Woke in the morning, tamed the mane, and down to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We loaded up on bread, yogurt, juice, and danish, suited up and headed out. We decided to do a little photography of us with all the pretty buildings, to prove that we were in fact "there". We switched cameras to capture some candids and rocked the little city of Praha. Everyone was in such a good mood, laughing, loving life. We played in the square, jumping, laughing, running, like kids at recess.
We went into the St. Nicholas Church and admired the beauty.
We headed by the river, and down the small streets of Praha, we bursted into song. Our theme song, Total Eclipse of the Heart and a little mad rapping to "I Like Big Butts". Reminded me of Christmas Eve rapping with one Allie Jones.
We headed for the St. Charles Bridge (named after Charles the IV) and towards the famous statue.
We rubbed the statue for good luck and marriage, and laughed at all the people mistakenly rubbing the dog. According to our tour guide from the previous day, some jokers had polished the dog to make it look like it had be rubbed, when in fact, rubbing the dog would give you bad luck & pregnancy. So in the know, we laughed at all those people who just rubbed the statue unknowingly.
A little grandma took our photo on the bridge and we headed back into town.
We divided up and I went with Claire on her mad search for Garnets. Claire had been talking about Czech Garnets for weeks it seemed, as the Bohemian Garnets are famous for their blood red color and are said to cure depression. Look, I do pay attention to you, Claire. We wandered a bit and popped into a few souvenir shops. We head back to the square, got a sausage for lunch, and waited to meet up with the rest of the girls so we could head to our tour of the Terezin Concentration Camp. I was in such a lovely mood, the sun was shining, I was eating food from a street vendor in Praha, life was just good. The biggest problem of the day were the pigeons getting too friendly. We stopped at the market to get some water and snacks and Jen and Stevie bought some fruit. In typical resourcefulness, Jen washed the blueberries in the street over a drain using her bottle of water. We enjoyed the blueberries and headed for our tour.
We had planned the trip to the Terezin Concentration Camp before leaving Dublin. While sort of a depressing tour, we all agreed that visiting one of these historical places was a "must-do" when coming to Eastern Europe. Initially, we had planned to go to one near Berlin but unfortunately it was closed on Mondays (the day we wanted to go). Terezin is a lesser known concentration camp that served as a holding camp for Jews and people who opposed the Nazis before they were transfered to extermination camps like Auschwitz. We had all prepared ourselves for the emotional afternoon ahead of us.
We took a small personal bus with a tour guide, driver, and two other tourists who spoke spanish. Our tour guide was this little Czech woman who spoke both English and Spanish. The camp was a little less than an hour away from the city center so we just kind of rested and listened to the random facts from our tour guide. Claire bonded with her over her families traditional mushroom hunting, we've all learned not to be surprised by the Fishers. :)
When we first arrived the first thing we saw were rows and rows of Christian and Jewish graves. Uplifting already. We got our admission tickets from our tour guide. I didn't take many photos in the camp itsself, infact they asked that you pay 2 euro if you were planning on taking photos. Either greedy or trying to deter tourists from taking obnoxious photos.
The first thing we saw was the typical Archeit Macht Frei archway. Here in this courtyard was registration and the number of detainees. They didn't tattoo numbers on here like they did in Auschwitz, but rather just affixed the number to your clothes. We went into the barracks. Here, bunkbeds lined the walls with no mattresses. Initially, there were mattresses but dirty residents had spread bedbugs and lice and so the mattresses were disposed off. Specific Jewish Barracks existed as well were conditions were much worse. 40 people in one room (probably 10 foot by 10 foot) with no toilet, just a bucket, and people were forced to sleep standing up. Throughout the camp, conditions were terrible. Minimal food (bread and potato soup--more like water with potatoes in it) and extreme temperatures due to lack of both insulation and ventilation.
Some of the cells were reserved for solidarity confinement. Prisoners kept in solitary confinement were left naked to sleep on the floor. One of such prisoners, in Cell 1, was the 17 year old assassin who killed Franz Ferdinand which eventually lead to the beginning of WWI. Weird to think that that one kid started WWI which some say lead to WWII. He was too young to be executed so he was kept at Terezin were he eventually died.
Next we went to the shower rooms. Which was much like a locker room shower except most of the showers were cold. (One of my biggest pet peeves). While you showered, your clothes were put in a steam cleaner. Seems hygienic until you realize that these steam cleaners had no soap or disinfectants. Rather it just spread the bugs from one set of clothes to another and then made the clothes wet and damp when you put them back on. The fact that we visited Terezin on a rather cold March day helped to paint a better picture of how terrible conditions were. We were freezing in our layers and hats and gloves. I can't imagine how cold I'd be if I had wet clothes on.
Our tour guide than took us to the Shave Room which looked pretty legit. A bunch of sinks lined up, like a dorm bathroom. However, the plumbing in this bathroom wasn't connected. This room was actually used as a "show" room for the visiting Red Cross to show how nice conditions were at Terezin. A big ploy to prove to the rest of the world that things were good at these work camps. Another reminder of how people only see what they want to see. In actuality, conditions were more like the infirmary where people were kept 3 people to the bed. However there were only 8 beds so everyone else slept on the floor. Which I'm assuming was cold and damp, not surprising no one ever got better. A doctor only came twice a week and even then he didn't have enough medicine to go around. While Terezin wasn't built as an extermination camp like Auschwitz, the conditions killed many of its inhabitants. It was surreal to be in this place and even standing in the hallowed rooms were thousands suffered, it is hard to believe that all the things the tour guide said were true and actually happened.
The tour continued through an underground tunnel located near the spot where three people successfully escaped (the only ones to successful do so). The underground tunnel was from the times when Terezin was used as a fortress. The tunnel ended near execution row where some of the inhabitants were shot and killed. As we continued walking, we saw some wild muskrats, which Jen loudly exclaimed were her "spirit animal". Just as we were feeling depressed and contemplating the conditions of the camps we went by the officer corridors. A movie theater, a swimming pool, juxtaposed against the archway known as the "Death Gate". I'm not sure I could enjoy an afternoon swim if I knew only yards away people were starving, cold, and dying. We continued towards the final courtyard passing memorials to the extermination camps that Terezin fed into. The memorial was dirt from all these camps, which I assumed was symbolic of the ashes of the victims. Our last stop was a final barrack that housed 600 people at one time. All with two toilets. Here typhoid spread like crazy and killed many.
With the tour of Terezin finished, we headed into the restaurant to wait for the other members of our group. Feeling depressed and finally locating my favorite ice cream bar--A Double Chocolate Magnum Bar--I treated myself. We talked with our tour guide, and her accent was a bit to decipher but the jist we got was that her dad was in Terezin at some point.
The next stop on our tour was the Muzeum Ghetta, a museum dedicated to Terezin and the victims who suffered here. We began the visit with a film. The film was an old propaganda film released by the Nazis about how great work camps like Terezin were. Terezin was used as a "show" camp, and the video depicted it as a happy place that people loved to live in. People were showed playing sports, laughing, having a good time. From my tour of Terezin, I saw no signs of ANY of that. To contrast the images, the movie had been edited to give a better picture of what it was REALLY like. Figures about deaths were read aloud...1,000 transported 3 survivors, 1,000 transported 1 survivor, 1,000 transported 4 survivors, 19,400 transported 120 survivors, etc. Images of drawings done by people at the work camps were also shown and these pictures depicted the horror and reality of the work camps. After the powerful film, we walked around the museum. One room was a replica of the Holocaust memorial in the Synagogue in Prague listing all the names of victims. More powerful were poems and drawings done by the kids who suffered at Terezin. They were separated by theme... by their past, their present, their future. These drawings were so powerful because it reminded me of all the children who died without even a small attempt at realizing their potential. The thought of "who'd they be today" was sad and chilling. We continued upstairs to a room outlining an expansive history of Nazi actions and anti-sementic ideals, most notably the Nuremberg Laws which basically took away the Jews basic rights.
We continued on to the Women's Quarter which displayed the living barracks of the women and then a museum of art, music, and writings that were created at Terezin. Because Terezin was used as a "show" camp, limited culture had been introduced for show purposes. But just like the book, if you give a mouse a cookie, they are going to want the whole thing...the small allowance of culture fueled a secret culture and artistic expression. Music, art, literature was used as a creative outlet and gave people hope. It's amazing the power of those things, and how they really fuel your soul. In the words of Laura, it was their very own "Ipod Therapy".
Given our fill of depression and horror, we headed back to Prague. We sat and talked about what we had seen. As I sat there on the bus, surrounded by friends, living a simple and easy life, I felt blessed at the life we lead. The ability to chase dreams, to laugh, to be merry, to socialize, to travel, and to celebrate life. Because if those people living in horror in Terezin could conjour up hope with music, I surely should be able to be happy with the life I'm living. So while I expected to come home depressed and saddened from Terezin, instead I was full of possibility and spark.
We searched out a place to eat dinner, weeding out ones who were too smokey. We found a place with a happy hour special and Claire's Czech food on the menu so we settled in. I order pot roast, asparugus, fried potatoes, and Jen bought all of us our "drink of choice". In attempts at recreating Champaign in Prague, I had an O&O which turned out more like waterdown Fanta mixed with Bacardi. But whatevs. Somehow Jen ended up not getting her meal so she sampled all of ours, Especially Claire's who had gotten basically a plate of meat. It was a little excessive, but she was in carnivore heaven. We finished our meals and decided to head on out to get some dessert at a different locale. We headed to the Bohemian Bagel, where we had lunch the day before, and had homemade cheesecake.
Upon arrival, we used our "dessert fund" to order a slice of carrot cake, slice of Bailey's Double Chocolate Cheesecake, and a slice of Raspberry Cheesecake. Being the family we are, I suggested we do "highs & lows" of the trip, or as renamed by Claire & the Karadishans.."Pits & Peaks". It soon became an evening tradition for us. We all had the same pits, the cold weather, limited time, and the loss of Stacy to the sickness. We laughed and shared our happy, peaks. We agreed that we had formed a family, a wolfpack of 6. We reminiscied over experiencing real life history with Louis, our favorite tour guide, and how blessed we were to be here together traveling. Ahh cheesey. As we were heading out, we ran into Isaac, a friend we made the day before, who convinced us that we should come check out the Pub Crawl that evening. We decided sometimes you need to "Just Dance" so we headed back to our hotel to change, and to check on Stacy. My foot was cramping, so I hobbled up to the hotel. Soon we were heading back to the Bohemian Bagel to start the barcrawl.
We linked arms as we walked through the streets of Prague, obviously bringing attention to ourselves as 5 americans (well 3 + a canadian + an australian) linked arms singing down the street singing our version of Bad Romance, changed the lyrics to reflect the fact that we were in Praha-ha-ha. We got to the Bohemian Bagel and sat in a booth, laughing, and talking about life, jail, Claire's love of salt, etc. I even told the famous hamster story. Girls were passing out colored shots so we cheers-ed for the heck of it.
After a while, we headed across the street to the M1 lounge. A girl was handing out tube shots as we walked in, and we noticed the smoke of the place right away. Not ideal but they were playing "Yeah!" by Usher and Lil Jon and that is just a jam so we hit the dance floor.
We danced like fools and Stevie and I busted out our most ridiculous moves. She has a little more rhythm than I, and dominated the Single Ladies Dance and found an italian admirer. A female italian admirer who tried to dance along, while never putting her cigarette down. They were playing some good American classics, like Missy Elliott and Snoop Dogg. Celebrating life, dancing away, in Prague, life was good for sure. The place had some pluses like the fact that we were able to dance without getting creeped on, and even the awkward man dancing with himself didn't bother us. However, the smoke was thick and after about 45 minutes of dancing, we needed fresh air. Another big day ahead of us, we headed home, linked arms like true wolfpack fashion. We brought it in when creepers approached (which seem to come out after dark) and "closed the curtain), we ran into a bunch of Jersey Shore Guidos (who were a plenty in Prague) who decided to walk right through us. Stevie responded to them saying "This is not Red Rover", reasons I love her. We walked towards our hotel following some policie on foot, our very own escort.
When we got back to the hotel, we all hung out in our room, journaling and laughing about the day. I went to bed happy as a clam and smelling like a LDF casino ash tray.
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