Czech Please

Ok, I'm in Berlin now where I got to walk past the Berlin wall to get to my hostel (I'm on the east side now!). Here's the music (crank it up):



If you didn't get that joke, then listen to the more natural choice, and equally good:



7/6/07 9:28pm - Well I wasn't going to start writing this til tomorrow in the train, but a summer storm rolled in this evening so I have nothing else to do. Fortunately, it didn't start raining until I got back from seeing everything. Like I said, Prague is incredible. I know it's kind of a trendy pick, but there's a reason everyone likes it. Let me just shut up and let the video show what I'm talking about:



Cool, right? My hostel is right on the river, a nice 10 minute walk from the St. Charles Bridge:



You might remember some of this stuff from the 1st Mission Impossible or, more embarrassingly, Chasing Liberty. After getting settled I went for a walk and snapped the photo in the last post, as well as many others. Tell me that's not awesome, I love that picture. I walked all around and was just blown away. I went back to the hostel and hung out with my roomies, two guys from New Zealand. They were cool, I even asked if they had penguins in their hometown (Flight of the Conchords reference). They said, 'oh yis, my cat would chase the pinguins out of our backyard.' For some reason I thought that was hilarious. I got 8 hours of sleep, which was awesome and a first on the trip. I went to the Old Town Square (filmed in video) and climbed the tower:



Then I went to a museum of medieval art from Bohemia, which was really interesting. After that, I headed up to Prague Castle, which you see on the hill:



St. Vitus cathedral is the biggest church in the Czech Republic. The grounds include the President's offices and the Old Royal Palace:



You could say I'd been waiting to see this site ever since I got an illustrative book on the most significant battles in history. In the early 1600s, the Hapsburgs had two governors here who were Catholic. One day, some unhappy protestant nobles came to the palace and performed a defenestration. Note 'fenestra' or window in the word, as it means 'to throw out the window.' It was actually a Czech custom to do this with underperforming politicians. Sometimes the victim met his death, but often not, which I imagine would provide for an awkward situation at the next day's meetings. In this case, the governors did not die (landed in horse manure), but the act pissed off the Hapsburgs and Catholics and sparked the 30 Years War. The Battle of White Mountain was the one hilighted in the book I had and resulted in the Protestants being expelled from Prague. The 30 Years War is often thought of as the first world war, which is also interesting b/c the real WWI started by Archduke Ferdinand being killed and the 30 Years War started by an Archduke Ferdinand's governors being attacked. Lesson? Don't mess with anyone named Ferdinand.

Defenestration was no longer practiced after the war, although it wasn't completely abandoned by the Czechs. Hockey, one of the main sports of the country, often has players throwing or hitting their opponents against the rink's windows, so to speak. This isn't called defenestration, but checking, or czeching, in honor of the people who made it popular.

Back on track...I walked a lot, taking over 100 pictures during the day. I went to a park with a smaller version of the Eiffel tower. It had a great view of the city and I enjoyed a czech sausage. Here's a pic of just a random street. I liked how the buildings had arched bottoms such that the sidewalks were covered. I'm sure there is a technical term for this, but my architectural knowledge is indeed that of George Costanza and not Art Vandelay:



7/7/08 11:15am - So the rain stopped and I went for another walk to the Old Town and St. Charles bridge at about 10:30. I need a nicer camera, one that works at night. I thought this one was good though:



I can't recommend a trip to this city enough and wish I could've stayed longer. It's pretty cheap too, at least compared to the Euro countries. I'm excited to go to Berlin though, just because they speak a language I kind of understand. Plus, I know several phrases like 'Das ist gut' and 'Mein Vater ist David Hasselhof,' both of which should get me on the good side of most Germans. I just gotta be careful not to mention the war. (Fawlty Towers reference)

One last thing, did anyone get that mozarthaus and animalhaus joke? Tom Hulce played Mozart in Amadeus, and he was also in Animal House. I guess it wasn't that funny anyway, oh well.

I swear I'm done after this, here's a pic of a cool building right next to the hostel, it's nickname is the Fred and Ginger building: