Buda & Pest

To jump to my conclusion before writing the body of this post, Budapest was awesome. At least half of the group I went with this past weekend said, at some point, that they wished we could take the second half of our abroad semester in Budapest and simply ditch Prague. Reasons for this include much nicer weather, more pleasant people, and sheer coolness. Budapest is a city that just is. It doesn't try to be cool or historical. It just goes about its daily business and asks you to take it as it is- a nice blend of historical, governmental, modern, and everything in between. Every once in a while you'd come upon a semi-majestic city scape but more often than not you saw a really sweet building or hillside dotted between industry and business.

I went with Missy, Jackie, Shelby, and Kandi. They were a great group and we got to see tons together. A brief rundown of the weekend: We arrived late on a Thursday night to find the public transport had already shut down the for night. We did manage to find a cab though so all was well. We got to the hostel and crashed. Friday we got up early for our free hostel breakfast of cocoa puffs and toasts before heading the Hungarian Baths at City Park. The baths are a series of indoor and outdoor pools of all different shapes, sizes, and temperatures. They were really nice and the whole thing was definitely an experience. Highlights include way too many old men in speedos and "towels" that were actually huge bedsheets. Of course, I got bored after about an hour because you can't play in these pools so we head off to lunch.

Now, the food in Hungary is probably great. Or at least on par with Czech food which is edible. But we wouldn't really know because the entire weekend consisted of a visit to Burger King, 2 visits to Pizza Hut, 1 random italian/ poultry meal, and some gyros. We were more for the save money than have a Hungarian meal experience. Success.

Anyway, the rest of Friday we spent basically wandering around and taking photos. This was in large part due to the fact that we couldn't find our way to the top of Buda Hill but oh well. We made friends at the hostel during that night and went out for a few drinks at a bar/garden that was pretty cool. Saturday was a bit more productive. We went to a flea market, City Park, Parliament, St. Mathius, and the labyrinth under Buda Castle. Labyrintus was probably the coolest (though not so much historical or majestic) thing we did that day. We got to walk around the tunnels beneath the castle with all the lights turned out. We carried oil lamps and just wandered until we found our way to the center which has a wine fountain in it. Above ground, the weather was beautiful this day and we spent a lot of time just soaking up the sunshine and warmth on top of Buda Hill in this wonderful outdoor arcade that overlooked the Pest side. It was a really full day and we were all pretty exhausted by the end so we hung low that night.

Sunday we frantically tried to cover what we missed. In our attempts to do so, we found the Spring Market of Budapest and got to see traditional Hungarian dances performed by small children! We were attempting to meet a tour guide but the attempt ultimately failed. This turned out well, though, because we no longer had to tip someone for a tour and therefore had extra florints to spend at the festival (I bought my first European souvenir!). Then we found a nice monastary that was built into the side of Gellert Hill and made it to St. Stephen's Church to see St. Stephen's actual hand (literally, a dead man's hand on display...)

Thus concludes our trip to Budapest. By the time we caught our bus back to Prague, we were exhausted but overly content and sad to leave the wonderful Budapest weather. Great weekend.

My Bipolar Week

So seeing Sean was wonderful. Easily, the best week I've spent in Prague. That being said, having Sean here made me terribly homesick and it only got much much worse when he left. So I spent the first 2 or 3 days of this week being pretty emo. I really just wanted to go home or at least sleep through the next two months of being here. Thankfully, my roommate Caitlin intervened and on Tuesday made me get out of bed. We went for a walk in this beautiful garden I didn't know existed near our house. Then we went to a cafe nearby we hadn't tried. They actually had nutritious food to eat! I felt better. I spent the rest of the day pretty busy. I wrote a paper, studied, went tanning (this was a first and yes, I know it's bad for me but it DID make me feel better), and tried this awesome Greek restaurant in a neighborhood we hadn't explored yet. It was a really good day and I determined to be more optimistic... or at least try to be happy for the 2 months I have left. I still want to go home but the time I have left before then seems a lot more bearable now.

So since then I've just been doing this and that. I've been pretty sick so I've tried to take it pretty easy with movie nights and early curfews for myself. My one exception was Friday when I went to Plzen with Missy, Joel, Jackie, and Missy's parents. Plzen is a city southwest of Prague that is known for 2 things. 1) It was freed by the Americans in WWII (as opposed to the Russians whom no one in CR like anymore) and 2) It is home to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. I couldn't drink due to my antibiotics but the trip was nonetheless very much worthwhile. We took a tour of the brewery and packaging plants. We also got to taste all the raw ingredients that make beer. Note to those who might make this mistake: Do not overfill yourself on malt grains simply because you are really really hungry and they smell good. You and your stomach will immediately regret this decision. The tour itself, though, was awesome. We even got free beer.

The Filling and Packaging Factory

After the brewery, we ate at the brewery restaurant where I ordered Moravian Sparrow. I'm not sure what that actually turned out to be. This was my day for making questionable food decisions. Alas. Then we ventured into the city center, took a few photos, and headed back to Praha. The trainride was beautiful as we passed numerous small Czech villages and settlements. It made me miss the outdoors and really excited for spring to finally get here!

Today, I had lunch with my Czech friend Dana and her family. She has 2 daughters and a husband. They are lovely people and willingly answer all my questions about Czech life and traditions. I really enjoy the time I'm starting to spend with them and next time we are going to the National Gallery together! I can't wait! In the meantime, I'm getting ready for our trip to Budapest on Thursday and trying to convince myself that I'm not going to look soooo terrible in my bathing suit when we take our Hungarian baths.

Another Week

Sean came to visit for a whole week during Georgetown's Spring Break. It was wonderful having him here although now I'm counting down the days even more desperately, ready to get back to the states, my family, and my friends. Not that it's horrible here... just not for me. Nevertheless, we had a good week.

Sean got in on Saturday. We spend half the day letting him recover from such a long flight and then went roaming about Prague a bit. We ran into Shelby in Old Town Square and he was thrilled to see Sean. That night we went to the Teahouse in the Tower , walked through Letna Gardens, and then met up again with Shelby and a couple other friends for drinks. We still called it an earlier night, however. We saw more of Prague the next day, going through the Castle and Mala Strana ("Little Town"). It was cold and took a bit of adjustment from Sean but we made it through and he really seemed to appreciate the beauty of the city. I think it begins to go unnoticed by most us studying abroad here but it is really a very aesthetically pleasing place.

Monday it was off to Vienna. We took an early bus ride and slept nearly the whole way there. We walked around a little that afternoon but it was, again, freezing and bus sleep is a lot different from normal sleep so we went to bed earlier again. Tuesday we took a tour of the city. It was a weird experience being on a tour that alternated between German and English. We were also the youngest people on that tour by about 20 years. We learned a good deal though about the Hapsburgs and the city of Vienna. My favorite fact (albeit morbid) is that when a member of the Hapsburg royal family died, they would always take out their heart and their intestines and preserve them in two different places separate from the actual body. This has something to do with them becoming reincarnated on judgement day but Sean and I were a little unclear on that. We mainly just thought it was weird. Although, we did take a crypt and catacombs tour later that day and got to be in the same room as Empress Maria Theresa's intensines... We also took the metro out to Schonbrunn Palace which was the favorite part of my trip. It was a lovely place with tons of gardens to explore and great views of the city. I informed Sean that I would like to live there. He said he would work on it.


The next day was a power day. We did so much! In brief, we saw the Zentralfriedhof (national cemetary where Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, and Falco are buried), the famous Anchor Clock, fine arts museum, Belvedere Palace, and the Lippizaner Horses. We did all this even after I had an allergic/asthmatic reaction to the Lippizaner horses at the Spanish Riding School. That night, we made it to a wine tavern near our hotel and tried a couple of Austrian wines and some apple strudel. Loooonnggggg day but nevertheless awesome. Even so, I definitely think both of us want to take a trip back someday. We saw so much but I feel like there was a tons we missed.

The one downside to Vienna was that I did get sick while we were there. I'm still sick but hopefully Anyway, that caused us to kind of take it easy when we got back to Prague on Thursday. Sean met my friends and we saw a few last things in Prague but mainly kept it low key. Sean got to see all the highlights of Prague and had real Czech food, though.

It was really nice having him here and extremely difficult to see him leave yesterday. That being said, 62 days until I go home!

Terezin and Lidice

As a requirement for Jewish Religious Thought class, I spend today at the Jewish ghetto of Terezin and the sight of the town of Lidice. I can't say it was a particularly "fun" day as we focused on the horrors committed against humans by other "humans" but it was extremely interesting and, I think, an experience well worth having. So, with a few accompanying photos, I'll give you an overview of each.

Terezin was the first Jewish ghetto established by Hitler. This place was to be the place where they SS would murder any remaining Jews at the end of Germany's "final solution" to the Jewish problem. It's about an hour outside of Prague and received many ethnic Jews (many of whom were actually practicing Christians) when Czechoslovakia was taken by the Germans. It remained throughout the war a small town overcrowded with the persecuted Jews contained within a huge fortress system. Thousands died here (over 100 died everyday) and even more were sent to Auschwitz from this ghetto. Every child, once they reached the age of 14, was immediately deported for "processing". That is, they were murdered upon reaching such an age. The stories of the people that lived here are amazing, however. The 11-13 year olds created and maintained a legitimate, underground newspaper for the 150,000 people living within the maybe 2 square mile settlement. Multiple other adults created operas, plays, and paintings as forms of "spiritual resisistance". Children were separated from their parents upon arrival. However, once a month a play was organized by the Jewish community in which the children acted so their parents could catch a glimpse of the children. Each part, however, was rehearsed by 5 different children in hopes that by the time of performance, at least one of them would still be alive to play the roleon stage. The stories we heard and the things we saw at Terezin were both horrific and awe inspiring. The whole experience was bittersweet.A giant menorah amidst mass grave sites at Terezin. There were too many deaths per day to bury individually. Eventually, however, all bodies began to be burned instead of buried.

Many of those who died at Terezin were Christians of Jewish descent. These are graves outside the fortresses that surrounded the ghetto.

Lidice, our other site visited today, had no positive side to its story. Lidice was a village of approximately 500 outside of Prague with nothing particularly special about it. It was simply unfortunately connected, randomly, to the assassination of Richard Heidrich. Heidrich, known as the "Butcher of Prague" was the political and military arm of Hitler's Reich within Czechoslovakia. That being true, Benes' exile government had him assassinated by flying in a few paratroopers. These paratroopers subsequently committed suicide to evade capture only to have their bodies mutilated afterward. Apparently, this was not enough of a punishment according to Hitler so his people found a village, Lidice, where there were known to be some relatives of a couple of the paratroopers. So without warning, Hitler's men ride out to Lidice and round up the entire population. They kill every man over the age of 14 in the center of the town, send all the women to their death or a concentration camp, and then divide the children. A few lucky children look arian enough that they are sent to Germany to be adopted by German families. 90 other children are sent to work in a factory for 3 weeks. Afterward, these children are gassed in the back of a truck by the Nazis. After this annihilation, every single building in the village is bombed and then demolished. Every grave and gravestone is removed along with every bit of rubble. Within two days, there is absolutely nothing left of this village. Not even a brick. All to send a message to the Czech people that Hitler would not be resisted.

The place where Lidice used to be. The sidewalk and the statue in the distance were added as part of the memorial. Nothing was actually left aside from the Corpus Christi of a crucifix from the village church.

Memorial to the 90 children killed from Lidice. These are true to size statues that supposedly look exactly like each of those children. Their expressions are what is imagined they would be perchance they had survived and allowed to return to Lidice. Toys are routinely brought to the memorial by visitors.