Bohemians, spirits, and Kafka

no smiling, here are the guards at the Prague Palace
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Because I had felt complete with Hungary and Poland a little early I had some extra time on my hands so I decided to check out Prague (no pun intended).

Prague was very cool, but a little touristy for me, making internet access about four times more expensive than it should have been, which is why there haven't been any updates for about a week.

Here were the main highlights

Walking over the Charles Bridge and exploring the palalce area.

marienettes, impressive craftsmanship
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Going on a communism walking tour, most interesting was at the end learning about Jan Palach who started himself on fire to reignite the spirit of protest of the Czechs which had appeared to have waned.

Going through the Jewish Quarter where six synagogues had been turned into museums. One of the most interesting part of the exhibit was a section of drawings by kids 10-18 created when they were in a concentration camp at Terezin. An artist gave the children lesssons and they were able to express their feelings as well as have an escape through their art.

the astronomical clock
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The astronomical clock was an interesting sight.

Prague has walkiing tours for its haunted past, but since it was hard to justify paying for it I just printed off some of the haunted stories of Prague along with the neighborhoods that the ghosts were supposed to haunt and wandered around on my own for the night. No ghosts were spotted. It was so busy with tourists it was really hard to imagine these areas as eerie at all. I think maybe the ghosts go on holiday when the tourists pour in to Prague and return when they are gone. I did learn that the Golem story originated in Prague. Before this I only knew of it from a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode.

Charles Bridge
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I tried some of the local cuisine, pigs knuckles. I think it is their knee. It is just a big hunk of meat on the bone that looks like it was fried. Very fatty, and good. But not nearly as exotic as the name sounds.

Saw the Old Town Hall where the Hussites defenestrated some of the local town leaders. (They were thrown out of the window). Some survived. There is an argument over why. The Catholics said it was divine intervention, the Hussites say it was because they fell into a pile of manuer, you can decide for yourself which one you'd like to believe.

Jewish cemetery in Prague
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The blues and dixieland bands on on the bridge and in the city center were enjoyable.

And their was Kafka paraphanelia everywhere. Made me think I may have to reread some of his works.

There's probably a few other things that I am forgetting, but I'm going to be ok with that. I still need to cathc up with my installment on Ireland