Pra-ha!

With a satisfyingly structured day of sightseeing behind us, we set out on day two in Prague with less plans and open minds about wandering around the city all day. Our guide yesterday did say the the secret to Prague was to turn 3 corners and you are suddenly away from tourists or turn 3 corners and you might get lost but that's ok. We wanted to go back to the Jewish Quarter of the city for the first part of the morning, so we left the hostel, found a delicious pastry shop (it's a good thing we probably walk on average about 8 hours a day because I literally eat croissants and cappuccinos for breakfast every morning) and made our way into town.  The Jewish quarter of Prague is the area of Prague where while under anti-semantic rule, all the Jews we forced to live in a walled off portion of the city. This confinement lasted for hundreds of years: whole generations knew nothing but life within the walls where poverty and disease spread from one crowed home to the next. Because of the confinement, the one cemetery in town that could comfortably hold a few thousand people is the finally resting place of an estimated 100,00 people, buried in 10 to 12 layers. Because the space was so limited and burial is an integral part of the Jewish faith, the coffins were just stacked on top of one another and the headstones places together. The effect now is staggering. 12,000 Headstones of all shapes and sizes on slightly uneven, hilly ground. Twisted and turned this way and that. Some fallen, some still standing. All in some stage of decay but still worthy of honor and respect.  The graveyard is part of a synagogue turned memorial to the unimaginable number of Jews that were ripped from their home and deported to ghettos, concentration and death camps during the holocaust. Prague once held the third highest population of Jews in Europe, and now most of those name are on the walls on the synagogue as lives lost to a senseless reign. You may wonder, as we did, if Prague has such a strong Jewish population, why wasn't it bomber and destroyed by Hitlers army? There are two reasons: the first is that Hitler loved the city of Pragu, so he wanted to keep it looking nice. The second, if you can believe it, is that Hitler wanted to preserve the Jewish Quarter to eventually use is as an "open air museum to an extinguished race". Let that sink in. A museum...for a race that would no longer exist...because he killed them all. The museum now seems so much more important because his idea almost came true, but for a much greater and purer purpose: to ensure that people are educated about his terrible wills and actions so they never happen again. It was hard going through the  museum, to see wall and after wall with name after name, but it is a necessary hardship and I think a duty that we have. We owe it to those people to learn about what happened, and even though learning does not make up for suffering, it feels like it is the beginning to heal some wounds. The Jewish Quarter was also an introduction to what we will see in a few days when we go to Dachau outside of Munich.

With slightly heavy hearts we went back into the Easter market to get lunch (a tasty vanilla sugar bread baked on a rotating stick over open coals and potatoes with ham and cabbage) and then to go across the Charles Bridge and up a very large hill to get the best view of the city.  Turns out the top of the hill is surrounded by trees and a large stone wall so the best view is actually from a tower that you have to pay to get up in, but we still enjoyed the hike and got great views on the way up and down. Being in some sort of nature was also a huge plus. En route back to the city center, we stopped by what is known just a the Lennon Wall. I don't know hope it started, but now it is a colorful, happy wall of song lyrics (some Beatles, but also other artist too), graffiti art and memorials to Lennon himself that you could stare at for days and still find new things to read.  All the hopeful messages about peace and love seemed to be fitting after the sadness that we experienced that morning. Seeing the words "All you need is love" and "You may say that I'm a dreamer..." were comforting and helped to restore my faith in humanity as a whole a little bit.

We had high hopes to grab some discounted last minute tickets to the ballet that night, but alas it was not meant to be and they were sold out. Instead we turned a few corners and found a nice restaurant to have Katlin's birthday meal at. I'm so glad that I could celebrate her birthday in Prague with her! Not everyone has such a good friend to travel and experience all of what the world has to offer with. Prague was an especially good place to have a birthday too. In terms of the city, we think that it surpassed Barcelona to the top spot of favorite places so far. It just had so much to offer for everyone. The history, the culture, the energy and atmosphere...anyone could find something that they wanted to do here. And the attitude of the country was refreshing. They just separated from Slovakia and gained independence as a country less than a decade ago. They have done all of these amazing things, invented household items (is anyone drinking a pilsner right now? Wearing soft contact lens? Using a microwave?  You should thank the Czechs) and not to be forgotten...they picked themselves up invasion after invasion, ever hopeful to one day become a country of their own. But they have not really be given the respect they deserve until recently. It is up and coming town rooted in history and it has paved a special place in our travel hearts.

 For all the real Jay-Z fans out there, please enjoy this ending quote, as someone so poetically put on the Lennon wallI...I think it sums up our trip in Prague and the attitude of the city as a whole:  " I got 99 Praguelems but Prague ain't one."  If you're not quite familiar with that particular song of his, here's what it might mean. You are probably always going to have problems, but at least your city, your beloved Prague is not one of them.