It was a Kafkaesque afternoon

Water fountain in front of Kakfa Museum. Yes, you do see right - and they come up and squirt each other!
Random pretty shots of Prague - tower on Charles Bridge

Statues on Charles Bridge

Charles Bridge

Bear wanted to go the Franz Kafka Museum. SewDiva and Bug didn’t want to be on the same planet with it so they went shopping. For those “not in the know”, Franz Kafka was a Czech writer in the early 1900’s. According to the guide book he was the author of two of the most influential novels of the 20th century, The Trial and The Castle. Now, I personally had never heard of either novel, but Bear had. Kafka was an insurance lawyer who was “misunderstood” and full of angst and wrote about it. (With my “first child”ishness, I think he should have just gotten over it!)

The Jewish Quarter

Our guide, Roman, in Old Jewish Cemetery
Old Jewish Cemetery

We went on a guided tour of the Jewish Quarter with an English speaking guide, Roman. He was great! And well worth every kronin. We got to see the insides of several synagogues and the Old Jewish Cemetery. The Old New (as opposed to the New New) Synagogue is only used for high holy days and is a memorial to the Prague Jews who did not survive the war. Their names are handwritten on the interior walls with their birth and death dates. Some of them don’t have death dates because no one knows when they died – they just were taken away and never came back. Of the 120,000 Jews in Prague when the Nazis came into power 80,000 of them never came home.

When we were in Budapest SewDiva noticed small brass squares in the sidewalks in front of some of the doors in the ghetto but we didn’t know what they were for. Now, thanks to Roman, we do. They are part of an international remembrance project that has just begun. The squares are put in front of the doors where Jews lived who were taken and died. They are called “humble stones” because the names are not very large and so you have to bend over (assume the posture of humility) to read them.

There was a ghetto in Prague until the mid-1800’s (when it was urban-renewalized – torn down and rebuilt with fancy houses, the previous occupants having been thrown out). Until the late 1700’s there was only one Jewish Cemetery in Prague. It is about the size of three or four city lots and they estimate there are 100,000 bodies in there. Once it filled up they put people into another layer. The first layer they dug the graves 6’ deep, the second, third, fourth and in some places 5th and 6th layers they dug 4’ and added 2’ of soil to the top. So now the cemetery is one full floor higher than the streets around it.

We also got to go into a Baroque synagogue that is now the Jewish Museum. And the Spanish Synagogue, not named because Spanish Jews worshiped there but because it is decorated in the Moorish style, like the Alhambra palace in Spain. The interior decorations were beautiful. Of the 3 it is the only one that is still being used as a place of worship. You can tell because there is a lit oil lamp hanging in the front symbolizing the presence of God (I always wondered about the lamp in the front of Catholic churches: so Catholics out there let us know if it is the same symbolism).

Art and coffee

Bug with hot chocolate
SewDiva with coffee - can you tell she needs it!

Friday morning I got up early and took my scarf kit out to do my rubbings. I wanted to get them done before all the tourists show up. You can hardly walk on most of the streets because of them, much less sit on the ground and play with silk.

On the way home I found a great coffee shop in a courtyard across the street from our hotel. I ordered a large latté. Visualize a quart size cup with 3 shots in it! Bear was very excited. Bug is not a coffee drinker and she said her hot chocolate was not as good as the one she had at the Palace which was made with steamed milk.

Towers and Communists

Petrin tower
In the hall of mirrors

our favorite mirror

bridges over the river

metronome on top of monument base

Our next stop was a tram up the hill of Petřínske Sady (Petřín Park). At the top of the hill are several rose gardens, and Petřínská rozhledna, a small version of the Eiffel Tower. It is only 90 meters tall, but sitting on top of the hill as it does, it has fantastic views over the city. It is set in a forest of deciduous trees. With the wind ruffling the canopy it was very lovely. Bear climbed all 299 steps to the upper observation deck – SewDiva and Bug rode the elevator. Next to the tower is a Hall of Mirrors. We had a wonderful time playing in the mirrors.

One of the sights we had been told not to miss was the Museum of Communism. So off we went. The museum was established by an American who was visiting in Prague when the Velvet Revolution happened (Nov. 1989). He realized a good business opportunity when he saw one and stayed to open a Jazz Club. Jazz was high on the list of things the communist government didn’t allow (right next to rock music) so his club was an immediate hit. He started buying up memorabilia from the Communist era and then put together this museum. He asked a documentary maker to design the sets for the museum. It was one of the best museums I have been in. The sets added greatly to the written explanations. There was enough information to be interesting but not so much as to overwhelm (think House of Terror in Budapest). I pass on the recommendation to go see it the next time you are in Prague. One of the things it talked about was this giant statue of Stalin that the Party in Prague built to honor him on his 60th birthday. It wasn’t finished until after his death and only 2 years before Khrushchev denounced him so down came the statue leaving this giant base with stairs on another hill overlooking the city. At some point a metronome was built on the platform which doesn’t do much either for me or the site.

Prague Castle

Looking up at the gargoyles on St. Vitus Cathedral
Inside the cathedral

Mosaic over Golden Gate: bodies rising on left, saints praying in center, bad boys being sent to you-know-where on right

Outside of cathedral - note the flying butteresses

Palace gate commemorating some heroic battle

Prague Castle sits on a hill across the river from the Old Town. It is very large but since most of the exhisting buildings were built in the 16 – 1800’s for living and administration it doesn’t look much like you would expect a castle to look. But right in the middle is St. Vitus Cathedral. And that definitely looks like you would expect a cathedral to look. The stained glass windows were fantastic. The old part of the cathedral was built in the 1400’s but the new part wasn’t finished until the late 1800’s so there were windows in both old and new styles. And the mosaics! Both inside and outside. I especially liked the window by Mucha (an art nuevo artist) and the mosaic of Judgment Day over the Golden Gate entrance. Which side of the panel do you want to be on?
We walked down off the hill through what is known as the Little Quarter. When it was built there were no house numbers so your mail was delivered to “the house of the goat” i.e. the house with the relief of a goat over the door, or “the house of the Virgin” i.e. the house with the picture of the Virgin Mary painted over the door. Most of the buildings there are still the originals, but now with shops in the downstairs which cater to tourists.
Speaking of tourists, the place is crawling with them! The business parts of Prague must not be in the same part of town as the tourist stuff. Every other person you see is carrying either a map or a guide book, and they all have cameras around their necks. Now, Bear’s camera is nothing to sneeze at but he is definitely outclassed around here!

Tales of a Picky Eater - Guest post from Bug

Bug trying paprikash for the first time

Bug and her dumplings

Bear and his dumplings

Most people who know me know that I am a bit of a picky eater. I would like to say in my own defense that I know people who are a LOT more picky than me but there are certain foods that I just don’t like, no matter how they are prepared. Among those are sausages, pickled vegetables (like sauerkraut) and mushrooms. Well, guess what are the three most common foods in Eastern Europe? You guessed it – sausages (and various other kinds of encased meats), pickled vegetables (especially sauerkraut) and mushrooms. Yippee! I knew I would be able to find something that I would enjoy eating but I also knew it might take some work. I have pretty much managed to avoid sausages, sauerkraut and mushrooms, although I have agreed to try a bratwurst from a street vendor in Prague.
In Romania, by far the best food was the Chicken Paprikash. That is chicken in a paprika sauce. I haven’t really eaten a lot of paprika before just because it doesn’t appear in many foods we have available in Seattle and I was a little worried because paprika comes from peppers and we all know that I don’t like spicy foods. I finally tried the Paprikash at lunch in Sighiaşoara and I had no idea what I had been missing. It was not spicy at all and was actually quite sweet. I am definitely going to have to make that when I get back home.
When we moved on to Hungary, all the travel books said that their main dish is Goulash, which is a beef and vegetable stew with paprika, but that they liked much spicier paprika. I tried a bite of my parents goulash and it was much too spicy for me to eat. But I did discover another truly wonderful dish that they seemed to have in every restaurant we went to. I asked a waiter if it was a common Hungarian dish and he said no but we saw it all over. You take a thin cut chicken breast and grill it, top it with something like tomatoes and then put cheese on it (like parmesan or mozzarella) and broil it so the cheese gets melty and brown and even a little crispy. Yum-O! This is another thing that I am definitely going to have to make back at home, but I could experiment with it a bit, like other stuffings (like spinach or broccoli) and new cheeses like cheddar or swiss. I can’t believe I had never thought of melting cheese on a grilled chicken breast but I must say, these Hungarians are geniuses!
In Prague, they again eat quite a lot of goulash and it is still too spicy for me (although not quite as spicy as Hungary). They also really seem to like roast beef in a sauce (which is strangely sweet – not a combination I have had very many times) but with the most wonderful dumplings you have ever had. The name dumpling does not actually even begin to capture the wonderfulness of these things. They make something like potato bread dough (that seems to have real pieces of potato in it), form it in to a log, steam it so it is just barely past doughy, cut it in thick slices and put it on the plate. Oh, how did they know that slightly under-cooked dough is one of my favorite things in the whole world? I don’t really care what the meat or sauce is, as long as I can have some of these dumplings with it. As an aside, one night I had my roast beef in a “creamy sauce.” They had pictures of the food and it looked like it was more like an au jus with sour cream on top. Not quite. It was a thickened au jus, but with orange, honey and cinnamon in it, and it wasn’t sour cream but un-sweetened whipped cream and cranberry sauce. Odd but strangely tasty.
As SewDiva mentioned, when we stopped in Slovakia I managed to order the Slovakian national dish. In the menu they called it “Liptauer cheese dumpling with bacon.” Alright, mac and cheese. This sounds good. But when I ordered it, the waitress (who spoke surprisingly good English) gave me a very odd look. I asked her if it was good and she just said it was the Slovakian national dish made with the Slovakian national cheese. She asked me again if this is what I really wanted and although I was quite scared of her reaction, I didn’t want to look through the menu again and so decided to stick with my first choice. If it was horrible, we had some cheese and crackers back in the car. Well, it was delicious! Another thing I am going to have to make back at home. It was homemade spaetzel noodles (can’t go wrong there) in a light creamy sauce with a cheese that tasted a little like blue cheese. Not as strong but that same flavor. Then the bacon on top wasn’t like bacon we would expect. It was bacon fat (but no meat) that had been pan fried until it was crispy. Totally amazing. When she came back to take our plates, I said it was delicious and she gave me a very surprised look. She said that most Westerners found the cheese too strong and did not enjoy the dish at all. I don’t know who these people are cause I’ve eaten a lot stronger cheese than that!

Behind the Iron Curtain, in an Elevator - guest post from Bug

Entering Brasov elevator
Notice the interior doors don't meet


Entering Prague elevator - note look on Bug's face

Inside Prague elevator

Leaving Prague elevator - Phew, cheated death one more time!

I will admit that I did not have a lot of expectations coming on this trip. I mean, Brasov is in the mountains so it should be beautiful and I thought Budapest and Prague would be romantic – not lovey-dovey romantic, but old world James Bond romantic. So far, that has all been correct. But I didn’t think much about the infrastructure of these countries. They are all former communist countries but I wasn’t sure what all that would mean. Well, I soon found out that it means that they have the scariest elevators I have ever seen. By far the scariest was in Brasov. First of all, when you stepped in to the elevator, the floor bounced. Yes, bounced. Not only did it bounce but it also tipped so when you stepped in the front of the elevator it would tip forward and then when you moved to the back, it would tip back. Tipping and bouncing floors are NOT what I want in my elevator. Then, you had to close the door outside the elevator – BY HAND – and then close the doors on the inside of the elevator – BY HAND – and then press your button for the floor you wanted. The doors on the inside didn’t close tightly so there was a small gap and you could see the floors passing by as you went up or down. After the first time riding the elevator, I decided that I would not be doing that again and we could take the stairs to our third floor apartment, thank you very much. Well, that was until we found out that although we were on the third floor, it was actually at least 7 stories up. Obviously they don’t count the same way we do. Three floors is doable. 7 is a bit more problematic. So I had to suck it up and hope that Romanian engineering was going to hold. I saw my life flash before my eyes every time I stepped in to it.
In Budapest, we didn’t have much need to take the elevator. We were on the 1st floor (which is not the ground floor by the way) but to get to the elevator, you had to go up about 5 steps in the lobby and then back DOWN about 5 steps to the elevator lobby. This did not seem to make much sense and kind of defeat the purpose of the elevator but who am I to judge. We took the elevator one time just to see how it was and it was similar to Brasov. The elevator didn’t bounce and the floor didn’t tip so that was an improvement but it still had the doors you manually close and you could still the see floors going by as you went up or down.
In Prague, we are staying on the 3rd floor – again though this is not 3 floors up but 4. Still makes no sense. The elevator is very small (a feature of all the elevators we have experienced) but this is by far the smallest. Three people hardly fit in, even with no luggage at all. This elevator doesn’t have the inside doors so you get in the elevator, close the door to the lobby and then press the button for your floor. As you go up or down, the doors to each of the floors you pass goes by you – right in front of you, no barrier of any kind.
This is all a bit too much for me to handle. I take an elevator multiple times every day at work. I have no problem going up 46 floors to get to work. You step in the elevator, press the button for your floor, the doors close AUTOMATICALLY and off you go. Sometimes, you can hardly even feel the elevator moving. Not the case here. You have to close the doors yourself, you can see every floor pass by and you definitely know you are moving, there is no doubt about that.

The Old Town Clock

Old Town Square
Astronomical Clock in Old Town Hall

Close up of clock

Death ringing his bell, Greed reading his book

In the middle of Old Town Square is the Astronomical Clock. It is designed to tell time only tangentially, mostly it tells you how long to sun down and what the phases of the moon, etc. are. That said, on the hour it puts on a little show. Death rings his bell, the Turk shakes his head, Vanity looks at himself in the mirror and Greed reads his ledger book, the windows open and the Apostles look out. For this the Square fills with people.

The clock was built in 1490 when folks still thought the earth was the center of the universe and the sun and moon rotated around it (what! Don’t tell me it isn’t so!) The city fathers didn’t want anyone else to have as wonderful a clock as they did so they blinded the clockmaker when he was done. The clock tells time 3 different ways. In Old Bohemian time (24 hours starting with sunset), time as we know it and Babylonian time (daylight divided into 12 hours which vary with the seasons). It also shows the signs of the zodiac.

Budapest to Prague

Bear decided to drive from Budapest to Prague rather than taking the train. Mostly this was because, here as in the U.S., it is much cheaper to return your rental car to the same place you got it and we are flying out of Budapest when we come home. The terrain in this part of Europe is pretty much the same, rolling hills with farms and villages. We were driving on limited access highways so did not have to deal with speed traps in the villages. There were, if possible, even more trucks on the road than at home.

We stopped for lunch in Slovakia at a roadside restaurant/hotel. These are right on the highway. Bug managed to choose one of the Slovak national dishes: spatzel in cheese sauce. I guess Mac N’Cheese is a worldwide favorite.

Our Prague Home

SewDiva and Bug in their new room

hall with shelves!

Here in Prague we are staying in much more of a hotel/hostel than we have previously. We have no kitchen but there is a common room with refrigerator that we can use. The good news is that we have wi-fi in our room so we can access the internet 24/7 and I can blog in my spare time rather than having to make time for it.

The first room we had here had windows that opened onto the street – a narrow dead end with a passage to one of the busiest walking streets in Prague. With the windows open the partiers went by all night. In the morning Bug discovered that there was no hot water and that the door to the common room and our breakfast goodies was locked! We almost had a melt-down. Fortunately the hotel across the street had a delicious all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and the food combined with the coffee made for a much better morning. Eventually we 1) found a laundry for our dirty clothes, 2) got moved to a different room that, in addition to having hot water, opens onto an inner courtyard where the night noises are almost nil, 3) found a bank ATM to get some cash & spent it and 4)got the car moved from the street to a secure garage.

About moving the car. Prague has lots and lots of one way streets in the tourist core so getting from here to there requires planning. When we arrived on Tuesday afternoon the garage associated with our hotel was full so we parked on the street – but there is no street parking available in Prague 1 (the district the tourist stuff is in) so we parked across the bridge – about a 15 min walk from our hotel, no biggie but we did want the car in a garage so we didn’t have to worry about it. Wednesday morning the garage had an opening so Bear and SewDiva walked over to get the car and drive it back to the garage while Bug did some wandering alone. The garage is located in even more central Prague than the hotel so driving was even weirder. We managed to get over the bridge and deal with the one-ways. When we were about 1 block from the garage we realized that the street had changed and there was no place to drive except on the trolley tracks. As we got to the end of the block and turned right a nice young policeman asked us to pull over and park. Fortunately Bear had not left all the car paperwork back in the room. We looked, old, harried and pathetic and didn’t get a ticket. Just a command to “not do that again”. We promised him that we were turning into the garage and would not be driving again in Prague! Actually, if we can figure out a way to have the car air-lifted out of town on Sunday morning when we take Bug to the airport we will be up for it. The reality is that we are figuring that at 6:00 Sunday morning there won’t be all that much traffic.

Various beautiful pics from Budapest

High altar in church we ran across
Mosaic on the Turkish Bank: Hungary worshiping the Virgin

The Grand Market

Budapest by Bike

SewDiva creating scarves
Bug riding in Margaret Island park

Royal Palace lit at night

Fishermen's Bastion & St. Mathias Cathedral behind the Chain Bridge

Today was our last day in Budapest so it was time for doing the things we hadn’t yet gotten around to. SewDiva is making scarves for souvenirs. She is rubbing the beautiful manhole covers with crayon onto silk scarf blanks and then will set them and over-dye the scarves when she gets home. Bear thinks this is a great idea but the thought of associating himself with her sitting in the middle of Vaci (the pedestrian shopping street) is more than he can handle so he was off for coffee. Bug had some shopping that needed to happen and then came and watched SewDiva do her thing. Needless to say people stop and stare and some even engage in conversation.

We rented bikes for the afternoon. As with our usual luck we managed to be here for a major holiday. In Budapest Pentecost is a big holiday, most of the shops close (but not the banks?). So our plan for an uncrowded day biking at Margaret Island (the whole island is a park) was foiled. But it was fun anyway. The street on the island was closed so we only had to deal with the busses, other bikers, pedal cars, electric cars, and walkers. We took a rest stop at the lily pond where the frogs were loudly expressing their disapproval of all the people around the pond. There were also turtles sunning on the statue and on the lily pads. We noticed some swimming around and then realized there were two different kinds: stripes and spots. Apparently a spot came too close to stripe territory so a stripe dove down, faced off against spot and waved his fingers in spot’s face. It worked, spot swam away.

After a rest SewDiva went out to finish her scarf rubbings. Bear again hid. She picked up a couple of little girls who were most interested in helping her choose her colors. Very cute!

Dinner was at an open-air restaurant along the Danube were we could watch the lights come on on the bridges and the castle across the river. Very, very beautiful. A nice thing about Europe is that they don’t expect you to just eat and leave, they expect you to sit around and enjoy your drink and the company you are with. You actually have to ask them for the check. So after a while of enjoying the people walking by, the river boats and the lights we decided to become walkers ourselves. Our regular evening rainstorm was late: 9:00 rather than 5:00. We were running through the storm back to the apartment. We thought to finish our day with one last farewell stop at our internet café, but it had closed early!

More Whimsical than You Might Expect

Bug & SewDiva demonstrating Hungarian - Soviet friendship

From the Museum we headed out in to the sunshine (it was 88 degrees!) and got on the tram out to the train station at the edge of Budapest. From there we had to find the bus station and buy tickets (and then find the right bus – always an adventure) and take the bus out to Memento Park. After the fall of communism, the city started to take down all of the communist statues around Budapest and were going to just destroy them when someone had the great idea to collect all the statues and put them in a park. Now, this may sound like another depressing museum to go to (hello – House of Terror), but they really managed to make it quite a bit more entertaining than you might expect. The statues were arranged around the edge of a large park. There were quite a few statues of people we didn’t know (maybe if we’d paid more attention at the Hungarian National Museum we would have known but oh well) and then LOTS of statues about Soviet-Hungarian friendship and celebrating the failure of the 1956 revolution that tried to get rid of communism. In the middle of the park was a nice red star planted out of salvia. Over all it was quite nicely displayed. There was also a museum that had a viewing room with some very amusing training films for the Hungarian Secret Police – how to do an illegal search, plant bugs and recruit unwilling agents with blackmail. They also had a gift shop with some really great stuff – Sounds of Communism Volumes I and II, army hats, real Soviet-era Postcards, t-shirts and mouse pads with East Park (think South Park with Communist leaders) cartoons and even shot glasses with the hammer and sickle. Really great stuff. Then it was back to the road to wait for the bus. It was quite an adventure to read the bus schedule but we managed and sat down on a retaining wall to wait. The whole day had been really hot and we’d all gotten a bit sunburned but as we waited, the clouds opened up with the biggest rain drops you’ve ever seen. It was still sunny and hot, but now we were also getting wet. Just about the time the bus arrived, it stopped raining. Ahhhh, weather in Hungary has been such an adventure.

We got off the bus and back on the tram to our favorite Hungarian restaurant – that we’d been to just the night before. We tried their version of a “cheese dumpling” and although it was good, nothing quite like the Papanaşi in Romania. Then to our favorite internet café for some red wine and blog posting.
Guest post by Bug

More History than You'd Ever Want to Know

Hungarian National Museum

From the Synagogue, we headed down the street to a little falafel and gyro place on the corner that we’d passed by multiple times. It is the Hungarian version of fast food – way better than McDonalds! Then off to the Hungarian National Museum. It is in a beautiful building that Bug said reminded her of the US Supreme Court – lots of white marble and columns. The museum was a bit confusing to find our way to the exhibits. But even if there were signs (which we did not see), we wouldn’t have been able to read them in Hungarian! The Museum has a series of exhibits about the history of the Hungarian people. Now, you know that our family loves to learn about history – especially Bug. But we decided that there is actually a limit to the amount of history about Hungary that we’d care to learn. The exhibit was two full floors of a building larger than a city block filled with the history of the Hungarian people from the Stone Age through to independence in 1989. There were lots of signs to read that gave historical context to the various items they had – coins, pottery, clothes (SewDiva loved those!), documents, religious items – and lots of them (but not all!) were written in English. In the first few rooms we tried to read all of the signs but we were moving so slowly and were hardly to the 1600’s when we realized we would never make it out of the museum at that pace so we started reading less and less of the signs so we could move through a bit faster. By the end we were just scanning the titles to get the context of the exhibit, taking a quick glance around and moving on.
Guest post by Bug

A Tour of Tears

Tree of Life
Ghetto wall

Inside synagogue

We went on the tour of the Dohány Synagogue. It is the 2nd largest synagogue in the world (behind New York) and seats 3000. Everything in it has meaning: the chandelier design, the window design, etc. It was built in 1859 and is very beautiful. The Jews in Budapest were given freedom of religion in 1251 so many from all over Europe flocked here and there was a very large and vibrant community. Things went along pretty well until 1941 when Hungary joined the Axis and anti-Semitic laws were passed. In 1944 Adolf Eichmann came to Budapest to implement the “Final Solution” and many Jews were transported to Auschwitz. The remaining Jews were forced into a ghetto surrounding the synagogue. The streets were walled off and they were crowded into small apartments and given not enough food to survive. Thousands died every day. As it turns out, our apartment was within the ghetto. Imagine 30-40 people living in our apartment. The ghetto was liberated on Jan. 18, 1945 by the Soviets.

Behind the synagogue is The Tree of Life, a Holocaust memorial. Names of Hungarian Jews who died are engraved on leaves and attached to the branches of the tree. Over dinner we were talking about how the world has promised that never again would we allow something like this to happen to a people, that we would never forget. Yet our memories seem to be extremely short: we allowed the Soviets to run over and slaughter much of Eastern Europe; we allowed the Chinese to slaughter the people of Tibet; we allowed the slaughter on all sides in Bosnia; we allowed the various slaughters that have raged across Africa. In all these cases we have stood back and said “it’s not our business”.