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Hi, everyone!
Well, I'm back from Prague. It was a great trip. Forrest,
Melody, Natalie,
Jonah, Alethea, Mike R., and I left Budapest at 6:10 Thursday morning and
arrived in Prague at 1:00. The first thing we did upon arriving was
walk to
our hostel, "Sir Toby's." (It took us a couple false starts
and wrong turns
before we found it.) Sir Toby's was farther from the center of town
than most
of the hostels we considered, but that was fine, since Prague has a
convenient
bus & metro system. (The sleek new metro trains on Prague's red
line put
Budapest's Communist-era metros to shame!) After we finished checking
in,
exchanging money, and buying metro tickets, it was nearly 4:00, so we
hurried
to the town square to watch the Astronomical Clock strike the hour. The
clock
hands keep track of the season, rather than the time, but the clock still
chimes every hour, and we wanted to see the statues that come out when it
chimes. We ran 3 blocks from the metro station, through the crowded
town
square (nearly losing Natalie & Jonah), but we were too late!
We climbed the clock tower to get a good view of Prague. When we came
down,
close to 5:00, we tried watching the clock again, but there was such a big
crowd gathered in front of the clock that we couldn't see anything.
Instead,
we went to an art museum that had an exhibit about the Manes family, who
were
an (apparently Czech) family of 5 landscape and portrait painters. It
was
interesting to see how the styles of art changed between the older and
younger
generation, and to try to figure out what was special about Joszef Manes's
work, as the exhibit said that he was considered by critics to be the most
talented of the family.
That night, we had dinner in a fancy Italian restaurant that we happened to
walk by and thought looked good. I had spinach fetuccini with
salmon and fresh spinach. It was very tasty. Also, because we
were in
Prague, one of the beer-producing and -consuming capitals of the world,
we bought a 3 deciliter (normal-sized glass) beer--and shared it among
5 people! Throughout the meal, we kept realizing, "Oh,
yeah...it's
Thanksgiving!" and wishing each other a happy Thanksgiving.
On Friday, we went to the Jewish quarter, where several synagogues have
been
converted into museums about Jewish culture and history. My favorite
was the
Spanish Synagogue, which was richly decorated in dark colors and geometric
designs. We also visited the old Jewish cemetary, which houses over
12,000
graves spanning several centuries. The ground is hilly in places
where newer
graves were placed over older ones. The cemetary is crowded with
tombstones,
many of them leaning at odd angles. It has the feel of a solemn,
historic
landmark, but it's not an environment in which I'd like to be buried.
That afternoon we met Danny Mintz, one of my friends from Harriers, the
improv
group I'm in, by the statue of St. Wenceslas in St. Wenceslas Square.
Danny is
on an "Art and Social Change" study abroad program in Prague.
He took us to
his favorite cafe, and we compared experiences of Budapest and Prague.
It was
fun to see Danny--it reminded me how much I miss Harriers.
Danny recommended we visit the National Gallery contemporary art museum, so
after we said goodbye to him, that's where we went. The National
Gallery is
built in a former mall; it's airy and spacious, and the exhibit halls seem
to
go on forever. You buy tickets to the museum by the floor. I
bought tickets
to two floors, even though we only had an hour before the museum closed.
This
turned out to be a mistake--the floors were larger than I thought, and I
had to
rush through the 2nd floor to finish in time. In addition, the
exhibit halls
aren't laid out in the best way: The halls are very long, but there's
only one
entrance/exit, so to get out, you have to backtrack past all of the artwork
you've already seen. Despite these misgivings, though, I really liked
the art
I saw there.
The National Gallery was also the site of an adventure: I got stuck
in an
elevator! I took the elevator to the 2nd floor, but the doors didn't
open!
There wasn't an obvious "door open" button, either. I tried
pressing the "2"
button again, but nothing happened. I pressed the "1"
button and went back
down to the 1st floor, but the doors didn't open there, either! I
tried
pressing a button marked with an "X," which was underneath the
"door close"
button, thinking it might be the "door open." It wasn't;
nothing happened. At
this point, somewhat panicked and irked about having only 15 minutes left
to
explore the entire 2nd floor, I tried forcing the doors open with my hands.
It
worked! Thankfully, the elevator was level with the 1st floor
(apparently it
was just the door-opening mechanism that had failed, not the mechanism that
lines the elevator up with the floor), so I stepped out and took the stairs
instead!
That evening, our hostel held a Thanksgiving dinner. This was quite
impressive-
-2 of the hostel's employees cooked a real Thanksgiving meal for about 30
people. We had chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green
beans with
almonds, and apple pie. The meal was free! They may have asked
people to
contribute money to defray the costs late in the evening, but if so, it was
after we had retired. Most of the people at the dinner weren't
Americans.
There were some native Czechs who are friends with the people who work in
the
hostel, as well as a number of other Europeans who were staying at the
hostel.
On Saturday, we explored the castle district. We got to see St.
Vitus's
Cathedral, which is in the Gothic style, and a Romanesque church from the
10th-
12th centuries, one right after the other. I liked this; it reminded
me just
how striking an innovation Gothic architecture is, compared to the thick
walls
and small windows that were necessary in Romanesque architecture. We
had lunch
in an Indonesian restaurant and then split up. Forrest, Melody, and
Alethea
went to the Old Town Square to do Christmas shopping. (By the end of
November,
Prague was already decked out for Christmas, with huge Christmas trees in
several town squares, and stalls selling folk art and roasted chestnuts in
Old
Town Square. People were even building a castle out of blocks of ice
in Old
Town Square.) Natalie, Jonah, Mike R., and I went to the Museum of
Decorative
Arts, a small museum dedicated to the art of making everyday objects
beautiful: It had a room of clothes and fabrics, a room of glassware
and
silverware, a room with writing-desks from the 1700s to the 1900s, and a
room
of watches and jewelry. I admired the handiwork, and I enjoyed seeing
how
styles had changed over the years. (At one point, I saw a butter dish
in the
shape of a bundle of asparagus, thought, "That looks like a piece of
1970s
kitsch," and was amused to read the tag and realize it was from the
1700s!)
Nevertheless, the museum made me question my definition of art: Most
of the
20th century pieces on display were attractive, sure, but they were mass-
produced. Does that count as art?
Natalie, Jonah, Mike, and I joined the others in Old Town Square in time to
see
the Astronomical Clock strike 7pm. (Finally!) The statues were
disappointing,
actually; the clocks in Szeged and Vienna were more impressive. Oh,
well. We
had dinner in an Italian/Thai restaurant (we wanted to eat in Danny's cafe
again, but couldn't find it on our own) and then caught the night train
back to
Budapest. We got home on Sunday morning.
When I was looking ahead to Thanksgiving this year, I was sad because I
wouldn't get to celebrate it with family, and wouldn't get to enjoy the
traditions that I'm used to. But this Thanksgiving was as much fun as
Thanksgiving at home, just different. In fact, I got to have 3
Thanksgivings:
One on Thanksgiving itself, in the Italian restaurant; the hostel's
Thanksgiving on Friday; and a third Thanksgiving on Sunday evening, when
Forrest, Pei Zhuan, Melody, and I cooked dinner from the
"just-add-water"
Thanksgiving foods that my mom sent me. How lucky I am!
How was your Thanksgiving? I hope winter is treating you well.
I'll see you
all soon!
Viszlat,
Abra
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