Goodbye to Prague

Here is a photo of our hotel, U Bile Kuzelky, which was so wonderful. I can't recommend it enough if anyone reading this ever plans a trip to Prague.
The other photograph is where we ate dinner our last night in Prague....I loved the name, The Mystic Cafe. We asked our server what the name was all about and she said it had something to do with a witch. Her English just wasn't perfect so I never did understand what she meant. But anyway, it was a great place to spend our last evening in a beautiful city.

Live Long and Be Preposterous

Bet you didn't know that Spock of Star Trek was Jewish, did you? (Okay, maybe Spock really isn't, but Leonard Nimoy is.) Check out the photo we took in the Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The emblems at the top of the headstones have some connotation as to the person's name or profession or something else emblematic about the name. So there you go.

Museum of Communism

They really were saying those things about us! As a child of the 50's I remember bomb shelters and Kruschev's vow that he would "bury" us. Well, that didn't work out very well for the Russkies and we went to the Museum of Communism while we were in Prague to see for ourselves. This museum focused on Czechoslovakia and Prague more than Russia but they had statues of Lenin and lots of pictures of Karl Marx. Turns out that they really were saying mean stuff about us .... just like we were told, so see? It wasn't propaganda on our part.
I just added the photo with the missile as filler.....maybe it was the prototype for Madonna's bra, I don't know.

The World Famous Astronomical Clock

About 10 minutes before the hour throngs of people start crowding around this Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square. The first time you think you are going to see all kinds of bells and whistles but nope, all you get is the little skeleton ringing a bell and the two blue windows open up and a procession of the apostles' faces go by, each looking down as if to admonish you about wasting time (such as congregating at big clocks). It takes all of about one minute and ends with a "Toot toot!"....except it sounds kind of like "pfut pfut"....very anticlimatic. I would never tell anyone to not go see this, just don't get your expectations up. And besides, I don't know how you could visit Prague and not end up in the Old Town Square at some point.

Revenge in Dresden

We took another side trip to Dresden, Germany last Friday. It's not that we were tired of Prague, but we thought this would be interesting to go to Germany. I had always understood that Allied bombings had pretty much flattened Dresden so it wasn't a terrible surprise to see that there wasn't much there in the way of old buildings, churches, etc. My understanding is that the ones we did see have been reconstructed.
We decided to have lunch there at a pub and thank goodness we sat outside. Tom ordered pommes frites so he asked for ketchup when the food arrived. Well, here is what I suspect the scenario was back inside the pub: "Hey, Klaus, there are some Americans at table 3, give me a bottle of that exploding ketchup." Yes, my friends, the Dresdenites are getting even with us.
When Tom opened the bottle it literally exploded almost the entire contents all over the front of his shirt and jeans. How it missed getting into his hair and all over his face, I do not know. He even had ketchup on his elbows! We have always had a standing joke in the family about how Tom invariably dribbles a spot of something onto the front of his shirt.....but this was the mother of all spills! I didn't have the heart to take his photograph although I wish I had now.
The good part was that the pub gave Tom a new shirt. I think it is a little suspicious that they have laid in a supply of Freiberger Premium Beer polo shirts. I just know that when we were walking around all the locals saw that green shirt and thought, "Ha ha...they got another one." I do have to note, however, that Freiberger beer was the best beer we had on our entire trip. The travel brochures we saw all waxed poetic over the great beer in Prague (which it was), but the Germans have them beat.

The Original Action Figures

This place is so much better than Buckingham Palace. Okay, so the guards don't have the fancy uniforms with the big bear fur hats that they have in London, but at least you can go inside the palace grounds here. Oh, but get this: their uniforms were designed by the same guy who designed the costumes for the movie "Amadeus". Pretty cool, huh?
And don't you love the statues above? I'm sure the guards fantasize about doing something similar to the dorky tourists who constantly try to get them to smile, etc. I don't know how they retain their composure. I have a theory that they are on Valium and they are just thinking, "La la la la la.....my feet hurt....la la la...."

Side Trip to Kutna Hora

One day we decided to take a trip to Kutna Hora, about 65 km from Prague. At one time it was the second most important town in Bohemia after Prague.
We visited St. Barbara's Cathedral and did a guided tour of an area where they minted coins. Kutna Hora at one time was very rich with silver but that didn't last apparently.
The really, really interesting place was the Ossuary in Sedlec. From what I understand, the abbot from the chapel there made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1278. While there he visited Golgotha and gathered some soil there and put it in a jar that he transported back to Sedlec. He referred to this soil as "Holy Soil" and upon arrival at Sedlec he spread it over the cemetery there. Apparently word got out about the soil at this cemetery being sacred and it became an extremely popular place in central Europe in which to be buried. By 1318 over 30,000 people were buried there. Since the cemetery was getting pretty "full", the bones were dug up in 1511 to make room for new bodies and they were put in a crypt. Years later a wood carver was hired to "decorate" the inside of the chapel with all those bones. Tom was fascinated with this place...I thought it was just plain creepy. It was about as interesting a place as you could ever want to go, but it was still creepy. At least they weren't playing the music to "Dem bones, dem bones....."

Our Trip to Prague

No thanks to the terrible internet access we've had since arriving back in Pristina, I am just now able to do an update on our wonderful vacation to Prague. First I have to give a plug to the great little hotel in which we stayed, U Bile Kuzelky. I had a terrible time trying to pronounce it at first and we almost got into a bit of a pickle one night because of it. We went for a dinner cruise on the Vltava River one night and Grey Line Tours sent a bus to pick us up. It was a different driver than the one who delivered us to the dock so he had no idea where any of us had been picked up. He asked us which hotel to go to and I could not for the life of me remember it, other than the fact that it translated to The White Bowling Pin. Well, his English was pretty good but he totally did not get that! After a few minutes of me trying to stutter out what I thought the name was in Czech, he finally realized what I was trying to say and got us back to our hotel.
The hotel only had eight rooms I think and it was very old and quaint but had been updated so the bathrooms were completely modern and nice. The staff was great and all spoke excellent English so they were able to help us a lot when we had questions and they helped us arrange for some tours. And the breakfast they provided every morning was great.
This photo that looks like a canal in Venice was right there in Prague and was about a one minute walk from our hotel. I could go on and on about how beautiful it is in Prague but you would probably think I was exagerrating. It beats Paris and Venice as far as I'm concerned and that's saying a lot because I love those cities, too!

Let me start with a rant...

We just returned from Prague and we had a great time. But we haven't downloaded our photos yet and Tom is busy watching television so I'll fill my time complaining about Malev Airlines....they are the official airline of Hungary, just in case you've never heard of them. (I hadn't until we left last Monday.)
We were dropped off at the Prishtina airport and after we got all checked in at the Malev counter, we did the customary trip through security and passport control and actually managed to find a place to sit. This almost never happens at the Prishtina airport. I hate to complain about the airport too much, because compared to what it was like the first time I came here four years ago, it's great. Back then, it was kind of leaky, gray walls, floors and furniture, the windows were yellow from years of cigaret smoke and it was just plain creepy. And it stank. Now it has been brightened up somewhat and it still stinks. But that mainly has to do with some people's refusal to aquaint themselves with the marvels of anti-persperant. I could devote an entire blog to that subject alone but you get the idea.
Back to Malev. The first leg of our flight was to Budapest where, upon arrival, they schlepped us over to the terminal on a bus. Once inside the terminal we found ourselves in a mash of about a hundred people trying to squeeze into a queue to go through security. I assumed that there must be two or three gates to go into, but I was wrong....noooooo, there was only one and all those people were trying to elbow their way through. Then all of a sudden a woman with a very large voice barked at us to go to another place so about half of us obeyed her but by this time we had wasted about 10 minutes of our 35 minute connection time. But we figured we would be okay. Then all of a sudden about 8 people from the previous clot of people decided they were tired of waiting so they came over and walked right up to the front of the line and muscled their way in. I was hot! Then a Malev employee escorted about another 10 or 12 people to the head of the line. By this time I was really getting itchy because I knew our flight was probably boarding. Then, just as we were within about a minute of getting to the security station, a Malev employee again brought about 15 people and put them ahead of us. Tom and I both complained .... loudly...and she very icily informed us that these people had a "short connection"....like we didn't??? We told her that and she just walked away. So we finally got through security and had to run up some steps to passport control and then we got to our gate and there was a line so we figured they weren't boarding our flight yet. It clearly said Prague on the marquee thing. The next thing we know, they are calling our name and they were all annoyed that we hadn't boarded the plane yet! Hello??? Turns out that line was for yet another flight....they were boarding three flights from the same gate. What the......?
So again, we had to board a bus but it turned out we were hardly the last people to be late boarding....about another 20 people got on the bus and finally we got to the plane, got settled, got airborne, they threw another cream cheese sandwich at us and we arrived an hour later.
Well, let me tell you......Prague made it all worthwhile. We checked into our little hotel which was about a minute walk from the Charles Bridge and as soon as we went around the corner from it and saw it for the first time, I'm sure our jaws dropped.
This was THE BEST vacation ever and the most beautiful city we have ever seen. Yes, it beats even Paris or Venice. Yowza. Pictures to follow.

Outing to Gracanica

Ivan and Daniela accompanied us to the monastery and church at Gracanica last Friday. It is about 700 years old and all things considered, it is in really good shape. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take photographs inside. The walls and ceilings are covered in paintings depicting scenes from the Bible. Vandals have at one time or another gouged out the eyes of some of the people depicted which is really unfortunate. Soot from burning candles have also almost obliterated some of the scenes. There is no climate control inside so I'm amazed that these paintings are not all but gone. It would be wonderful if funds could be raised to restore them but as you can see from the razor wire and KFOR soldier outside, this is probably only a secondary concern at this time.

Our Street

Here's a photo of the street sign right in front of the Gegi Market where I buy bread. It's just downstairs from our flat and until a couple of days ago I had never known what street I actually lived on. I swear this sign is new. I had Googled a map of Prishtina a few months ago and all I could find were old maps with the Serb names. (See link http://www.csdbalkans.org/roma/Photos/Kosovo-_Pristina_1995.jpg) So for any of you intrepid souls who want to Google a newer version of a Prishtina street map, I live at the intersection of Murat Meheti and something something Vusshtria. Sorry, I can't remember the whole name of the intersecting street. If you look on the old version of the map and find the neighborhood called Tabana, look slightly to the right and there is a number 43. I think that is about where I live.
Oh, and those pieces of paper attached to the pole underneath the street sign? Those are obituaries. That's the way they do it here. They don't put them in the newspaper.