Tag: vacation

Yesterday and today we took day trips outside of Prague. The first was to Karlstejn which is a walled fortress built as a summer home for Charles IV.  Construction started in 1348 and like most things that have been around for over 600 years ago it has a history that’s longer than I can possibly remember.  The basics are that it’s big, beautiful, and you can’t go into the more interesting parts of the structure… you know, the beautiful room gilded in gold, encrusted in jewels, etc. etc.

Today we spent the day today in Kutna Hora, after a brief stop at a Bohemian crystal outlet and factory.  There were two major highlights of that trip to me: a silver mine from the 13th century, and a church decorated with bones from literally thousands of human beings. It’s hard to imagine, but the walls and door-frames and ceilings were entirely decorated with human bones.  There was a family crest made from bones. Several pyres (huge piles) of bones. Even a chandelier made from at least one of every bone in the human body.  It’s really hard to imagine what someone had on their mind when they were thinking that these works of art (they really are, in a strange way, beautiful) should be in a house of worship.  This is what happens, apparently, when you run out of space for all of the bodies in your back yard.

Tonight, we hit the town for an evening of local modern jazz and drinks (green fairies, anyone?), which was a welcome relaxation and entertainment after sloughing around in cold, dark mines all afternoon.

As for tomorrow, we’re celebrating Andy’s 24th birthday with a trip to Pilzen, the one-true home of Pilzner beer.

I’ll get the pictures from these day trips up later… the camera is busy charging, and my brain is busy sleeping.

The Czech Republic is a country my father could love.  Not so much the walking around everywhere, because Prague is certainly a walking man’s city and my dad is not that kind of tourist.  I’m mainly talking about the cuisine.  It is absolutely made to satisfy the midwestern pallet; it is entirely based off of meat and potatoes and in such a way to require a beer in hand.  To use Andy’s new favorite word, it’s dipsomaniacal. 

Sure, that may sound boring for some, but the thing about meat and potatoes is that when it’s done right it’s absolutely fantastic.  And every meal I’ve had so far has been great, from street vendor sausage to pub-goulash.  Sauerkraut, pork, lamb, beef, potatoes, and bread are the basis for pretty much every standard Czech dish.  The only thing I’ve seen that was outside of the meat & potatoes genre has been the ‘turdlo’ which is a thin dough baked on wide spinning cylinders, covered with a light dusting of sugar.  And that, my friends, is delicious.

As for what it’s like being in Prague: it’s the history that just astounds me.  Being from America, I feel like I have such a shallow history, at least in terms of how short the history of my country is.  Roughly 230+ years of history are nothing compared to the centuries of culture, history, stories, and lifetimes lived in a country like The Czech Republic, formerly Czechoslovakia, formerly Nazi German occupied, formerly part of Austria-Hungary, formerly…  Realizing that the U.S.of A. has only had 2 major skirmishes on our soil, and that scant few of our buildings are hardly over two centuries old, makes us look like wee babes in the world of geo-politicalness.  So, wondering around castles that are older than my country kinda helps me put it all into perspective.
 
We have just seen the most beautiful things.  It’s really hard to take it all in when every building looks like a work of art compared to what I walk past every day in the states.  Between the castles, the bridges, the churches, and the museums I’ve had more input than I can really deal with in two days.  And I’m love’n it. Today was a re-tour of the Prague Castle (we missed a lot on the first day) and the Museum of Communism.  Andy and I also got the chance to explore Hradcany, which is the neighborhood around the castle.  It was kind of nice to be on our own for the good part of the day and just explore at our leisure.

(The picture below is from the Museum of Communism: this was propaganda in the late ’50s, inciting fear about possible American chemical warfare on the communists.  Remember, kids, hold hands when you’re running for your life.)

Today we encountered the best “why are you here” story.  Andy and I had dinner in a real Czech pub with real Czech food and real Czech beer and very American conversation.  Our Americanisms were overheard by a fellow yank who invited herself to join us. As-per-usual, the getting to know you questions started to flow.  The first one we asked was “What brings you to Prague?” which she completely brushed aside stating that it was a “long story” in the “I’m not going to tell you” sort of vein, and quickly turned the question right back around at us.  We obliged, continued the conversation, but eventually asked her for the abridged story of her finding herself single & alone on her first international trip and in Prague on a half-week vacation.

She flew from Denver to Prague to get pregnant.  More specifically, to have in vitro fertilisation in a small southern Czech town.  She went on to explain that her eggs were fried in an unfortunate bout with cancer at a very young age, and that she’s planning to be the oven for a bun for which she didn’t mix the dough.  This led to a discussion as to why the Czech Republic; apparently the procedure costs around $36k in the U.S. and only $8k here.  Plus you get the adventure of a European vacation as sort of a pregnancy honeymoon.  The woman had done her research, and other sources have confirmed that this is a growing trend.

The questions that didn’t get asked were along the lines of why is this single, attractive woman is essentially having someone else’s child?  How does picking both the mother and father work in a doner situation like this?  How do you go about making that kind of choice, where you are essentially shopping for all of the traits of your to-be-born child?  All-in-all, it was none of our business, but it got me curious.

Obviously, there was more today than just that… Andy and I spent the day with Greg and Andrea exploring again, this time mostly at the Prague Castle and in the Jewish district.  The picture below is outside the castle standing next to one of the guards in his designer uniform.  There’s obviously more I could write about that part of the trip, but I think I’ll save that for when I post all of my pictures online.