Buddy Network -- Trip to Prague, Czech Republic
november 9-11

Originally, I wasn't going to be able to go on the Prague trip with the Buddy Network because of a class conflict. BUT, Amber and I decided to just take a late-night train to Prague and meet up with the Buddy Network group on our own.

We got on our train at about 10:30 on Friday night, and rode through the night to Prague. While on the train, we were introduced to some very strange people. I think we must has missed the memo about all people who travel on night trains are complete creepers.... because we were 2 of the only normal people on the train. Eek!

We were definately glad to get off the train in Prague, but immediately noticed that it was absolutely freezing at 3:45am in the Czech Republic..... great! To top it all off, the directions that we had to our hotel were by subway..... and the subways shut down a little after midnight. So, we rushed over to the night bus stop and hopped on there, heading in the right direction. Yet again, everybody up at this hour was completely scary, so Amber and I kept to ourselves. Then, when we were a few stops into our journey, the bus driver stopped the bus and told everyone that the ride was "Finito." Now, I don't speak Czech, but I'm pretty sure that comment had something to do with the night bus shutting down, too. So, we got off the bus at 4am, and had absolutely NO idea of where we were. Luckily, we saw a taxi on the side of the street, and this guy took us all the way to our hotel. -- We arrived at the doors at just after 4:30am, found our room, and immediately crashed for what remained of the night!

The next morning, we woke up, had some breakfast, and headed out on a walking tour of the city with our guide. It decided to be cold and rainy this weekend in Prague, but we weren't about to let that stop us from seeing the city!!! First, we got to see the Prague Castle, which is the largest castle in Europe (not based on number of rooms, but on the amount of area that it covered). It was very awesome!

After that, we went into the St. Vitus Cathedral, which was so pretty. The most impressive things about this cathedral were the many stained-glass windows. One of the windows was of stories of the apostles (I think), but was done completely in purple and blue glass. I wanted it! :) Another one of the windows, which was the most special of the cathedral, was unlike most windows. The scenes were not made of tiny pieces of stained-glass, but instead, was painted on the glass, so that the details were incredible! -- We learned that this cathedral, along with the castle and many other buildings in Prague, was only completed w/in the last century. Because of the war, many construction projects had to be stopped for a while. With St. Vitus, the builders had to make a wall sealing off the part that was finished, and then later tore down that wall and completed the rest of the building. We learned that the reason many cathedrals in this style were build with the pointed windows, is because the architects wanted the windows to look like praying hands. The ceilings are made in the arched style to look like the bottom of a boat, which symbolizes sailing on toward paradise, which is what the people said, was the point of the church: to bring people to paradise. -- Another really cool thing that our guide told us was about one certain tomb in St. Vitus. It stood near the back of the cathedral, but was very elaborate. The saint in this tomb had such a cool story. One day, the queen came to this saint and wanted to enter into confession. Of course, the saint heard her confession and prayed with her. Well, the king heard that she had gone to this particular guy, and went to him to find out what the queen had been up to. Like any good man of God, he wouldn't tell one word of the queen's confession.... so, the king tortured him and threw him off of a bridge! :( After the king died, the queen made this man the Patron Saint of ...... what else, but Bridges, I guess to get back at the king. :)

To get to the other part of the city, we had to cross over Charles Bridge. This bridge is the oldest in Prague, and if you rub the statue of Charles, you are supposed to have good luck and have your wish come true. The story goes, that you can only make a wish on this bridge once in your life, so it'd better be a good one!!!!

After our tour around the Old Town Square, a small group of us set out to go to lunch. After that, we went to St. Nicholas's Church, and actually saw a man outside that had a long white beard..... I guess he was Santa in disguise! :) It was very very pretty on the outside. -- By this time, it was pretty dark outside, even though it was only about 4:30 in the afternoon. Patrick, Aaron, Nicole, Laura, Amber, and I decided to hike up this huge mountain/hill thing to the Petrin Tower. This tower is 1/5 the size of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but since it's on a mountain, actually stands the same height! It was all lit up, so we got to take some awesome pictures and also had a wonderful view of Prague at night. (The walk up that huge hill about killed us all, though, haha)

After that, we met the group and had a great dinner. Later, we found out that today was the anniversary of Crystalnacht, which was a massacre of Jews back in the day in Germany. The Jewish community had a memorial in the Jewish Quarter of Prague, but there ended up being riots, because a group of Neo-Nazis came to protest and fight people. Greg and Paul ended up being down in the square at the time this happened, and saw a bunch of the Nazis get beat up..... serves them right, I guess! -- After dinner, we went to a club called Face to Face. There were some guys rapping when we came in, but we didn't think much about it. Later on, Jay from Canada talked to some locals, and it turns out that those guys were two of the most famous rappers in the Czech Republic. Jay, Amber, and I went and talked to them! :) So, I can say that I met a famous rapper.... even though I had no idea what they were rapping about! lol

The next day, we headed out in the rain again to have a tour of the Jewish Quarter of Prague. We went into one Jewish Temple that had the (close to 80,ooo) names of the Czech people killed in the Holocaust hand-written in red and black w/ their dates of birth and death (if known) on the walls. It was very powerful, because the names went on for several rooms. We also got to see drawings that the childeren in many of the concentration camps, including Terezin, had drawn of everything from their family, to camp conditions, to Biblical figures. -- I actually got a chance to talk a little bit about the Bible with a girl in our group, because one of the drawings was of Cain and Abel, and she didn't know who they were. -- After the temple, we walked around one of the grave yards. At first, it looked completely disorganized. The gravestones were sticking out every-which-way, and it just looked like a mess! We learned, however, that since there wasn't a lot of space, the gravestones that we saw weren't the only ones there. There were many layers of graves burried under the ones that we saw, so you could see the very tops of the stones sticking out! It was wierd! -- Next, we went into the Spanish Synagogue, which was completely different than any that I've ever seen. The wood was very dark, and there was gold decorating the walls. Most synagogues are very simple, but this was done in the reformed style of the Spanish Jews living in Prague, so it had their influence. -- I also learned why the Torah is usually in a scroll form. This way, when you read it, your fingers don't touch the papers and ruin it. You just scroll along! :) I thought that was so neat.


After our tour was over, Amber and I decided to go to the Franz Kafka museum. Not many of our friends really had read Kafka, but Amber and I both had Nancy Tyree for senior AP English, so we were very well-educated in his existentialist writing style! On our way to the museum, we ran into a couple from Miami, who was just traveling through Europe for a few weeks, and who were on their way to Vienna next week! We talked with them for a while about our majors, studying in Vienna, and our travels. We found out that the man used to be a reporter for the Miami Herald, and now the two of them owned and operated a PR firm in Florida. She was wearing Prada glasses, so Amber and I guessed that they'd done pretty well for themselves. They told us that their daughter was just entering college, and was thinking about studying abroad. I think that Amber and I sold them on the idea of letting her go!!!! :) They were SUCH nice people. -- After talking to them for a few minutes, we continued on to the Kafka museum. Prague was the birthplace of Kafka, so we were pretty pumped to see where he lived and wrote all of his amazing stuff. -- In the museum we got to see several original manuscripts (such as his letter to his Father and The Castle), see pictures of all of his family and many failed relationships, read about all the things that inspired him to believe and write the way he did, and also see some picture of his house, school, and friends! I could have stayed in there for the longest time! I learned that Kafka really hated the way that he looked... but to me, he was a pretty good-looking guy! -- I really loved this museum.

For the rest of the day, Amber and I just walked around and looked in the Amber shops! Prague makes a lot of amber jewelry set in sterling silver, so we made sure that Amber got a ring to take back! -- This was again, a wonderful trip!