Blogs from Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic, Europe - page 2

As it turned out, the departure from Vienna was a lot less painful than anticipated. I had been terribly intimidated about my ability to find the right platform and the right train but, happily, it's a well organized machine if you only know how it works. Our helpful taxi driver explained it on the way to the station, and the well organized station was easy to navigate after that. First, 50 minutes before departure, the correct platform is shown in big screens like in an airport. You look for your train number and destination. Then, once you get to that platform there is a map showing you in which area of the platform your train compartment is going to be at. We were in first class, towards the front of the train, so we had to ... read more

Prague is the love object of my desire. Did you ever have a love interest who was so beautiful yet you know you could not live together? For me, that was the relationship I had with the most beautiful city in the world. I also feel a sense of freedom in Prague and the Czech Republic, an escape from Republican regimes in one's own country, no matter which century, with laws that are less Puritanical and oppressive than in the New World. The Czech Airlines flight hinted of things to come: the Czech personality and diet are there for you to observe before you land. Ask only once when you request something. It will be done eventually. The Czechs do not forget. I had a good travel agency that took care of all of my ... read more

I will bet you would never come up with Antonin Dvorak as the real Father of American Music. You might guess George Gershwin, or Stephen Foster, who died at the age of 37 with 38 cents to his name. My guess would have been Chuck Berry or Buddy Holly. Antonin Leopold Dvorak (dvorr-zhak) was a Czech composer of romantic music. His most famous works are his New World Symphony, the Slavonic Dances, "American" String Quartet, and Cello Concerto in B Minor. And for your edification, I thought there was a "z" in his name for the longest time! Antonin Dvorak in 1868 Fast forward to his arrival in the United States where he became director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City in 1892-1895. He ... read more

Franz Kafka was born in Prague, now Czech Republic on July 3, 1883. He died on June 3, 1924 near Vienna, Austria. He was born into a prosperous Jewish middle class family. He was drawn to his maternal ancestors because of their spirituality, intellectual distinction, piety, and delicate physical and mental disposition. He became the oldest child after the death of his two older brothers. Ottla, the youngest of his three sisters, became closest to him. Kafka was overshadowed by a tyrannical, successful, but overbearing father, who worshipped financial success and social advancement as a shopkeeper. He attempts an autobiography (Letter to Father) in 1919 in a letter that never reaches the addressee. He blames his father for his failure to marry and enter fatherhood, as well as his escape into literature. He felt his will ... read more

Where did the term, Iron Curtain get coined first? From the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences: The term iron curtain was coined by the British author and suffragette Ethel Snowden in her book Through Bolshevik Russia (1920). In her very early and negative critique of the Bolshevik form of communism, this British feminist referred to the iron curtain simply as the contemporary geographical border of Bolshevik Russia in 1919 (‘We were behind the ‘iron curtain’ at last’). At the end of the Nazi regime in url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/places/germany-scandinavia-and-central-europe/german-political-geography/germanyGermany the minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, used the term in a journal article and several times in his private diary in February 1945,... read more