En route - CR to Germany...then to Berlin

5-27-05
Our second day in Prague, and we got up to go to the Castle on the other side of town. We arrived just as the castle opened because the guide book said it would get busy later in the day. Seeing the castle was neat, and we’re lucky we went that early because by 10:30, there were so many tourists, we couldn’t see two feet in front of us. By lunchtime, we were done seeing the castle and its gardens, and had lunch coming back down the hill. We’d also heard that there was a violin shop in the center of the city, so we went out scouting that. We thought it was a violin maker’s store, but it was just a shop where they also repaired…no creating involved. But the violins there were nice, and the prices were fractions of what one would pay in the states for the same quality instrument. The owner let me "test drive" a few of the violins too, which was nice, but seeing that I haven’t played in months, I think he was probably disappointed he even let me touch any of his violins haha =)

Later in the day we walked to Wencelas Square and had some ice cream and planned the next few days. In the evening, we walked around the town some more, and went to two different parks and read our books. It was nice just sitting around and not being spotted too quickly as tourists.

One thing I noticed while in Prague, was that it is easy to tell that this was a country that has been under communism for some time. You could feel it when you came into the country, but then notice it both when talking to people, seeing buildings built both before, during, and after the communist era, and see the difference in the amount of décor, and how ornate the buildings were. In comparison to the rest of Europe, the clothes people wore were twenty years in the past. Trendy stores found all over Europe had obviously just reopened in the more recent years, and many of the shoppers were tourists. The prices were high for Prague, too. In general, costs in the Czech Republic are about a half to three quarters the price of the same thing in the Euro countries. Unfortunately, the big name stores don’t change their prices for where they are.

6-28-05
In leaving Prague, we stopped at two places on the way out. We took a bit of a detour to Mlada Boleslav which is a city northwest of Prague, and their claim to fame is housing the Skoda (car company) factory. The reason we went though, was that during WW2, all the jews of the town were wiped out, but the Torah of this prominent Jewish town was actually saved, and my synagogue back home has kept the torah for safekeeping for the past ___ years. We decided to take a trip to the town, and see what (if anything) is left of the Judaism in the town. We arrived to find that the plot where the old synagogue was is now housing a government building, and the only way to recognize the plot is that the paving stones outside are still there in the shape of a Mogen David (a Jewish star). We also went and visited the cemetery, which is kept up by a Christain woman whose home is on the property. By the size of the cemetery, one could tell that at one time the city had a flourishing Jewish population, but now of course, it is empty.
After that, we continued on our Jewish history tour of Europe, and stopped in Terezín, which is a city also a bit outside of Prague, and housed the "demo" concentration camp. Basically, when leaders of nations, or reporters or really anyone wanted to see a camp, or get an idea of what a concentration camp was like, they would be taken here. The prisoners were treated a little better than in the other camps (still not decently of course), and there were things like swimming pools and other amenities that were built not for the people to use, but solely for show or for the Nazi officers to use with their families. Disgusting.

We arrived in Dresden in the mid-afternoon after a few ubiquitous road detours that slowed us by about an hour. They have a lot of projects that require highways to be closed, and instead of doing the construction at night, they do it during the day so that everyone is slowed by hours. They have these signs though, for example, if you’re going to be stuck in traffic for the next 12 km, they will put that on a sign, and the sign will have a huge sad face on it "L" . Then it gets a little less sad at 10km, and by 6 km, there’s a face ":-/" and then continue to a smiley "J" and then a smiley with a tongue sticking out that looks REALLY happy when there’s only 1km left. They are funny signs.

Anyway, we arrived in Dresden, and we were happy. Dad was happy because he could finally speak German again, and I was happy because we arrived to a Holiday Inn, and it was BY FAR, the nicest hotel I’d stayed in over the past 6 weeks. They gave two towels per person, put mints on the pillow, and there was shampoo in the shower. This was the first place to have any of these three things. Luckily, throughout the rest of my trip, I have had my own towel, my own shampoo, and usually I passed up having the mint on my pillow. I was happy to be there though. We spent the evening seeing the town. Dresden was bombed during the war, but they’d rebuilt a lot of it, so it was neat to see. It was in East Germany after the war though, so again only recently was it changed from communism. We had a good dinner, and dad couldn’t get over how good the beer was, or that he could talk to people again.

6-29-05
We left Dresden, and headed to Meissen, which is a small town well known for the past 200 years for their porcelain. It is where the European porcelain was first discovered and produced. The factory again produces all of the porcelain there, and we took a tour where they showed us the process for creating any pieces. It was neat to see the whole process. We left Meissen and headed for Berlin. Again of course, there was traffic on the highway due to construction. In all our time here, we have driven the Autobahn many times, and never once seen an accident to blame for the traffic. Only the construction zones all over the place.
Once in Berlin, we drove around a bit accidentally, just trying to get to the hotel, and once we checked in, we returned the rental car and got an unlimited day pass for the metro system which is REALLY good there. The first place to where we ventured was dad’s old apartment from college. We found it quite easily (which surprised me since I sometimes wonder if he remembers he has a daughter). And one of the students let us in the building so we could see it. Dad was reminiscing a little, but couldn’t remember which room was his or anything, so it was a quick visit. From there we went to the infamous Brandenburg gate. This gate has been standing through many of the changes in Berlin over the years, most recently both a bombing of Berlin, and was a gate of the Berlin wall. It was where the speeches were made just before the wall came down as well. There was an exhibit there with the history of the square, and it was neat to learn. Down the street we went to the Denkmahl. That is the new Holocaust memorial that was just opened in May. It looks like about 200 grey stones, the sizes ranging from gravestone to coffin size, and placed within an entire square of the city. Also down the street from the Brandenburg gate was the bundestag, which is where government senate things take place. It is housed in the Reichstag building. We went to the top of the building into the dome, and got a good view of the city. Later in the night, we went to the Kaiser Wilhelm gedächtnis. It is a church that was bombed during the war, only parts of it are left, but it has been left in that condition to remind the people of Berlin, and from around the world, the horrors that took place in WW2.

6-30-05
This morning we first headed to the synagogue which was also bombed during the war, and they have recently rebuilt it. We were going to take a tour of it, but decided to come back for services Friday instead. We also went to KaDeWe (Kaufhaus Des Westens) which is the largest department store on the continent. Kind of like Marshall Fields is to Chicago. Anyway, it was pretty cool inside, especially floor #6 which is the food floor. The presentation in there was just incredible. We checked out of the hotel after noon, and headed to dad’s friend Martin’s house. We got there and rang the bell, but no one answered, but within two minutes, his wacky neighbour from across the way told us to come over and sit in his garden while we waited. He had a beautiful garden in the back, growing everything from vegetables to fruits to flowers to herbs. He brought out some beer and watermelon, and we sat around and talked for a while. He has a Bulgarian guy staying with him who looked in his mid twenties, and we were all sitting around the table and he said to him in German "you always wanted to meet an American girl, now there is one sitting here in our garden!!" it was funny. A few minutes later, he’d called Martin (we’d been at his house for about an hour now), and as it turns out, Martin said he couldn’t come over because he was waiting for his American friends. Turns out he was there the whole time and just didn’t hear the buzzer. It was great sitting around with everyone, even though I didn’t know what they were talking about most of the time. After catching up a bit, Martin took us on a tour of the city, pointing out both historical landmarks and personal ones. He pointed out where many of the synagogues were, as well as the Jewish cemeteries. He took us to the place where the first holocaust deportation took place, which was just next to what used to be a cemetery where Moshe Mendelssohn was buried. After our drive around town, we came back to the house and martin cooked a wonderful dinner and the neighbors came back over for dessert. The evening was fun, but I think that tomorrow will be a full day, and I also leave for Sweden tomorrow, so I must get some rest. The house is quiet with everyone else getting some shut eye.
goodnight