I've got to play catch-up on the last two weeks worth of events, I've been so busy I haven't had time to blog!
So, Martha and I went on another one of our famous long unintentional hikes (as Martha very aptly coined them) on the 1st, up this place called Petrin Hill here in Prague. There's a tower at the top that people call the "mini Eiffle Tower", and there's a cable car that goes up the hill, but we were running a little short on time so we decided to hike instead. Whew. Great view of Prague, though :) And we want to go back soon to climb up the actual tower itself (because after walking up the giant hill, it seemed a little ambitious to go up a tower too). There was a pretty sweet playground there also, with a hammock!
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| There was a communism memorial at a park near the foot of Petrin hill, and i couldn't resist. ;) |
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| The tower! |
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| Having fun on the playground! |
That Friday (the 4th) my Gender class took a day trip to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. We went to Brno because it is where a Queer Film Fest called Mezipatra, was started in 2000. It runs every year, and now runs 10 days in Brno, and 10 days in Prague annually. So we went to see that, and talked with prepresentatives from STUD, which is an LGBT organization that was founded in Brno which helped found/run the festival. We saw a really interesting film called Orlando.
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| What made this so interesting is that Brno is much more religious than Prague, so the fact that the largest Queer Film Fest in Central Europe, (and also the 1st pride parade in the Czech Republic) started there, is really curious. Anyway, so of course there was a beautiful church :) |
Then that Sunday I went to Lidice and Terezin with my Jewish History class. Earlier that week we had talked to a Holocaust survivor who had been interned at Terezin.
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| This is where the town of Lidice stood. The entire town of Lidice was destroyed by the Nazis during WWII. They did it after one of the Nazi bigwigs was assassinated in Prague, so they wanted to prove a point. |
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| All of the people were separated and sent toward concentration camps. All of the children were separated, and put in trucks, and their mothers were told they would meet them at the camp in only a couple hours. They were instead taken and gassed. These statues are of each of the children in the last photos available of them before Lidice. Needless to say, it was an emotional visit. |
This weekend Martha and I went to Vienna to meet her sister who is visiting for a bit. :) It was a bit of a stressful journey. I kind of forgot my passport in Prague, but when the bus stopped at the border the guard kind of looked at my license/student ID.. waffled a bit.. and let me thru. The problem was, getting back. So we made a little trip to the US Embassy, and they told me to just risk it, rather than try and do anything official. But of course, to get on a train back, they required a passport... and to get on a bus to get back they required a passport... It was extraordinarily frustrating. The irony of being unable to get out of the country I got into illegally. In any case, I got a copy of my passport emailed to me, and they let me on the bus (telling me that I would probably not get across the border) and then WE DIDN'T EVEN STOP AT THE BORDER!! Anyway, whatever.
As far as the actual city goes, it has been years since I've been to Vienna. But after living in Prague for 2 months, I can say for certain that I like Prague much better. Vienna is a beautiful city, don't get me wrong. And of course it has a lot of history. But it is also much more modernized in appearance and culture than Prague is. Walking the streets there felt more like what I would imagine New York to feel like. Prague just feels more homey.
What was really cool though, were the Christmas Markets! Apparently it's a tradition in Central Europe, during Christmas, to have these open air crafts markets. We went to a bunch of those over the 3 nights we were there, and it was really great. Each market sold Punsch (some kind of warm alcoholic cider-ish drink, which was fabulous to drink while you strolled since it was so cold there!) and they served it in real mugs which were each made uniquely for whichever Christmas Market you were in (and they only cost 2 Euro). I kept 2, because they were
way cheaper than any other souvenir I could possibly have found. :) (Speaking of money, another reason I prefer Prague is cost. Vienna is
sooo much more expensive than Prague. Going to dinner there was outrageous compared to the price of food here. And beer-- I'm sure I've mentioned the insanely cheap beer in Prague? Yes, not so much in Vienna. And it wasn't as good, of course).
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| Statue of Franz Joseph in front of the Albertina museum of art (great exhibit on Picasso and Monet!) |
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| The Schonbrunn Palace! |
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| The palace at night, from the front. This was, apparently, the first night of this particular Christmas market. They had a children's choir singing! It was beautiful. |
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| This is the largest Christmas market in Vienna during the day. Not as pretty as at night (the building, when lit up, is absolutely gorgeous), but my camera refuses to take good pictures at night so I came back the next day! |
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| Parliament building! They sure know how to build 'em. |
Anyway, it has been a fabulous couple of weeks (and I haven't even touched on the Mezipatra festival here in Prague where I actually volunteered, and saw 6 absolutely amazing films). I'll do a post on Mezipatra sometime later this week probably?
Much love!
Alyssa
