City of Gold

Posted by Nicki

So, at the current moment I am Budapest, and have some blog catching up to do…however, some of the keys, specifically the z and y are switched up, so if I make some typos, apologies in advance.

Ill start things off with prague…Alex and I stared our brief eastern europe tour as I think I mentioned in the last blog in Prague…absolutely awesome city! We both loved it. It did manage to warm up a bit, and the city was just so pleasant to walk around. The architechture of the buildings is beautiful, the streets are cobblestone and colorful, and everyone seems to have a very positive outlook. The only downside I would say is that prague is VERY touristy. If you can get off the main streets its great, but main town squares and bridges are packed with tourists.

But, we managed to make the best of the crowds and had a great time. We walked a TON, and therefore saw quite a bit in the time we were there. We climbed up all the towers and hills we could for great views of the city, explored the grounds of the prague castle, a beautiful hill of flowering trees, made a wish on the five star cross on charles bridge, and even walked through a house of mirrors. The inside of the cathedral in prague castle was absolutely breathtaking, the most amazing stained glass Ive ever seen, period. The city is full of amazing sculpture, and it seems like everything is accented with gold in some way or another…hence the title.

We also made our way through the jewish quarter, which turned out to be really interesting. There is a spanish synogouge, modeled on the alambra, the moorish palace in granada…just gorgeous. All gold and amazing patterns on the ceiling and and covered in moorish arches. After that we went to another synagouge, something pinko (I dont recall the name). This one was much more powerful in its statement. It was a memorial to the many thousands of czech jews killed in the halocaust. The walls of the building were done in a vietnam memorial fashion, covered ceiling to floor in verz small print with all the names of the 80,000 jews killed in the world war II atrocities. It was extremely powerful. The names seemed to blend together and just go on forever.
At the top floor of the synagogue was a collection of childrens drawings done by children living in the czech jewish ghetto of terezin during the war. Apparently a teacher at the time had discovered a coping strategy of some sort that encouraged children to express themselves and the despair thez felt through art. Although she eventually was sent to one of the concentration camps, she left behind two suitcases with over 4000 drawings from the children of the ghetto. Many of these were what we saw. Its amazing how a simple childrens sketch can truly express so much.
After that synagouge we also visited the jewish cemetary, which was really incredible to see. Apparently its 12 layers deep, they had run out space. The grave stone are in a complete random state looking as though theyve fallen out of the sky…although some are pushing there way up through the ground. They are piled up against each other, leaning this way and that, many areas resemebled to me a crooked mouth of teeth. I wished I had taken photos, but I felt like it would have been disrespectful as photos werent allowed in any of the other places.

In any case, this blog is getting quite long, so Ill end it there. I hope you all are well! I sent a bunch of postcards from prague, but I dont know if the lady gave me the right postage, so hopefullz they will make it!