Last day in Prague and I’m off

I didn’t write much, and even then a week LATE, so you’ll have to pardon me.

I visited the Mucha museum in the morning. Though France tries to claim the artist as theirs, he was born and raised in Prague. The museum was great; I actually knew more of his work than I expected, and truly am in love with his art. “The Moon” and “Repose de la Nuit” are two of my favorites.

Spent the afternoon in Prague taking a tour of the Jewish Quarter. The synagogues really were beautiful, though the tour itself was long-winded and the guide was hard to hear, small and squeaky. The graveyards really fascinated me; I’ve always had kind of a morbid fascination with them. The creator of the Gollem is buried in one of the cemeteries, and I, like so many before me, put a stone on his grave and made my shallow wish. By the end of the tour, though, everyone was antsy to be on the road to their next adventures.

My train didn’t leave til late that night, so I shopped with Jessye and Amanda, searching desperately for a hairbrush. It was IMPOSSIBLE to find one. Crazy, right? Do Czechs not brush their hair? Hung out in the rather creepy station; saw Jessye and Amanda off; then finally settled into my cabin on my train. It was AMAZING. I never splurge on travel. I always take the cheapest seat possible, but had rented a bunk as a Thanksgiving treat to myself. I didn’t just get my own bunk, though, I got my own little ROOM! I had a bed, and my own little bathroom with a toilet and a shower. AMAZING. I’ve never felt so spoiled in my life . . .

Terezenstadt was rough.

Today was quite possibly one of the most exhausting, draining days of my life. Keep in mind that EVERYONE was out clubbing all night long –I was one of the last ones to leave. Then we had to be awake early to head out to Terezenstadt, the concentration/deportation camp in the northern region of the Czech Republic.

It’s hard to explain such a significant place in words; as a writer, I recognize the difficulty in conveying the emotions tied to a place. Anything said sounds hollow and cheesy and melodramatic. The camp itself is located within an old fortress, and the town of Terezen still stands around it; even as we pulled up, old ladies were walking and kids were playing with a ball right outside the camp walls. The town itself felt eerily silent, though.

Inside was even spookier. Empty, chipped cement walls and dusty gravel or dirt paths connect plain buildings housing dusty old furniture. The solitary confinement chambers made my claustraphobic mind skitter just looking at them, especially the ones without any sort of crack or windows. I stood inside one for just a moment, my foot in the door so the door COULDN’T swing closed and lock me inside. The bunkrooms, empty except for rows and rows of splintery wooden bunks, look exactly as they do in the pictures. You expect to see the living skeletons piled in there, staring back at you with gaping, sunken eyes. Walking through the camp, you can’t help but feel slow an clumsy and heavy; each breath seems unnaturally loud.

You can wander through the Small Fort, which has a series of underground tunnels that connect the various parts. You feel like a rat in a dark maze. On one end of the tunnels is the wall where three Jews managed to escape in the dead of night; on the other end is the gallows and the firing wall. We took a bus up the road to the crematorium and just happened to visit at the same time as a Birthright group. Inside the crematorium you just feel cold and dirty; you see the ovens and know EXACTLY what happened. Even if Terezenstadt wasn’t a death camp, even if it was only corpses that went in the ovens . . . The Birthright Group were singing and chanting and the Hebrew bounced off the cement walls that will never lose their invisible stain. I was breathless, heartbeatless. I don’t think I have ever in my life felt so small and helpless.

The landscape around Terezenstadt is beautiful: mountains, valleys, fields. The guards houses in the middle of the camp are as beautiful and elaborate as the bunkrooms are not. Terezen was one of the show camps, so it’s not even one of the worse. The infirmary is an empty room with four rusted iron beds. There’s a barbershop with a line of mirrors, faucets, and sinks along one wall, but they were never actually used. Just for show.

Outside the front of the camp, there is a large momument –a large white Star of David and a tall white cross towering over smaller crosses. Here are buried the remains of everyone who died at the camp, a monument to the lives lost. It just didn’t quite seem enough. It’s hard to see the small crosses (one for each documented death) and connect a PERSON.

As the only possible finish to such a heavy day, and in honor of the Thanksgiving holiday which will fall during the travel break this coming week where everyone is spread all over the continent, there were Thanksgiving dinners had in three different apartments. I went to the one in David and Anh’s apartment, where everyone brought something to contribute to the meal, and then we went around and said what we were thankful for. Because what else can you do after visiting a concentration camp but be thankful?

Museums and Clubs

Spent the morning visiting a museum with Giorgio as my tourguide (ah, every girl must fall in love with one of her professors, musn’t she? and he and I got to talk just the two of us MANY times, haha). Afterwards, I walked around the shops lining the steep streets around the castle with some friends, then meandered down to the Lenin Wall. It was truly breathtaking. Obviously I only could understand the things written in English –song lyrics, poems, declarations, warnings, advice, promises– and the doodles. But there were marks left in all manner of languages or designs. There’s just something about places like that where you are forced to be aware of how many people there are in the world, and how many have been standing right where you are. And except for someone who wrote “Pooh #17,” it was all done in such a mature, respectful light that it gives you respect for the human race.

The Charles Bridge was packed with vendors, performers, admirers, and even a group of people celebrating a bachelor party. It was difficult to stay together due to the crowds; it began to rain a bit and the sky was so dreadfully dreary. A bit more shopping ensued, and then naps for all!

In the evening, a big group of us went for a “traditional Czech dinner” at a cozy restaurant that was ridiculously expensive but very fancy. It was nice to do something as a group but without the ENTIRE group. From there, everyone mosied back to the apartments and got ready to hit the clubs as a WHOLE GROUP. That’s right, all sixty-eight kids, plus a bunch of our professors, went together to this awesome club. Five stories high, each storey features a different style of music –rave, oldied, techno, rock, and alternative. Danced all night long until the wee hours of the morning when, exhausted and bleary-eyed, we walked back to catch a few hours of sleep.

Prague

Please note, this entry is being written LOOOOOONG after I was actually in Prague. I will transcribe almost exactly from my travel journal.

In Praha, though I haven’t seen much of the city at all. I spent most of the day really nauseaus and in transit with the rest of the Kasteel Well kids, since all sixty-eight of us are making this trip to the Czech Republic together. Because the dollar-to-crone ratio is so great, they rented us APARTMENTS instead of hotel rooms. Each apartment has four to eight people in it. i’m sharing one with Hannah, Sarah, ALex, and Emily (me and Emily share a two-bed small bedroom) and it is unreal amazing. We have a big living room, a REALLY big kitchen, AND a patio. Plus, the apartments are right on teh central square of Prague, so it’s an excellent location.

Me and the girls in my apartment went grocery shopping together and are going to have a big pasta feast. I wandered over to the train station after a bit of searching and went ahead and made my train reservations for going to Budapest. The train station is rather dirty. The man was nice. I didn’t understand the currency transaction, so I went ahead and splurged and got a bunker on the train –I think it works out to being about $56 dollars.

The cold is not as bad as I had expected. The square is bright and lively and actually a lot cleaner than Italy or France. I mean, Prague once was (maybe still is?) considered the Paris of Eastern Europe. My hopes of Eastern Europe being some largely different world from Western Europe are looking to be dashed. The people really don’t look any different. Just people bundled up in black pea coats and scarves, walking with their heads down against the wind.

Everyone is loving being in the apartments. I don’t think anyone is venturing too far tonight, since we’re all exhausted from being en route all day. Plus, the apartments is a strange sense of home and freedom rolled into one.

Eastern Europe, Here I Come!

I am ECSTATIC about finally venturing beyond Western Europe.  As much as I am loving my European city sampler, I’m ready to see some cities that are NOT European-Union, Globalized, Industrialized cities that are abandoning their culture for money.  Ouch, that’s rough.  What I mean is, I’m ready to see something that is NOT Western Europe, which is thus far what my travels abroad have been confined to.

We leave as a group tomorrow morning for Prague, Czech Republic, where we’ll be until Monday evening.

Monday night I’ll take an overnight train to Budapest, Hungary, where I’ll spend two days.  A TON of kids in the program are going to Budapest, so chances are my first day will be spent with at least a few other kids.  We’ll see how lonely I am vs. how much alone time to explore I want.

Thursday morning I’ll take a train down to Zagreb, Croatia, where I’ll spend two days.  If I wind up with extra time, there’s a day trip I would love to take out into the country, to some ancient caves and a famous neanderthal museum at the site of an actual discovery.  We’ll see, though, because I certainly don’t want to sell Zagreb short.  I’m just getting tired of only seeing the big cities, you know?  When it’s the smaller cities and towns and countryside that really give the flavor of a country.

Saturday morning I’ll make the two hour train ride to Ljubljana, Slovenia.  I’ll have all Saturday there, and then can EITHER spend all day Sunday on trains and make it back to the castle around midnight or else take a 2pm train and make it to the castle around 9am the next morning.  We’ll see what I feel like.

All that said, I know I’ll have internet access in Hungary, Croatia, and Slovenia, but I highly doubt I will in Prague.  I’ll try to at least check in every now and then, if I get the chance.

Now I’m packed.  It’s after midnight, so in less than five and a half hours the staff will be banging on the doors for us all to crawl down to the busses taking us to the airport.  For the sake of my friends, I’d best at least attempt to get some sleep.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and, MORE IMPORTANTLY