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Published: January 1st 2008
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In their guide to Prague they refer to "lunacy" and festivities in Prague's Old Town square (not it's real name, but there's no way I can type the Czech) on New Year's Eve, and everyone had told use the Prague was an awesome place to spend New Years, and now I feel like lunacy was so the right word. It turns out that fireworks and firecrackers are not only legal here; they are sold with reckless abandon, so in the tiny windy streets of Prague teenage idiots from every country that has the money to get to Prague for New Years were setting off anything that just needed a lighter. We almost got singed a couple times, but it was more important to dodge the firecrackers because the noise was worse than anything echoing off the really close buildings. (As I write this, by the way, the left overs are being shot off.) We ended up standing on the Charles Bridge to watch the fireworks and while we were waiting everyone around us was shooting off fireworks and firecrackers. Some were funny because they weren't shot well and just fell in the water before exploding or other nearly singed us, like
Wawel
The Main Sqaure the ones from the group of Russians behind us. There were always displays going off, and I felt like I was watching a tennis match trying to see where they were. When the actual display starting going off we were directly underneath it, and I mean, directly. It felt like the fireworks were 50 feet away from us and they were just raining on the huge crowd on the bridge. Everyone was screaming and it was the craziest thing I've ever experienced. We waited an hour before we even considered walking towards the metro, because there were so many people.
And back to normalcy...I last left off in an airport in Malmo, I believe. From there we flew to Krakow, which was cool, and I really enjoyed it, but we only stayed there a day. In fact, I don't think I can even say we stayed there a day because we got in by night train at 10 and left by night train at 10. Krakow is small, so we walked the center of it, and saw all the main sites, but everything really fast. We went the castle and the catherdral and I tried to remember everything Professor
Castle in Wawel
Inside the castle courtyard Porter had ever said in the two semester I took his classes, because I kept recognizing names. I kept saying, we studied that guy, but wasn't able to tell Kira much about them, which is now kind of disappointing, but I did pretty well on a couple of key figures who were buried beneath the church. From there we walked to the main square, grabbed some grub and went to catch our train.
The next day we arrived in Prague crazy early in the morning, but it took us a little while to get to our hostel, but even so, by the time we got there, the hostel still wasn't open. We went and hung out the McDonalds near by, and waited for them to open. In the process of walking and moving, I broke my backpack. We finally got in, checked in, but had to wait to get into our room while it was cleaned, so we went and bought me a new backpack. We came back, showered, since it had been three days on night trains. We went out and walked around Prague castle, but didn't go in anything because by then it was too late and
things were closing. We went back to the hostel, on the way stopping by the grocery store and getting food. We cooked in the shared kitchen the first normal meal I feel like I've had in ages. It was just pasta and canned pasta sauce and salad. But the salad was fresh, and we found balsamic vinegar dressing easily, and it was lovely. Basically I slept happy.
Yesterday was New Years Eve, so we thought it was going to be hard to find places that were open, but since everyone in Europe like to come to Prague for New Years apparently, most things were open. We went to the Communism museum, which focused on communism on Czechoslovakia and was really interesting. I liked that they had footage from the Prague Spring and also the fall in 1989. The more I learn about the Czechs, the more I feel like a lot of them never really wanted communism, but knew it was an oppressive regime. Everytime they saw an opportunity to try and change the situation, they tried, but it took a very long time for them to be successful. After that we went to the Jewish Museum of Prague,
Charles Bridge
The view of Prague from Prague Castle which is less of a museum and more a self-guided tour around the Jewish quarter. We didn't have time to visit all the sites before they closed so we did the rest of them today. There were four synagogues, a cemetary, and a ceremonial hall and they all had displays relating to judiasm and jewish life, so I'm kinda glad we inadvertantly broke it up into two days.
Last night we made the same dinner at our hostel again, and went out to join the rest of Prague to celebrate the New Year. Today we had the joy of switching hostels, which involved wandering around for an hour looking for our new one because the street our new hostel was on isn't on the map. At least our hostel seems to be clean and cheap. We then went and finished the Jewish quarter tour and planned to go the Mucha Museum, but by the time we got there, there wasn't enough time because they were closing early for New Years. We're going to try to do that and the Kafka musem and the castle properly tomorrow. It'll be a little hectic. But we're good at hectic.
Happy New
Year All,
From Europe With Love
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Prague fireworks
I know what you mean about the Prague fireworks! I was there a few years ago, in a snowy park in ikov, watching the official fireworks over Charles Bridge in the city below - but simultaneously dodging the ones being let off from Coke bottles wedged in the snow by children just out of infancy. The bottles would inevitably topple - and then the fireworks were like bullets aimed at the bystanders. Lunacy - you're right! It was a little less crazy in Paris this year, but N.Y.E seemed to be a B.Y.O affair - there were no official fireworks! The Eiffel Tower just sparkled on the hour as normal, and people swigged champagne on the Champs-Élysées... but that was it!