hours to a little town called Cesky Krumlov. Now, there are rumors, based on some truth, that travelers to the Czech Republic would do well to use caution - count your change carefully, don't trust taxi drivers at the train stations, etc. We got off the train, got money from the ATM, and Donica headed to the WC, where she was promptly given incorrect change for the 50 crown charge to use the facility. She caught the "mistake", though, and the woman pretended it hadn't happened. We then had a tense exchange with a man trying to get us to take his friend's taxi...which we did after a little bargaining, since our other options were either confusing or too difficult. The taxi ride involved some fair amount of swerving and swearing, but was over soon enough. We got to the hotel, but our rental car wasn't ready....and we weren't finally on the road until almost 2 hours after arriving on the train.

The drive wasn't too bad - it was threatening rain the whole time, but we found the town easily enough. Daniel the GPS continues to be helpful. :) What we couldn't find was our B&B. Cesky Krumlov is tiny, with oh-so-narrow cobbled pedestrian streets. Eventually, I squeezed the car into one street that was too narrow at the other end to get out. We were stuck - really stuck - since I couldn't figure out how to get the car into reverse. (This sounds dumb, I know, and I felt dumb. But I've never driven a stick where you have to push the lever down and jerk it over to get into reverse, which is up next to 1st gear. I had to google this to find it out.)

I sent Donica on foot to find our place and hopefully bring back help. She was gone for about 10 minutes, during which time the threatening rain turned into a downpour. But she came back with our B&B owner, who spoke very little English, and was very kind. I managed to communicate that it would be best if he just drove us out of there. He quickly reversed out of the alley (to my astonishment and shame), and then to our surprise drove completely out of town and back in a different way. We'd have had no chance to find this place...but no matter, we'd arrived. We unloaded our luggage, he closed the doors of the car, and then told me I needed to park the car up the street a little ways. OK, no problem, I gestured for the keys. Keys? Where were the keys? He didn't have them. But there they were, in the locked car, in the ignition! Unbelievable.

He said he would "call someone", I sent Donica off to get something to eat, (it was past 9 pm), and I tried to hold back tears as I wondered how much "calling someone" would cost, at this time of night, far from a main town. Plus I was tired, and hungry, and still the rain came down. After repeated peeks out the window of our room down to the street (see photo above), I heard some voices and headed downstairs to see our host with a guy in overalls and some interesting wedges and other tools working on the passenger side door of the car. I can't say exactly what they did, but it did involve a slim jim sort of thing at the end, I heard the click, and the car was unlocked. Huge relief. But then I watched as between the two of them they rolled down the window and sort of pushed and bent the door frame back into place (gulp), then after a few more adjustments looked at each other and nodded. The overall guy lit a cigarette, I tried to ask him if he'd come from a far way and make conversation, but he said "My English, very small". "My Czech, also very small", I said, and asked how much I needed to pay. 200 crowns - that he said very decisively - and I ran upstairs to get it. At about 20 crowns per dollar, it was about one tenth what I'd been mentally prepared for, so that ended up being the best thing that happened all day.

We can only go up from here!

Lame Blog Post

Oh man, so tired today...not enough time to blog, though I did post pictures on FB. Erin I. leaves tomorrow (wiping tear from my eye) and Donica has come for our planned last few days in the Czech Republic. Our train leaves tomorrow morning for Prague - more from there.

Walking, Shopping, Looking, Reading, Reflecting, and, of course, Eating

If you don't want to read the rest of the post, the title sums up the last few days Erin and I have had, wandering about Berlin.

If you do want to continue, here are a few visual aids to help:

We started off by winding our way through various parts of Barbara's neighborhood and the neighborhood next to it, headed to a farmer's market and breakfast. There were several interesting shops along the way:



But one in particular you'll hear more about a bit later. It involves a matching unplanned purchase for both Erins. It also involves cutting edge design, iconic Berlin landmarks, and paralyzing indecision. "It" shall be revealed in the next post.

We (finally, at 12 noon) arrived at the market, and immediately sat down for "breakfast" at an Alsatian restaurant, a favorite of Barbara's, and now one of our favorites too.

chocolate banana crepe, various fruits, french sweet cheese, latte, homemade bread

Erin and I took off after breakfast, leaving Barbara to secure dinner items at the market. We headed back to the bookshop that had closed so I could rectify my sad lack of postcards. I did so. Then, in the same building was an entire exhibit of 60's fashion drawings. I really liked them. Erin really liked the shopping mention on the wall.

Then, it was time to get serious. We had a museum pass and we intended to use it. We wound our way to what we thought was the entrance to the musical instrument museum. (Guess who chose that one?) We found a set of doors, with hours printed on the glass, and a uniformed gentleman standing outside. But he was smoking, and non-communicative, and when we waved our passes vaguely in his direction he shook his head firmly. Weird - the hours were right, it was the right place...but Erin thought we should maybe try going to the other side of the building, which in fact was indeed the proper entrance. Once inside, we found ourselves in a rather intense, completely silent room full of old and beautiful instruments. The guard to visitor ratio was approximately 1 to 2, including the guy who had waved us away from the back door, who might or might not have been pretending not to recognize us.

Erin, remembering her glory days

I plan to learn how to play the orthotonophonium when I get home

From the Musical Instrument Museum, things got even more serious, matching the cloudiness of the sky. We walked a few minutes to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which is very difficult to describe. It consists of more than 2000 cement block-shapes, arrayed in a grid, with shorter ones on the edges and much taller ones in the center. The ground itself is not flat, so you walk in and soon find yourself going up and down the small valleys amongst the cement blocks. The designers purposefully offer no interpretation, instead inviting visitors to reflect and come up with their own. Erin and I talked about what we thought as we walked quietly around amongst the stones, so I think in that sense the Memorial is a "success"; it really made me search for a meaning that made sense to me rather than just reading an informational plaque, taking photos, and moving on.

View from the center of the memorial towards the American embassy

After an even more sobering visit to the small museum/information center below the memorial, we were ready to head home. We caught a bus, because our hurting feet made our faces look like this:


We did see these guys on the way home...the translation is something like "Thank you for football from another galaxy. In 4 years, you will get a 4th star (World Cup win) for Germany".

Back at home, Barbara had our dinner fixings ready to go, and Erin mixed our beer/lemonade drinks, and we ate well.

There was even a surprise dessert!