Holy Shit! -How it began, June 3

Today began with a struggle. Apparently I was more tired than I realized. I think it was about 9pm last night but I couldn't get up until about 9am. Even so I felt like I was walking half-asleep and barely able to keep my eyes open. I guess walking over 20,000 steps and not sleeping much in the past over 48 hours does that? Oh well. Anyways, back to the day!

First stop= cafe for breakfast before our walking tour. I spotted a coffee shop through the window as we got off the tram, so we headed there. It was called Kavarna Creperie and was AMAZING! Even if 80s-90s music playing in the background (complete with Madonna music videos) isn't your thing, the food was so delicious and cheap. I shared this beautiful breakfast tower with Anna and had a Dark Hot Chocolate. My drink was so amazing, it was like hot fudge! So rich it reminded me of four year in Madrid (Chocolateria San Gines) where the drinking chocolate was so dark and thick that it was used to dip gyros mostly and only a few brave souls in our group (me of course) drank some of it as well (it was heavenly, but too filling to actually drink a cup).

Then we went on our free walking tour with Royal Walk Free Tours. This FREE walking tour is a MUST for anyone wanting to get your barrings and learn some keys to the city at the beginning of your trip. It was 2.5 hours but it didn't feel that long because we would stop every now and then to learn about the various sights we passed. Our guide was Dora and she was AMAZING, highly recommend! After all, you're all about to hear a few of my favorite tid-bits from our learnings today (sorry to any future travelers if this ruins the story if they are reused).

Stories from tour:
I'll preface with this: If you plan on getting in a disagreement with a Czech, do it on the GROUND-floor! Why you ask? Well, the Czechs have a habit of solving disagreements by throwing the one that disagrees out the nearest window. In one legend, Czechs went into a castle and demanded that the priests free the Czech sympathizers. Unsurprisingly they ignored this demand. Unluckily for them, the Czechs were adamant and took their revenge by throwing them out the window. As the story goes, they survived do to the fact that they landing on a pile of, you guessed it, manure! Perhaps this was indeed where the saying "Holy Shit" came from after all! And if you do decide to get in a fight with a Czech not on the ground floor, please stay away from windows. Luckily, most pubs and clubs are underground here...

Next off we ended up at Prague Academy of Music where our guide had an interesting story regarding the removal of one of the statues on the roof. Well apparently during the Nazi occupation, men were ordered to the top of the hall to eliminate the statue of Mendelssohn (famous Jewish composer). Nazi sympathizers being as they were, it wasn't until they got to the roof that they realized that neither of them knew what Mendelssohn looked like! So they devised a clever plan--they would simply measure the noses of all the statues and the one with the largest nose HAD to be Mendelssohn (because everyone knows what a Jew-nose is, right). Anyways, long story short, there is now a book called "Mendelssohn is on the Roof" because he still is (the men threw off the wrong statue). I guess they should have known better, stereotypes only work so well, especially when there are other men known for having large noses up there too!

I feel like "Fair Price" is more concerning than comforting...

Because I don't want to bore you with another story, lets just say the legend of Golem may in fact be true. On the side of the Old New Synagogue (there is a story behind the seemingly odd name), the first 3 meters of latter leading to the attic were removed. Legend has it, Golem is up in the attic and thankfully we can no longer get up to the attic (a Nazi was supposedly stabbed by Golem at the base of the latter as he was about to come up and get rid of Golem, if he was up there, thus when the Nazi's friends found him the next morning, the bottom of the latter was removed).

Path to the attic is no longer complete

Last advice about food- on Dlouha Street (when reading the sign the D looks like an O), the restaurant Lokal is a good choice, even for locals. Anna and I actually went here for lunch and it was very good. Just a heads up though, the menu changes daily so if you go for a late lunch, be warned that some of the specials and other appetizing dishes may no longer be available. And any time your going to a new place to eat, check the price of beer. As our guide said, "The Czechs love their beer, so it should always be cheaper than water. If the price of a 0.5L beer is between 20-45 czd then its legit, otherwise you're getting ripped off." So far I have found this to be true. But when going to mini-marts you can buy 1.5L bottled water for 30-60 czd (significantly cheaper than at a dinning facility).

After this wonderful tour Anna and I explored Old Town and the Jewish Quarters again for a while by ourselves. The Old Jewish Cemetery is actually pretty creepy. This was the only cemetery for the Jews of Prague between the 15th and 18th centuries and unsurprisingly quickly ran out of space as diseases spread (the Jewish Quarters were once even lower than currently and Prague is very susceptible to flooding). Here you will find ~12,000 tombstones, and an estimated 100,000 people buried (don't worry, you read these numbers correctly). In some areas graves were not only dug deeper, but body may be as much as 12 layers deep; plus the ground of the graves is small hills (above surrounding ground).

I spy a ghost for you as well (yep, it has no face). 

The two main synagogues that we entered today were the Pinkas Synagogue and the Spanish Synagogue. Pinkas has two permanent exhibits in remembrance of the Holocaust. The first exhibit contains 77,297 names and corresponding birth and death dates of Bohemian and Moravian Jews that perished in the Holocaust. The second exhibit was a collection of artwork from children in a "transition home" before they were sent to Auschwitz (though nobody there new this). The artwork reflected much of what it was like to live in a Jewish Ghetto in the Nazi occupation; but it also reflected many happy things that either still occurred during this time, or simply wonderful memories these children still thought of while they were experiencing a horrible present condition. Oh and this art project of teaching art to the children at the camp was a hidden task and one that wasn't discovered during the Nazi era. The woman who taught the children ended up voluntarily going to Auschwitz herself when the Nazis came for her Jewish husband; while her husband was able to survive the camp, she died within a month.

While Pinkas was breathtakingly moving, the Spanish Synagogue was breathtakingly decorated. The Spanish had style, is all I can say! Some people say if all churches in the US looked like the cathedrals do in Europe, then maybe they would go to church more. I guess I can understand when I compare our simple Hillel to the Spanish Synagogue.

That basically sums up most of the cool sites we saw today. So I'll leave you will anticipation of stories from the Prague Castle Tour we plan on going on tomorrow morning.