Kde Je Mladek

The title of this post is the name of a Bohemian drinking song, entitled "Where is the Young Brewer?" We learned it today in Czech class, which is turning out to be difficult but helpful. Today I was able to order a pastry and understand the price entirely without the use of English. I seem to be picking up the language fairly quickly- being surrounded by it day and night certainly helps hammer it all in.

This week, we had a lot of free time to explore the city. I have discovered good new restaurants and interesting side streets to wander. I also discovered the humongous park two blocks from my apartment that runs along the river for probably two miles and eventually leads to the Prague Castle. The other night, iPod shuffle in hand, I strolled down the lower path (closer to the river, with the view of most of the city) and walked the entire length of the park. On the way, I passed the Beer Gardens, which is basically an outdoor pub with a view, a neat old building that houses a restaurant, and a plaza with a large metronome that stands in place of a statue of Stalin that had occupied the site during the reign of Communism in this country. This monument is visible from as far away as the Old Town Square and, though I wasn't aware the night I walked by, probably holds much significance for the people of Prague.

I ended up at the Castle after the park ended, and I wandered into a side entrance guarded by a very lax security guard who paid no attention to me whatsoever, even though it was past 11 pm and the Castle was clearly closed to the public. I went it further and saw a line of uniformed soldiers marching through a gate, and they each individually turned to look at me. I decided at that point that it was time for me to leave, and I took the trams and metro home.

On Thursday, we had a tour of the Jewish Quarter led by the history teacher whose class will begin next week. We toured most of the synagogues and the old Jewish cemetary, which was used between 1450 and the late 18th century. The Spanish Synagogue was by far the most beautiful, having been built by Reform Jews in the 1870s and decorated in a lavish Spanish style, with gold leaf and arabesque designs covering every surface, including the organ. (Yes, an old synagogue with an organ built in. That was odd to me.) The oldest was the Old-New, which until recently had the longest continuing regular minyan (700+ years!) and was built in the 1270s in a very Gothic style. The most humbling shul, of course, was the Pinkas, which was converted after the war into a memorial to Czech Holocaust victims. Names of victims from every town in the entire country of the Czech Republic line the walls from floor to ceiling. I got the chills walking in and yet somehow couldn't tear myself away when we left.

Tonight, we will be attending a Shabbat service at the Spanish synagogue. I will write about this at a later time.

Call Me!

I have a Czech cell phone that receives calls for free! (Making calls, especially internationally, is expensive.) My number is 011 420 776 24 44 26. Please call me or send me a fun text message!

Sunday, August 28

Today was perhaps the best day so far. I woke up around 8:15 and made myself a hearty breakfast of three fried eggs- I was determined not to feel like I'm starving all day like I have ever since I arrived. I then proceeded to bake chocolate chip cookies without measuring cups, vanilla, a proper mixing bowl, or a written recipe. Amazingly, they turned out quite well.

Everyone gathered at our apartment at 10 for a meeting with Kim, our resident director. She gave us the brief history of the Prague Jewish community (it took over an hour). We then discussed academics and the classes we'll be taking in a week. We begin Intensive Czech tomorrow- I'm excited to finally be able to pronounce the names of tram and Metro stops. Also, I have the option of doing an internship instead of one elective. On Friday night, we went to Masorti (Conservative) services with Rabbi Hoffberg in a room in the Jewish town hall in the Jewish quarter of the old city (it's been in use by the Jewish community for hundreds of years- very cool building). I talked with the rabbi and he wants me to intern for him with the community. I will either be helping to organize/lead high holiday services or, more likely, I'll be working with the bar mitzvah class in some sort of teaching capacity. I'm really happy to get involved in teh Jewish community here, especially because it will make research for my thesis so much easier and give me access to a lot of resources. I've decided to change my thesis topic to the rebirth of the Jewish community in Prague rather than outside perceptions of Jews.

Anyhow, after the academics talk, we fuond out about our activity of the day. We had a seven hour scavenger hunt in three teams across the city to help us learn our way around. My teammates were Emily and Bess. We decided to take the challenge seriously- a prize was promised to the winner of the most points- and raced around the city acquiring brochures, beer coasters, tram tickets, newspapers, and other various souvenirs in addition to photographing ourselves in front of a wide range of landmarks. We visited sights like the Charles Bridge, the Jewish Museum, the Castle, two marionette operas that perform Don Giovanni, a faraway Metro station, the Czech National Library, the Prague City Library, the main post office, and the Jerusalemska Synagogue. I now feel incredibly familiar with the major areas of this city, and in the process of learning it all I had a ton of fun.

We met for dinner as the last leg of the race, where points were counted and our team won by a significant amount. We had a delicious dinner of mostly traditional Czech food- who knew a cabbage and horseradish salad would be so tasty?

Now, I think it is time for me to go back to my apartment and collapse. Tomorrow I will be learning Czech at 9 am. Love to all.

My First Weekend

Tonight, I am writing to you from a multilevel underground gaming and blacklight center that happens to offer cheap internet in its deepest, darkest corner. For the last twenty minutes, the music in the computer room has been American pop songs translated into Czech and re-recorded by Czech artists. I can't say I've ever heard anything quite like it.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 27

I woke up late- maybe 10:30- and spent an hour scouring my neighborhood for a decent (filling) breakfast. After discovering the ten or so Chinese restaurants within a three block radius of my apartment but not any good cafes, I ventured a little further and settled for a small pastry shop, where I tried to make do with apple strudel (the national dessert) and orange juice. Then my roommates and I went grocery shopping, as our kitchen was fairly well equipped but completely devoid of food.

After shopping, I met the girls from the other apartment in the old city and we wandered the tourist areas. We caught the famous clock at the hour, which has figurines of all the apostles that move on a track past two windows that can be seen from the Old Town Square. It's not very exciting, but it's very historic and everybody comes to see it when they visit Prague.

We then went to the Czech equivalent of Target, which is called Tesco. We bought food for dinner and a few more supplies that we had forgotten when we were there the day before. From there, we went back to the other apartment, where one girl's visiting friend went to work cooking dinner for all nine girls in our program. We hung out for several hours and generally had a good time.

Later, a few of us decided we wanted to try out a club. We chose one that had been recommended by a friend, called Radost F/X, and the four of us proceeded to get lost. Armed with a poor set of directions and the name of the club, we wandered in circles until finally somenoe explained that it was of course in the direction from which we had started- and also only a block away from the other apartment. (The program has two apartments, and what isn't mine is the "other.")

Shira, Jeanette, Sam, and I found ourselves in a club that appeared to have been shipped over from America with us. The music was all hip hop and most of the patrons were either American or visiting Europeans from other countries. We met a friendly group of Swiss guys who we chatted with for a while, and later my friends met some nice men from London.

We didn't leave the club until after 3 am. The fun part about this is that Shira and I couldn't get back to our apartment the way we'd come. The Metro (subway) closes at midnight, and the trams that normally run every ten or fifteen minutes change at night to fewer routes and completely different numbers. Without a map, we figured out the general direction we needed to follow (dictated by the position of the Vlatva River, which we had to cross) and hopped on the first tram that came.

We didn't recognize any of the stops on the tram route and I decided to get off at the only one that was in an area I recognized, though I still had no idea how to understand the night trams. We walked a ways, discovering as we did that we should have stayed on the tram. Eventually, we found a stop next to the river and found at it the right tram to take- just after that tram had come. Since it was already 4 am and we had half an hour to wait for the next tram, we called a cab and had a quick and safe (and not terribly overpriced) ride home.