Pictures of Prague

We attended a Czech Pilharmonic Orchestra concert in Dvorak Hall in the Rudolfinum.

The Jewish Quarter. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the Old Jewish Cemetery.  It is a relatively small area with 12,000 people buried, litterally on top of each other with head stones within one foot of each other.  During the years where there was no Jewish Community to take care of the cemetary, many of the stones toppled. 

Each synagogue is used for the community Shabbat service. This is Old-New Synagogue built around 1270. There are candles near the Torah arc for the upcoming service.

The Charles Bridge has many statues of saints.

The plaque is about St. John Nepomuk who was thrown off the Charles Bridge in 1393 for not telling the king his wife's confession.  The shiny parts are rubbed by everyone to make a wish come true. What is Chuck wishing?

The statues are near the Prague Castle. They start with a whole man and as they go up, lose part of the person until there is nothing left...a commentary on communism.

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square is an unbelievable clock.  It is 500 years old, still works. The clock maker was blinded so he could not make another one.

Four Days in Prague

Prague is a beautiful city. The buildings are incredible. Each seems to be different from the other. Most that we saw have statues over or next to the entry. Many have statues around windows or on top of the building. Buildings that were not painted had the black from coal soot. Buildings that could be painted were painted all shades of earth tones or light colors. Most painted buildings had different color trim. We were really awed by the beauty of the city. The sidewalks and roads were frequently new cobblestone or brick in nice patterns.

We were in Prague 4 full days and saw lots of the old historic sites. The city has five areas that made it very easy to navigate: Castle Quarter, Old Quarter that had the Jewish Quarter in it, New Quarter and Little Quarter.

There are some similarities in the Czech Republic to Romania.

• Menus have measurements for each item…100 mg of meat, .41 liter of beer. The cups and glasses frequently had the measurement on the glass. We read that this is left over from Communism where everything was supposedly open and exact.

• There is a very extensive tram, trolley and subway system. It is well utilized in both cities. We never seemed to wait more than 5 minutes for our train regardless of where we were going or when.

• Lots of people were on the streets walking…to the grocery, bakery, work, home. Everyone was walking.

• Most under 40 speak English.

We read that goulash and different dumplings are traditional Czech food. So we ordered that for our first meal. Chuck got the goulash with bread dumplings and I got stuffed dumplings. We were both surprised. Chuck’s was beef with gravy and the dumplings were boiled or steamed bread dough. Jan’s was more like a dessert. It was bread dumplings stuffed with sweet strawberries with cheese and cinnamon-sugar on top.

We decided to venture into other foods for our other meals and were more successful. We found a nice little bakery for breakfast that had seats and hot drinks. Jan got hot chocolate and was in heaven. It is more like a combination of dark hot chocolate and chocolate pudding. The ad for it was a straw in a chocolate chunk and that was what it was like.

Our last night we ate a pub and shared a table with a couple from Moscow (they didn’t deliberately put the tourists together.) Nina spoke a little English…more than the Russian that Jan remembered. And now we have friends who have invited us to stay with them when we come to Moscow.

Jan’s cousin Ricki lives in Prague and suggested we visit the Franz Kafka Museum. It was well worth it but the reason it’s in the blog is because of the fountain in the courtyard. Their hips move back and forth and their penises go up and down.

The last picture is of Ricki and us. She works at Radio Free Europe and is creating and training for the inclusion of video feeds in the 20 countries that RFE services. She took us on a tour of the facilities, headquartered in Prague. It was really interesting to learn about this organization that we’ve heard about but don’t need in the US. It provides unbiased news about the country in which it broadcasts. And Ricki is developing RFE’s entrance into online videos.

Sibiu, Romania

We took a 3½ hour bus ride to Sibiu. The bus and roads were in good condition. The route is so busy that there were three buses on our return trip. Sibiu is a regular town, but one that was able to maintain its original walled in medieval town center. Since it isn’t tourist season, we were the only guests in a charming hotel. They proudly gave us their best room, with a patio overlooking a very small courtyard, instead of on the street side. They had a restaurant on the premises and offered to prepare a traditional Romanian dinner for us. We had stuffed cabbage rolls, polenta, sliced sheep’s milk cheese, bread, tea/coffee and tzuika (traditional liquor made out of plums) for about $5 per person. The woman running the desk, kitchen and dining room spoke Romanian, German and Italian. Jan speaks some Spanish, Chuck speaks French, German and some Romanian. So Chuck and she communicated mostly in German. It was a very fun evening.

The town was great fun to roam around. The following are pictures of Jan’s favorite part: the vents in the steep roofs look like eyes. She tried to find the reason on Google but didn’t get anywhere. She asked about it and was told they are just vents.

The next few pictures are of the wonderful buildings. Notice the first one—the dark roofs are medieval, the reddish roofs are renovated on medieval buildings, and in the distance, the regular city with high rises. The next picture is looking down at a “block” of houses. We know that as in many countries, the style is to build up to the street and have what we would consider their yard within the wall. You can see here how little room there is and how houses were just built every which way.

The last couple of shots of the city are of the wall and tower that protected the city way back when. We didn’t find dates but these buildings and wall are hundreds of years old.

We spent our second day at what is called an open-air cultural museum. It’s the largest in Europe. They went around Romania and dismantled fine examples of houses, workshops and farm buildings typical of people who worked in the common trades of old. Then they reassembled them in the park. It was wonderful to see the styles beginning with log cabins with rock or dirt floors and thatched roofs to what looked like pretty modern houses and workshops. But even the 20th century ones differed between the different states. Most churches were built out of stone. However, there is a region known for their wooden churches to allow them to be dismantled quickly. As we were wandering around, we saw several dressed up people all going the same direction. It turns out one of the wooden churches brought to the park was being used for an Eastern Orthodox service. We were invited in and stayed long enough to understand that the service was in Romanian, mostly sung by the priest with little participation from the congregation, who knelt or bowed occasionally. It was very interesting for us.

The first picture is of an older home with a typically tall pitched roof. The next is a similar building, but insulated with mud or concrete and paint. Next is also something we found typical, at least to this park. Almost all of the work was assisted by hydraulic power. The workshops were either built right next to the river or actually on the river, to make use of the flowing water power. The last picture is of what we assume is one of the first Ferris wheels. The literature called it a swing.

We spent the day in the park and were finishing up our last 45 minutes when this old guy who only spoke Romanian picked us up and started explaining the exhibits. Since we gathered most from just looking, we were uncomfortable and couldn’t figure out how to dump him without being offensive. He was VERY persistent so we followed him to a couple more exhibits. It turns out that he works at the park and really knew his stuff, which he amazingly was able to explain to us. He showed us three or four different types of sunflower oil presses: animal powered, human powered (kind of like a stairmaster) and several that had levers so that the seeds could just be pressed really hard. He also explained how 32 horses walked in a circle, 2 by 2 and ground grain. He insisted he take our picture inside one of the houses and it turned out, not only did he know how to tell us about the oil presses; he also knew how to take good pictures. Below are the pictures of the end of our fun day.

Welcome to our new home

We’ve been in Cluj-Napoca Romania for a little over a week now. The city has a population of about 350,000. Again, everything is different than what we’ve experienced at home, France or India. To us it seems densely populated. There are hundreds of communist era apartment buildings that are either all alike or look very similar. Even the newer apartment buildings have a similar look. Most are out of concrete and have no decoration or uniqueness to them. At first it was difficult because it wasn’t pretty and we couldn’t find landmarks. But we have gotten used to the buildings and are figuring things out.

We are staying in a relatively new 10 story building. The blue on the building is actually a deep sky blue although it doesn’t show up well on the picture. It’s kind of a hybrid between a hotel and student housing owned by the university, located in a park dedicated to sports.

Our studio is very spacious with lots of storage. We have an entry hall, bathroom, kitchen with hot plate and fridge, big room with beds, shelving and a desk, and a small patio. We love our large window that looks over the sports fields and then hills. All of the trees will be beautiful when spring comes.

The first order of business was to outfit our studio. It came with sheets, towels and one roll of TP. We spent 4-5 hours shopping at mega stores during our first two days. Things are different here. They don’t have the plastic that we have in the US. We could get disposable plates and flatware, but nothing in plastic that could be washed. Also, groupings that normally come in sets of 4 in the States, come in sets of 3 here. We ended up with nice and cheap that we are using creatively. Hopefully we can donate to a shelter here when we are done.

The next order of business was figuring out the public transportation system. Cluj has inexpensive taxis, trams (hooked to overhead electricity and on tracks), trolleys (buses hooked to overhead electricity) and buses. But as far as we can tell, none really intersect. Chuck, with his good sense of direction, found his way to the university and his office. Jan, with her lousy sense of direction but ease of asking questions, took a little longer but is getting the hang of it.

Babes Bolyai University, where Chuck is working, is also a good looking newer building. He shares an office with five others, although they are rarely there because of their teaching and other duties. He has been invited to meet with the dean, go to a student internship fair, and is included in the weekly staff meetings. But he is mostly reading since the computer at work is probably at least 10 years old.

Both March 1 and March 8 were some kind of women’s day holidays. The tradition for the first holiday is for any men to give a small gift to all women they know (they work with, they’re friends with, family, etc.) The gifts are small broaches, figurines (½”). They each have a small ribbon hanging from them. The women at the front desk of our hotel showed us one that she received from the man who brings the newspapers. The women traditionally wear them for the first week. We only saw two women wearing them. One of them said it was because her young son gave it to her. Then on March 8, the women receive flowers. Again, not like in the US. We saw only one flower being given in most cases. Chuck asked a male colleague when Man’s Day was and was told that the other 363 days are man’s day.

Last weekend we went to the opera, Rigoletto at the Opera house. The building was elegant in its heyday. But its paint was a bit faded. The voices were really good, as was the orchestra. We really enjoyed it and will go again.

This weekend we are taking a bus to Sibiu, about 3 ½ hours away. We’ll post again soon.

Senior Life Article

There is an article about our travels in the March 2010 issue of Senior Life,  Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Edition.  Here is the link.  The article starts on page 4. Notice on page 5 the location where they think we are riding the elephant.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WE’RE ON THE ROAD AGAIN

We made it to Madrid early Friday morning on a knock-down gorgeous day. So after checking into our great little hotel, we went out to explore. Madrid is full of beautiful buildings and doors that are different looking than the ones in France, but just as beautiful, making the city as beautiful. The city also has lovely plazas that serve as a congregating point, or just as a short cut from point a to point b. But they are ALWAYS full of people. We’ve come to the conclusion that people come to the beautiful areas and walk just to see, be seen and as a family activity. Walking seems to be the way free-time is passed.

We chose a hostel that is near the center of the city and were able to walk to the

• Prado Museum (well laid out, full of light and spacious, full of Spanish artists like Goya, El Greco, and Gris.)

• Reina Sofia Museum (where Picasso’s Guernica is on exhibit-this is a museum of modern art, housed in a renovated hospital. It had no elevators so they built beautiful glass elevators on the outside. It is really classy.)

• and the Royal Palace of Madrid (Jan loves palaces and castles and was not disappointed by the splendor of this one. The king still resides in the upper floors.)

Our hotel room was small but comfortable with a traditional bathroom. We’ve found in our travels that bathrooms aren’t always what we expect.

The first picture is of Jan standing in front of the Madrid “mascot”, a standing bear trying to get the berries on the tree. In addition to the statue, the symbol is on the police uniforms and even made out of chocolate (hmmm, wonder if it tastes like chocolate berries?)

An example of Spanish aesthetics is the street sign. Not only is it large enough to see, but it’s beautiful. Each picture on the sign has something to do with the name of the street. Each sign is built into the building (they don’t change names of streets very often!) and has nine tiles.

We were also able to walk through several of the plazas, which as we mentioned are just full of people interacting at all times of the day. They are really a place of community. The next picture shows a night scene full of couples of all ages and families. We saw fewer children at night but during the day the families were often multi-generational.

This next picture is from within Plaza Mayor. We had lunch at an outdoor café and watched life go by. The square looks like this on all sides. As far as we know, there are some offices, but mostly apartments. If you look through the arch, you can see the building is about 10 or 12’ wide. So we are guessing that the apartments are several rooms in a row connected by hallways, but we are just guessing whether they are multi-story or just one story. At any rate, it would be a neat place to live if you like light (windows on both sides) and to people watch. Also in the picture, you can see a sidewalk restaurant, similar to where we had lunch, and one of the many artists selling their works. Jan really enjoyed the grand arches and the views to the rest of the city through them.

 
In the second picture, above, there is a man wearing a blue/white hat with two sticks tied with two yard-long ropes, expertly creating large bubbles. He entertained the children for hours this Sunday afternoon. It was entertaining for us too.


Lastly, the Plaza Puerta del Sol—where the bear statue is located—is larger and busier with street performers and with people offering to buy gold. Many of them were the “statues” being unflappable to tourists trying to taunt them into losing their composure. Pictured here is a couple that was motionless until someone dropped a tip into their basket. At that point they would slowly move for a minute, like a mechanical display, choreographed so they ended in a different position but touching again after the movement. They never opened their eyes. And this is real mud. We saw them earlier when much of their outfit was still wet. Dry, it looked very statuesque. We saw them in the same spot several days in a row, that’s probably where they work every day.

We arrived in Romania late Monday evening and are getting settled quite well. More about Cluj-Napoca in our next blog entry. Please keep in touch.

Another Tribute to our French Friends

Prof. Alain Bretto has visited Northern Kentucky University twice. Alain invited me to spend part of my sabbatical in Caen, France.

Alain invited us to a shell fish dinner at his apartment the night before we flew home from France.  Here is a picture of Chuck, Alain, Monique, and Michel.

This is a picture of Alain and Marie.

This is a picture of Michel, Alain, Chuck, and Monique.

Some Americans wrongly believe that French are unfriendly towards Americans. We miss our good French friends.