SPRING!!!!

Yes, it's not really spring yet. And from where I am sitting, probably won't be until Memorial Day. There's still feet of snow in my yard. I wish I could remember where the storm drain grate was, and I'd uncover it to help drain the melt water faster. There's a small pond in my driveway. All I need is koi at this point.

Did you all see that the groundhog said early spring? Yeah right. Poor rodent. Like there was any sun that day. Nobody saw their shadow let alone a poor sleep deprived groundhog. He had to get his sleep cycle all screwed up when everyone knows that the real harbinger(my word of the day)of spring is PITCHERS AND CATCHERS REPORT!

Are there four more beautiful and hopeful words in any language? I can't think of any off hand.
I mean I get all excited when the Boston Globe does it's annual Truck Day reporting. Yes, a bit crazy, but pitchers and catcher report...that's joy. And any player who reports early? It's just an added bonus.

At this time of year I long for two things, bright spring flowers and baseball. I check my garden(when I can see it) for the signs of my bulbs popping and watch the sports channels for baseball reports.
Once my cable company started carrying the MLB Network, February got so much more interesting.
And March gets better when they start showing actual spring training games.

Preservation Monday

On Monday we headed out in a bus the size of a city block to the suburbs of Prague. We went to a preservation/depository unit.
This is a place where they are engaged in different preservation activities. They grow a lot of plants to use for dyes to repair inks and colors in manuscripts and old books. No new inks or dyes here.

As I mentioned before in 2002 Prague suffered through the worst floods in 500 years. This facility is one place that they have been working on the damaged books from those floods. There are microfilming areas, digitization equipment, and preservation experts.

Czech bus drivers

Wanted an outgoing individual who likes to travel and meet new people. Resourcefulness and nerves of steel a plus.

This has got to be the intro on the job description for a Czech tour bus driver. We have had some great ones this week. On Monday we had a bus the size of a city block to head into the suburbs of Prague. Our driver did a U-turn in the middle of our street stopping traffic on both sides. Which consisted of 2 trams, a line of cars and a few buses all people going to work. He had to avoid parked cars and pedistrians as well as not hit a curb or any random buildings. He did it. The moment was priceless. The people on the tram were stunned. All sitting there shell shocked at this huge bus with maybe 25 people on it blocking traffic during rush hour.

This guy had to have balls the size of Jupiter. He also drove like we were entered into the Monoco Grand Prix.

The end of the week we had the same bus driver. Different from the first one. He took us to Moravia and back(10 hours round trip same day) on what has got to be one of the worst highways in Middle Europe. I thought 95 was bad! First of all there were more trucks than I have ever seen. Apparently this is a big shipping road into the rest of Europe. But it wasn't designed for it and the constant friction and punishment wears down the pavement. So it was a jolting ride for all. Bags falling out of overhead racks, tea cups tipping over. Noisy as all hell too.
And it rained. Not in Moravia of course. Just most of the way there. So lots of fun.
I don't think the bus windows came with defoggers 'cause the driver had napkins to wipe the front windshield off periodically so he could see.

We ripped through Prague at the end of the trip. I think the guy had a date or something because we didn't go that fast on the highway! These guys must all take the same driving course. This week we have gone through tunnels like we were on a roller coaster, we've barrelled around roundabouts in a bus the size of a small country, parked in close spaces and charged up our street. Got us in right when they said we were going to get in. Gotta say this for Czech bus drivers, they get you where you are going on time. Almost to the second. Even with traffic. It's wonderful. Scary but wonderful.

School work

Today we had lectures again. After all we did come to learn about libraries and librarianship. Today it was more on the modern and technical side of libraries than the history of libraries. A lot about IT and technology since the Velvet Revolution. How the information profession has changed some and what is being done in preservation and digitization here.

They are really active in digitizing old books. Since the floods of 2002 where books and even libraries were wiped out they have taken that ball and run with it. Some materials are unique, and they experienced similar problems in 2002 that Florence experienced in 1966 with the floods. Like in Italy, many cultural institutions here are built near the river. The Klementinium is mere feet away from the Vlatva and the water washed right into the library there. Since it's a Jesuit college from the 1400's there were lots of stuff that got hit. The '02 floods were the worst in the Czech lands in 500 years, so this is really new for them. But at least the technology and the experience is here to help. Unlike in Florence.

The Academy of Sciences now is working on a digital registry so that other places here will know what's been digitized already and not duplicate a work. And they are putting all their theses and dissertations in electronic form. It wasn't done before and with some plagaurism problems at university levels they want to make things available and open so that it's harder to get away with academic fraud like that.

One thing they haven't done and are still working on is total automation for libraries. Some of the university collections aren't cataloged and the access for researchers just isn't there. It's part of the Communist legacy. Access wasn't a big part of what they did.
Some places like the Municipal library of Prague is automated, but others are just working on it. Especially in the larger universities like Charles University and the National Technical University. Because they are split up into different faculties(like schools) and have specialized libraries for each area, it reminds me of the school and departmental libraries at Yale, they haven't merged together in one large central library and have everything available.

One lecturer today believes it's a legacy from the Communist era where information was the enemy. I know that in some cases in the past if you published material that was decreed harmful to the state, both the writer and the librarian(or archivist) who gave you access were legally liable and could go to jail. That's a hard legacy to overcome in only 21 years.
The Czechs are very literate and creative though. In Middle Europe no one has a higher literacy and reading rate than the Czechs. In fact they are one of the most literate people in Europe only behind Scandanavia. So they are making great strides in righting the wrongs. Librarianship is becoming a more popular and prestigious career now than in previous years which is good sign and bookstores are all over the place. One of the most popular places to be in Prague is the Municipal Library. They have amazing circulation numbers. Something like 15 books checked out per user and tens of thousands of users per year.
So good times ahead.

Food

I don't think I've talked much about the food here. Always important food. Czech food is really very good. I was worried before I came, because the guidebooks mentioned a lot of pork and bread. Pork isn't my favorite meat. From the descriptions I thought it'd be very heavy food. And to be honest it is. Just in a good way. And I have found out there's not a lot of veggies or salads here.

Case in point. Lunch on Sunday at the Hrady(castle in Czech) was Czech cab driver's goulash garnished with ham. It came with bread dumplings(which are amazing) and a slice of cucumber, a slice of tomato and some lettuce and carrots curls. In case you are wondering cab driver's goulash is like pot roast with a really nice brown gravy. I think onions were involved....but only the Czechs would garnish a beef dish with ham. Honestly where else do you see that?

And they FRY cheese. Yes, I have heard of fried mozzarella, but here it's a main dish. Usually a sandwich and served with french fries. I haven't had it. I just can't bring myself to do that to my cholestrol levels. I can barely look at it on a menu without feeling my arteries seize up.

I've had chicken with boiled potatos and potato pancakes cooked with bacon inside(really really good) and the ethnic restaurants are very nice too. Italian all over, a few Irish pubs, an Indian place near our hotel and a Muslin vegetarian place that had great pita bread and goat cheese.

But for the most part we've been frequenting places that specialize in Czech food. The grilled sausage on Monday was wonderful. Now that was a sausage! With a dark mustard and some fries and more cucumbers I was fine for the rest of the day.

Breakfast is the only meal I find disappointing. Lots of meats. And stuff I tend to consider lunch meat. Ham and salami for instance. And the steamed hot dogs to go with the scrambled eggs. Not something that's appealing at 7 am. On the other hand the bread and cheese here are great.
They have these rye bagettes in the morning that just rock. And they sprinkle them with large grained salt too. YUM. Add some Camembert and a pot of tea and some granola cereal and I can go most of the day. Although I would kill for some Greek yogurt, local honey and some fresh fruit.

I know they sell it in the store here. But it's a challenge being functionally illiterate. I could guess, but it's scary. The only yogurt I recognized was Activia, so I passed. It was terribly sobering at the bakery case. I wanted a few pastries for the morning, but had no clue what was in some of the turnovers. I was betting heavily on apple, but I know the Czech word for apple(since those are easy to spot) and this sign was different. I settled for a pain au chocolate and some type of croissant instead. I never realized how hard and confusing it would be to survive in a place where you have only the barest bones of the language. It's been a learning experience. One that I didn't expect.

Honestly go into market where the language is all different and there's not an English sign and try to buy stuff you'd eat or like. It is really tough. I bought what I thought was turkey meat in the deli case last Friday. Nope. Ham, from another area in the country. And if you thought there were only one or two kinds of salami you are sadly mistaken. There are more kinds of salami here in one deli case than I knew existed on the whole planet. All are amazingly good. What the Czech does to pork is mind blowing. Pork knees, pickled sausage, ham, salami, bacon...you name it.

Then they have dumplings of potato. Bread dumplings are for the meal, usually to soak up gravy, while potato ones are sweet. They usually smother them in fruit. One is served in a blueberry sauce with cream. Another kind is where the fruit is wrapped in them. They make the dough, add the fruit, steam them and done! They are especially easy and good in the summer, I've learned. Not seen sweet potatos here. What could be done with those! But they don't seem to be traditional like potatos are, although both are New World things, so not sure why one and not the other.

Poppy seeds are really big as a sweet here too. They grind them and mix it with sugar. It looks like dirt. Really. We had another dumpling dish(not as good as the blueberry one, but I love blueberries) and it had all this dirt on it. It was poppy seeds. It was good, but daunting at first. Then there were the danish at the public library tour. One looked like it had mud in it. But again poppy seed paste. I mean it was black. Good though.
As Barbara(our fearless leader) said “I haven't met Czech food I didn't like.” it might have something to do with the Irish and Scottish part of my heritage though. Potatos, bread and meat. Probably encoded on my DNA somewhere.

Sunday

It was nice to sleep late and relax today. I started later than usual since it was a weekend. I think I left the hotel at 10 am. I had checked the Mass schedule at the Church of Our Lady Victorious and found that the regular Czech Mass was at 10 and the English Mass was at noon. So I planned to go to English Mass and then go up the castle and look around.

The first challenge was finding the church. It's in my guidebook and there is a map, but I'm not that great with directions. Those math skills again. It was easy enough getting to the Charles Bridge and crossing it. It was early enough and raining just a bit that the tourists weren't out in force. It's been a busy weekend with the tourists. Prague is apparently a hot European weekend deal. I've noticed a lot of wheeled suitcases, and more horse drawn carriages since Friday.

The artists were just setting up on the bridge while I crossed it. I took my time walking along the river as well. I didn't have to hurry since I had plenty of time for the noon Mass. It was nice to stroll along the Vlatva in the morning. A few people were out walking their dogs(lots of dogs here in Prague) and some just walking.

I poked into a few shops, mostly window shopping, along the route. Saw some really ugly clocks and a massive antique vase that someone should have smashed years ago, but hey that's my taste....Had some cute antique dog figures and some highly tempting tea cups(handpainted)catch my interest, but luckily the place wasn't open.

I took the stairs down into the Kampa area, as the Church was right off the Kampa streets according to my reading of the map. I saw some signs and landmarks I recognized. The Lennon Wall for one, and a few European embassies. As well as a restaurant. I knew I wasn't lost, exactly. And quite by accident I found both the Mandarin Oriental Hotel of Prague and the church I was looking for.

The Kampa park is a really nice place to spend some time. There was a very cute terrier mix running around with his owners. Had to be a West Highland terrier crossed with a larger terrier somewhere. Was way too big for a pure Westie, but very friendly. Came up to me and grinned at me. Like dogs sometimes do. Then ran off and caught up to his/her owners. Not a lot of leashing here. But the dogs are extremely well behaved. So far.

Kampa is also known as Prague's Venice because of the small canal off the river. It's a nice ritzy, but not snooty area. There are places to sit and think and look at the river and flowers.

I found the Church and caught the tail end of the Czech Mass. So about 10:45. The organist was pulling out all the stops. The first thing that hits you about this church is Baroque. Even if you don't know the style you know exactly what it is. The pictures over the mini altars weren't just pictures, they were oil paintings. Every place had gilt. Very ornate. The main altar had 2 twisted gold pillars. The ceiling had coats of arms on it and the altar rails were all marble. But the shrine for the Infant of Prague took it to another level. Silver and gilt statues flanking the case. Orchids and roses, lilies and carnations in glass vases were ranged around the altar. A crowned angel(?) at the top of the altar guarding the case this tiny wax statue was in.

It's a big deal. Photos were being taken, which I kinda have a problem with....seems wrong to take pictures in a church. The church tries to limit what can and can't be done while services are going on, but it's hard. Since the shrine is on the right hand side of the church and not tucked away in a nook somewhere there's a lot of traffic. And the little museum and shop is carved out of the sacristy. They are fundraising to fix that. But they emphasize that it is first and foremost a place of worship. Not a tourist place only.

English mass took me back to my childhood. The full deal with the organ and choir. They sang some of the prayers and chants. Even heard (for the first time) the Kyrie elesion in a Mass. I mean they did it in Greek as well as English. Very cool. Plus they killed on How Great thou art for the Eucharistic hymn. Czech music! They had all parts of the Mass. Which I remembered from being a kid. It was the feast of the Trinity so we heard how we are finite and how the important things we can't understand will be explained. (cause the Trinity isn't easy to understand)

Then the religious tourists came in. Photos and crowds. Crammed up the aisle right before communion. The most interesting guy was the American in shorts and a David Ortiz Red Sox shirt. He could have at least saved the shirt for another day. Nothing like screaming out American tourist in a Baroque European church. He didn't stay long. I don't believe he even said a prayer. Just looked and left.

After services ended I headed up the hill. To get to the castle there's only one way to go. Up. No matter which route you take you go up. I walked up a side street and halfway up there were stairs. I really don't like stairs anymore. My knees hurt. But the cardio is great. I think they are getting easier. Our hotel has stairs. And while the number says 4, it's really the 5th floor.

To explain Prague Castle, it's a complex, not just a building. There's galleries and gardens, the royal palace, the cathedral, churches, and now where the President of the Czech Republic lives. Probably administration too. So it takes longer than a few hours to see it all. I really wanted to see Golden Lane, but it's closed for renovations. : (. As you can imagine there are guards. Real ones. With guns and military orders. Not just police and tourist security.

I checked out the line at St. Vitus and skipped it. Saw the Royal Palace and St. George's. Had lunch in the garden and then walked back down. Stopped at a gelato shop along the way and I saw a print in an old book store that I think I want.

Terezin

A group of us, Patty, Louise, Judy, and I, planned a trip to Terezine, which is an hour away from the city. Terezine is an old garrison town founded by the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II. In German it is Theresienstadt. It has a long history as a prison, a fortress, and a military town.
The most famous prisoner held there was Gavrilo Princip, who died in Cell 1 in 1918. The cause of death was listed as TB, but considering the conditions....Princip was the man who finally managed to kill the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 thus starting the First World War.

I found that cell very unnerving. The way it was lit and just the feel of it.

Terezin, is more well known than just as a place for long dead assasins. Terezin was the Nazi version of a Czech concentration camp. While never a death camp per say many people died there of beatings, malnutrition, disease, and neglect.

As a fortress dating back to the 18th century it was uniquely adapted to Nazi uses. It was first used as a police prison(Gestapo) for patriots of the Czech homeland, outlawed parties(Communists mostly), resistance fighters and some POW's. People from all over the world were held here. Australia POW's, Czech patriots, Soviet Union citizens, religions that the Nazis disliked, and of course Jews from the area. The small fortress was first a political prison. People who were 'dangerous' or broke the rules of the Jewish ghetto in the nearby town ended up in the Small Fortress.

According to our guide(Louise hooked us up with a tour group from Boston who had a great guide) the conditions as a prison worsened as time went on. Food became rationed, more and more people were crammed into cells together, heat was not turned on, and bugs and disease became rampant. The cells were very humid and with only 15 kg of fuel per week, you could turn on the stove once or twice a week at most. Not enough to dry out the air and kill the bugs. Plus all those people sharing a toilet.

One of the old barrack cells we saw would have between 80-90 people in them at once. It was probably constructed for 20 or so men max. The Jewish cells were even worse. About 1/3 the size of the barrack cells. Indeed they weren't even made for humans originally. The Jewish cells were horse stalls. They would pack 50-60 Jewish people in those tiny rooms at once. You couldn't sit down or move.
The only window was always closed(for escape prevention I guess) and the only oxygen came from a tiny hole in the wall near the door. People suffocated because the air couldn't circulate fast enough and they were all crushed together.

Any medical attention came from Doctors who were prisoners themselves and supplies had to be smuggled in from the town, by sympathetic guards and workers. Those people risked their lives to help any in the fortress.

We saw the shower room and the delousing station. Once a week you were allowed one 5 minute cold shower. You removed your clothes and tried to kill the germs, and lice that infested them by using steam and pressure in the machine. If it worked right your clothes were clean for a while. But they were still wet and so were you, when you put them back on and went back to your hideously overcrowded cell.

But there was time to visit with other people. To learn news, say hello to relatives and find out if others were alive. The shower time was a shining moment of hope for the prisoners there.

Some of the prisoners feared the showers at first, because they often were disguised as a gas chamber in other camps. Not in Terezin. The Nazis were building one outside the fortress but it was never finished. The Red Army liberated the camp first. Although the forced laborers from the camp did everything they could to sabotage it before it was done.

As the war went on and more Jewish people came to Terezin the barracks in the town filled up and they were sent to the fortress. At the end of the war it was estimated that nearly 60,000 people had been packed into the whole town of Terezine, which maybe was built for 12,000 people.

We went through the old Austrian tunnels which had been blocked up during the war. Very cold and spooky. The tunnels were part of the defense of the area. They could flood the moat and still control the waterways and be safe in the tunnels to defend the area.
They come out onto the execution range of Terezin. The Gestapo used to use it as target practise, but that didn't last long. One of the group members was a survivor of Terezin. He had been forced into the ghetto at the age of 21. He had a hard time in the tunnels, but to come back even years later had to have been hard.

I know just seeing some of it was hard for me, and I didn't live through it.

And life didn't get easier after the war was over. With the overcrowding and more refugees arriving everyday and the Nazi administrators fleeing the place was in chaos. Epidemics were rampant. Typhus, dysentery and typhoid were three major disease that ripped through the camp.

Here's the link to the Terezin Memorial website. http://www.pamatnik-terezin.cz/showdoc.do?docid=164.

So a very heavy day. I'm glad we went, and it's something we won't forget, but it wasn't a fun thing.
I will be posting all the photos of Terezin, probably on Facebook. If you want to see them all.

Weekending in Prague

Well, we finished our first week of classes. It's really nice to have some free time. While so far it has been great, it's tiring, and not a lot of time to do touristy things. I haven't yet stormed the Castle, gone to the Loreto, OR the Church of our Lady Victorious(where the Infant of Prague is) or seen the Mucha exhibit. I have yet to go to a concert, but I will. Plans for the weekend are to go to Terezin on Saturday with some of the class, and then on Sunday find a Mass schedule and tour the castle.
I'm looking forward to 'storming da castle' and going to Mass. I'm not sure if I will go to the Loreto or the Church of our Lady Victorious. But I'm leaning toward the latter. I know the Mass schedule there, and they have it in several languages. Mass in Czech would be challenging to say the least. I can barely say thank you correctly in Czech. Although with Mass I know WHAT they are saying.
So probably go for the English Mass at noon then hang around to storm the castle.

Czeching out the local scene

I am falling in love with Czech wines. I have had 3 or 4 white wines and 1 red. All were really nice. Drawing on my vast knowledge of wines gleaned from 2 hours at Vinopolis in London, I have determined they are more fruity than dry. The whites were clean and the scent and the taste were pretty balanced. It's quite a nice surprise. One thinks of beer, which is really good, but the wine is also well done.

I have to find a good liquor store and get some to bring home. They remind me more of the German and Alsatian wines I like than the more popular Italian pinot grigios.
I have some names of the wines I drank, and liked so am going to look for those. Sometime in the beginning of the week I think.

Zlaty Koruna

Today we got up early. On the bus at 6:45 am. Heading to Southern Bohemia in search of medieval monastaries and walled island hill towns.
Found both. After a few hits of tea and some bread and cheese the switch was thrown. We got a great lecture on rare Czech manuscripts dating from the 14th century to the 18th century.
The curator kept pulling more books out for us to look at and explained all of them. Herbals, and atlas, facsimiles of music books written for the coronation of the king in the 1100's. Books bound with other older books that were really part of the trash heap, but historians now find most fascinating.

It's a beautiful place. Zlaty Koruna means the Golden Crown in Czech. It started out as the Holy Spiny Crown and became so wealthy with the villages and lands and rents that it was known as 'golden' Was decommissioned in the 19th century by Franz Josef II and went through many other incarnations. Steel factory, private library, parish church, school.

During our monastary tour we all had to wear slippers over our shoes. It was fun to see us all sliding around in these oversized slippers trying not to fall out of them.

The artwork in the place was amazing and interesting, considering the order started out very asetic. Then changed. First no one could have meat then only the sick, then as a treat, they they had it on a regular basis....