I’ve officially
been in Prague for two weeks now! Week one went by strangely slow because of
the jetlag and incredibly long days but I can’t believe week two is now over.
On Thursday we went on a walk, lead by Richard this time, and finally got to see
the baby tower up close and personal. The Zizkov Tower was constructed in order
to block any incoming western radio and television transmissions, so it’s not
surprising that this tower has a history of being unloved by Prague locals. The
artist David Cerny then placed the babies on the tower as a temporary exhibit
post-communism, but people liked them so much they decided to keep them there.
My theory is that the baby creator threatened to bring these things to life and
they kept them out of fear of being controlled by artificial intelligence
because in my opinion it’s just creepy. Speaking of babies, I seem to be especially
observant of the kids and puppies here. Foreign children are just especially
adorable and the dog count is increasing at an exponential rate. Dogs without
leashes, dogs in purses, dogs in baby slings, dogs in strollers, you name it!
Later that day
we went to the Communist museum, which we found thanks to the McDonald’s signs
ironically guiding our way. It was a very well done walk-through of communism
in the Czech Republic with displays, artwork, graffiti walls, and videos. It
was just surreal to think that the street we walked onto just moments after
walking through the museum is the same street that thousands of people were
fighting for their rights nearly 20 years before. Where students were being
beaten, sprayed down with water, and dragged by the police, there now stands
McDonalds, malls, and cafes filled with tourists. It made me really anxious to
start my classes for the history aspect of this part of Europe and hopefully
hear Jan talk more about what it was like being in his 20s during the time.
The rest of the
weekend included Czech country music, a giant hot dog, and a hike. On Saturday
there was a wine festival at the castle. It was basically a ton of people and a
ton of walking because we couldn’t even find the right place to go. We gave up
because at the time a foot long hot dog sounded better than expensive wine. On
Sunday we went on a hike, lead by Honza, to Ceské stredohorí which is a spectacular hillside of
volcanic origin 40 miles North of Prague. We hiked to the Kost’al mountain with
the castle ruins Kost’alov on the top. We had to walk through neighborhoods
that made us feel like we were trespassing, and it was definitely more
demanding than last week’s hike. We were a little skeptical of Honza since he
first misplaced our tickets, then he kept checking the map and every time there
was a fork in the road it seemed like he was just guessing we were going the
right way. We eventually made it to the top of some castle ruins and made the
long way back after stopping for lunch in the middle of nowhere. We were all
exhausted by the end of the day especially since half the group seems to be
catching the sickness that is going around.
Luckily, the
train ride there and back was a lot more comfortable than last week since we
had individual compartments and it wasn’t a million degrees. It actually felt
like I was on the Hogwarts Express. However, just because there’s a man sitting
in what appears to be his black robes next to you does not mean he is a
professor at Hogwarts and probably did not carry chocolate with him in case of
the arrival of some unwanted dementors. Oh yeah, it’s also really fun to stick
your head out the window of a moving train.
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