Dali, Dancing, & Nazis in Prague

After our evening with the Czechs, the men were significantly exhausted. (Dare I say hung over? They might contest that.) I however, felt surprisingly better than I did the day before. (I guess beer and Sudafed was good idea after all, take that Surgeon General!) I was up, showered and dressed by 9:00 AM. I told the men that I was going to the internet cafe to write up a blog post, and that if they decided to go anywhere before I got back that they should just come and get me. (It was literally a block away.) When I got to the square, I found out that the place didn't open until 10. Bummer. But was it really a bummer? The square was already bustling with people, and actually, "What's this? A parade? No, it's actually an international folk dance festival!" People traveled from all over to show off their cultural dance moves. What about the US? How do you think we were represented? Moonwalk? No. (Good guess though, it woud have been quite fitting considering that the number of times I've heard "Billie Jean" this summer is fast approching the Dyson number for 2.) More guesses? Don't forget Hawaii is a part of the US too!

For some reason that I can only loosely explain, when I saw all of these different people dancing joyfully in the streets (cheesy music and all), I started to cry. I mean it, I'm talking some serious tears. I guess I went a little soft seeing people from all different nations being happy and united by something as simple as music. It's the idealist in me... the Utopian, she got a little emotional.
I watched for an hour as various groups preformed their numbers. I don't have any good pictures of this... you know... due to the crying and all.

I crossed the square a little before 10 to see the astronomical clock do 'it's thing' that it does every hour, on the hour, all day starting at 9 AM. After watching the 15 second 'show,' I've decided that the only reason it exisits is so tourists have a reason to stare at the clock for any length of time. If you just saw the clock (there's a picture of it in my previous blog entry) you'd say, "What a beautiful clock!" and promptly move on after snapping a picture. But folks, that thing is 'F'-ing complicated! (Image ripped from wikipedia.) You can't appreciate it without standing there and trying to figure out how it works for a while, and the only reason you would ever try to do that is if you were killing time while standing in your 'prime spot' for viewing a 'show' of sorts. My advice, skip the show... it's exactly like a giant coo-coo clock, only with apostles instead of birds. It might be more interesting if the apostles actually made 'coo-coo' noises. I should suggest that to the Czechs... with their dark humor record, they might actually consider it.

Finally, the internet cafe was open and I took a break from experiencing life to reflect on it. Reflection takes longer than one would expect, and I almost fainted when I looked at the time. 11:30!? How did that happen? Then I started to worry because I knew we were supposed to meet our Czech friends at 1:00 for lunch, and I REALLY wanted to go to the Dali exhibit before then. Did the guys forget where the internet cafe was? Had they looking for me? I practically ran back to the apartment... our last full day in Prague and I was wasting it in the cafe! I was going to have to do some apologizing.

Three locked doors, and three flights of stairs later, I was standing in the middle of the living room looking down in amazement at John and Frank's respective beds... each still occupied! I went to sleep at the same time as them, (Midnight maybe?) and here they were four hours after I started my day... halfway through their twelfth hour of sleep! Here's where I got a little bossy.... "WAKE UP!!! You need to get ready so we can go to the Museum! How long will it take you both to shower?! If we leave in more than 20 minutes, the Dali exhibit (while small) won't be worth the crowns!" I have to give them credit, they sprang into action. John even ignored the shower queue and went first for a change. I felt sort of bad in retrospect because I could have just as easily went to the museum on my own and given them a little more time to start their day, (really does anyone deserve to be awakened like that when they are on vacation?) but I was just so surprised to find them still asleep, and was mad at myself for rushing in the internet cafe because I was worried about holding THEM up.

Twenty minutes later we were out the door and at the Dali exhibit. (I can say this because our beautifully located apartment was literally 2 blocks from the museum.) Let me say, Dali was a crazy SOB. And I'm not just talking about his artwork, I mean seriously, look at this guy!







Right? This particular exhibit combined photos of the artist with his sketches, paintings, sculptures, and pottery. Did you know Dali was a potter? His plates had the same crazy ass designs on them. Can you imagine eating off of this hairy rotting clock?

Honestly though, had they sold duplicates in the gift shop, I would have seriously considered purchasing a few for my brother. Alas, they did not. (Sorry Jus.) I really enjoyed looking at his work. Did you also know that Dali painted Abraham Lincoln?



















Well... sort of anyway.



I really enjoyed the exhibit, and was really satisfied that we saw the whole thing in an hour. I mean don't get me wrong, Dali's artwork is so interesting because there seems to be about a million ways to interpret everything he does, and because of this I could have spent a whole day there and written several posts on what I saw. (I am especially intrigued by his frequent usage of shuffleboard stick shaped support devices.) It's just that we had friends to meet and dumplings to eat!

We met Mark and Aaron a little to the east of old town and they took us to an extremely cheap place to eat lunch. It wasn't a touristy place and so they had to read the menu to us again. Frank and I each got the schnitzel again, and John did this time as well. (I guess he learned his lesson. :) )





The rest of the day was pretty relaxing, we did some sightseeing, stopped for coffee, did some more wandering around, and had some gelato. Feeling especially laid back the men even suffered through a few souveneir purchases. One thing that we toured that was different that usual was the Jewish Quarter of Prague. There were a few things there that were particularly interesting for me. The first was this old graveyard:



Isn't it strange that the gravestones are all practically on top of each other? And doesn't the ground look like it's swelling? I was very curious about these characteristics, so I did a little research. It turns out that when the graveyard got full, they just added more dirt, and piled on more graves. When they did this, they just moved all of the old headstones up to the top layer. There are actually 12 full layers of graves. This is the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe (operational from 1439-1787) because the Nazis made a point to destroy all Jewish cemeteries they came across. Prague happens to be the only capital in Europe that escaped bombing in WWII, and this is the reason this cemetery still exists.

The other was more of an emotional event.



Each name written here belongs to a person who was murdered in the holocaust. Next to each name is a date of birth, and a date of last known location. It fills an entire temple. It's very overwhelming. It's very important to see... perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's an important thing to experience.

OK, but it's time to stop being all emotional. (I know I know, in the beginning of the post I'm crying and now I'm preaching to you about the holocaust.) By the evening, we were quite exhausted, and this being our last night in Prague we decided to spend it at the bar. (You probably guessed that already though.)

The last thing we did in Prague before turning in was walk over to the Charles Bridge for some gelato. While Frank and John caught up on Notre Dame football, I played with some of the exposure settings on my camera. I liked how this one turned out.

Goodbye for now Prague, I am sure I'll be for a visit sometime soon!