Journey to the 16th Century

I have two tidbits to share from the weekend, and two new photo albums. . .

Saturday

I decided to head out to the end of a tram line to Bresnov monastery, where they are supposed to have a great restaurant with beer brewed on site, all run directly by the monks. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for a wedding, so I went on a tour of the monastery - all in Czech. The gardens were beautiful, the crypt was pretty awesome, but by the time I left, I was so hungry, I could have gnawed off my own arm. I hit up some (barely passible) Mexican food. There's a joke that Czechs bring their dogs with them to restaurants because they need a guide dog for the bland. Nothing has spice - ever.

From there, I headed out to the TV tower a few blocks away from where I work in Vinohrady. The TV tower is enormous (belongs to the same family of towers that can be seen in Shanghai, Mexico city, etc), but what makes it really special is an art installation called "Babies." These gigantic black iron babies are crawling up and down all over the sides. Bear with the zillion pictures I took - I was a little obsessed. I then went to the top of the tower - which had an unbelievable view of Prague, and saw a pretty crazy looking cemetery that I went in search of once I went back down to the ground.

Finding the cemetery quickly, due to its size, I saw that it was the Jewish Cemetery, which I had been wanting to visit. Given it was Saturday, the cemetery was closed, but I was able to take some pictures through the gate. You'll notice that all of the graves are right on top of one another - Hitler had required ALL of the Jews in the Czech Republic to be buried in this one cemetery, rather than in mass graves. Given that thousands died at Terezin (I'm going there this week - so I'll write more about that later), the gravestones are only a few inches apart. Hitler chose not to bury the Jews in mass graves because he planned to open a "Jewish Museum" in Prague to represent the "lost culture of the Jews." It was overwhelming, but I feel very lucky to have seen it before I leave Prague.



Sunday

Amanda and I went to Cesky Krumlov for the night. Cesky Krumlov is a TINY Czech village that exists between a U-shaped bend in the Vltava River. There is a huge, BEAUTIFUL castle and lots of little shops and cafes. We had a great tour of the castle - sorry, couldn't take pictures inside - ate at a great vegetarian restaurant, and finally bought our gift to the school. No telling. We had an interesting evening out with a few too many glasses of wine and some blood red shots at the Horror Bar -a gothic inspired locale with skeletons adoring the ceilings. The next morning, needless-to-say, we weren't doing so hot. So we went from cafe to cafe until it was time to go home. The town was absolutely beautiful and touristy - but it had a weird vibe. Maybe this was completely imagined by me, given that the movie Hostel was filmed there, so everything looked slightly familiar.



Anyways. Work is going so so well, and I am almost done. Christoph had me help him with some English terminology yesterday for his dissertation on Burmese media and diasporic interconnectivity. Interesting stuff. I have the rest of the week to finish out everything, send in my Clinton School paper, and burn off the "Big Burma" CD before I leave for Rome. I am so excited to make the most of the last two weeks, hand over the final product to the Burma Center, and get home to Robert.

Love you all - and a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Grandpa.