Czeck, please.

6-24-05
Indeed today we did take a tour of the palace. It was of course huge, as a palace should be. It took half the day just to go through it! After that, we took a trip to the ferris wheel, which used to be the biggest in the world, and now it's just "big". We didn't ride it though, neither of us really felt like it, and it was 9 dollars a person. You didn't even get your own car! the cars were actually each the size of busses. It was crazy. Well, since we got a day pass for the metro today, we then took a trip to the other side of town where the cemetary is. We saw the graves of Beethoven, Strauss, Mozart, Brahms, and more. There was a whole section of just the musicians! We also went to the jewish part, and this part was really sad because the nazis came through and basically destroyed the cemetary only in the jewish part. There were lots of stones that were toppled over, broken, and missing. The city is trying to put out replacement stones for many of them, but it looks like arlington now with a bunch of stones exactly the same.

6-25-05
Today we made the drive from Vienna to Prague with a bunch of stops along the way. We got lost plenty of times, and were often quite frustrated especially in Czeck republic since we couldn't speak the language, but we ended up getting everywhere we wanted. After crossing the Czeck border (and getting a passport stamp), we got pulled over by the police saying we were speeding "somewhere back in the last town", and we had to pay 1000 kr for the ticket. Now, if you're up to date on my posts, you know that not only were we not speeding, I don't think we even hit the speed limit. Unfortunately, there's no way to get out of it, so we had to pay it. That sucked big time. Once we'd gotten over that annoyance, we stopped in Telc, a beautiful small town and had lunch, and then we went to Kutna Hora, where there is a church decorated with the bones of 40,000 people who died in the black plague. It was really eerie, and strange, but I guess that is what brings tourism money to the town, so keep it coming! pictures will be posted of this. In the evening we arrived in Prague, and we got an apartment there, so we checked in and went to sleep early since it was raining.

6-26-05
It was still raining this morning, so we got a late start in hopes of it letting up. We went to the Jewish part of town today, seeing all the synagogues and museums, and the old Jewish cemetary. The cemetary was kind of neat in that they didn't have enough space, so over the years, they brought new layers of dirt to have more room, so it is very high, with thousands of stones. The site was used from the 13-1700s and is now just viewable for tourists. We also did the obligatory walk through the old city and across the Charles bridge, and we will likely go back tonight to see it in the dark. Now I am doing laundry, so the cafe is passing the time =)

more to come...