The second week of April brought me relief in two important ways. First, the weather suddenly sprang from icy winter to cheery summer within the same week, and second my good friend Don arrived in Magdeburg for a visit. Hanging out with Don is generally a fun time anyway, but having someone around who has known me for nearly a decade (as opposed to all of my friends here, who have known me for six months at most) was really a treat.
As our Easter celebration, Don and I, speaking no more than three words of Czech, and carrying one backpack between the two of us, hopped on a night bus to Prague. Don made for an excellent traveling companion. He didn't get us (very) lost when it was his turn to navigate, wasn't demanding about which sites we saw or at what times, shared the burden of the backpack equally with me, and wasn't picky about food.
The six hour ride featured free sweet tea and an extremely strange Czech movie about a prankster family. We arrived at the Prague bus station at about 4am, which is not the most opportune time to turn up in a foreign city. At first the city seemed unfriendly or even seedy in the pre-dawn gloom. The escalators descending from the station to the subway were dizzying, and I felt that Virgil might meet me at the bottom to lead me on my journey. Eventually though, the sun rose over what proved to be a gorgeous city and we made our way to the old castle to watch this display (Photos are posted on my Myspace page: myspace.com/suzakerman). To enter the castle district (even at 7am) we walked past guards in the vein of Buckingham Palace's, and strolled through the cobble-stone streets, which were nearly deserted in the early morning.
We visited the famous palace itself, the basilica of St.George, and the former home of Franz Kafka while we waited for the coffee shops to open and provide us with caffeine and sustenance. When we did finally sit down to a fruit and yogurt concoction and lattes, the streets of Prague were filling with hundreds of people; apparently Prague is the "it" place to vacation this Spring. We had no idea.
Along with the swelling crowds the glowing sun seemed to expand and blaze brighter than I'd seen in half a year. We were well-equipped with sneakers, a city map, and a lot of Czech currency (well, it seemed like a lot once we converted our Euros to Crowns). Next on our adgend was, well, nothing, so we spent some of the afternoon wandering the city, taking pictures of the Vltava river and the fascades of century-old buildings. Much of Prague was untouched by the World Wars in Europe (Prague was hit with an Ally air-raid only once, apparently accidentally), leaving the historic sites and elegant architechture in tact, and we wandered all the way across the city before we stopped for a late snack of spinach and garlic bread and checked into our hotel.
In many ways Prague is also a very modern city, and McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, The Body Shop, and other big business conglomerates occupied space in the historic buildings. In opposition to these franchises, the Czech Easter markets were in full-swing for the weekend. These markets are along the lines of the German Christmas markets, looking somehow like little settlements of tiny houses that had popped up in the middle of the squares all over the city. Traditional Czech snacks baked at these markets included fresh crepes, grilled meats of many varieties, and rings of crispy dough covered in cinnamon and sugar.
Our centrally located hotel provided a respite for an afternoon nap (the drawback of taking a night bus is that one must then attempt to sleep on a bus), and the hotel personel even spoke some English. So many tourists choose Prague as a vacation destination that English is practically ubiquitous in the city. Don speaks very little German, and even less Czech, so we were hoping to get by relying on a combination of my German and our English, but we didn't have to resort to German once during the weekend. The hotel clerks, the waiters and waitresses, the vendors at the Easter market, and nearly every other tourist in city spoke English. We overheard English conversations where participants spoke with German accents, Italian accents, Polish accents, Swedish accents, Russian accents, Turkish accents and probably more that we couldn't place.
Before sunset we managed to squeeze in a visit to the theater district and the "Dancing House," a marvelous piece of architechture constructed in an hour-glass sort of shape, giving the distinct impresseion that this building is dancing with the neighboring one. After another stroll along the river, it was definitely time for dinner, and we found a rustic looking place with a small non-smoking room. Food in Prague is cheap and beer is cheaper, we discovered. One famous traditional Czech meal is roasted pork knuckle or knee, which Don was brave enough to try. I was going to try the rabbit, but decided on chicken in honor of the poor Easter bunny who was out working so hard that evening. I had been warned that sometimes in European restaurants, waiters will seat complete strangers together, just so everyone has space. This had never happened to me in six months in Germany, but our first day in Prague, the waiter at the restaurant seated a Dutch couple at our table just as we were finishing off our beers. Of course, they spoke English. After a few minutes of chatting, we bid them good evening (we had already sat in the restaurant for nearly two hours) and headed back to the hotel.
The next day was Easter Sunday, but Prague didn't seem to notice. Everything was as bustling as the day before and the sun shone just as brightly. We started our day with a bus ride to the Prague zoo. Because of the zoo's combination of very old exhibitry and very new remodeled exhibitry, the trip was interesting (at least it was from a zookeeper's point of view). My favorite exhibit was one built for Ibex (a type of mountain goat) into the side of a huge hill. Rather than level the monstrous hillside, the zoo constructed an exhibit using the escarpment, which was probably five stories high at it's peak. It was amazing, but probably hell for keepers who must have needed climbing ropes and grappling hooks to clean it.
Our agenda for the day also included a trip to the Museum of Communism, a grass-roots sort of place on the second floor of an old building above a McDonald's. The posters advertising the museum featured a Russian nesting-doll with fangs. The musuem was full of old relics from the days of communist Czechoslovakia and painted a bleak picture of soviet Russian rule there. We went to the Jewish sector of the city after our experience with Marxism, and looked at a couple of synagogues and the Jewish cemetary. We seemingly followed in the tracks of the Obama family, who had visited Prague only one week earlier, as we discovered painted onto the window of one of the Jewish wine-shops a quote along the lines of, "What a delightful place! I will be sure to return here on my next trip to Prague--Michelle Obama."
For our dinner we chose a restaurant we had passed the day before, but had been too full of pork knuckle and chicken-kebab to try. We ate late (garlic soup and mixed veggie salad) and stayed a long time because our bus out of the city didn't leave until midnight. As our last stop we sat in a tiny bar along the main drag, watching the late-night crowd of Prague, listening to the radio play American music, and drinking a strange Czech alcohol called "Becherovka" that tasted spicy, like gingerbread and Christmas.
When we stepped off the bus in Magdeburg at 6am on Easter Monday, it felt like it had been ages since we'd left. The sun was just rising; our feet were heavy, but our hearts were light as we walked back to my apartment to get some well-earned rest.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
April excursion trilogy, part 1: Dresden
Part of thriving in a foreign country depends on speaking the langauge well. Sure, I can ask for directions, understand most of what the kindergarteners say, and even joke a little with the zookeepers, all in German. But really my knowledge of the language is superficial and I knew if I was going to speak often to zoo visitors or continue communicating complicated training plans to keepers, I needed some help. Since the langauge school here wasn't offering any appropriate night courses and I didn't have much money to burn, I had to get creative. So I posted an ad on Magdeburg university's version of Craigslist. I offered my services tutoring English in return for a native-speaker's services tutoring me in German. Within a few days I had at least seven potential tutors to choose from, and I based my decision on the depth of information they sent in their emails, rather than on their abilities in English. So that was how I met Damaris.
Damaris is finishing her degree in economics and hoping to find an internship in an English-speaking country later this year. We met for coffee and discovered we both enjoyed chai tea, ballroom dancing and shopping at H&M--a good match. One difference between Damaris and I (besides the height difference, which is around 8 inches, I'm guessing) is that she is very spontaneous. This means that sometimes I receive invitations to barbeques less than an hour before the coals are hot, which is probably a healthy change for a meticulous planner like myself.
Early in April Damaris and I decided to visit Dresden, an east German city with a rich history. Her boyfriend, whose name cannot be spelled without an umlaut and my friend Shannon came along. Joern (Or Jorn with an imaginary umlaut) was especially important because he was our mode of transport for the day, as he actually is a young person who owns a car. The four of us fit snuggly in his Renault and headed on down the autobahn. It is completely true that some stretches of the German highway have no speed limit at all. What one discovers though, is that cars have speed limits. Even if you are allowed to drive 150 miles per hour, whenyou are driving your grandmother's 1976 Carolla, you will still top out at 55. I watched the spedometer and calculated to the best of my ability the conversion from kph to mph and I'm sure we drove over 100 mph at some point. We also whizzed right by a police car that was driving about 60 mph, which shocked Shannon and I, but was completely natural for the two Germans in the vehicle with us.
On the way to Dresden, Damaris, completely in character, spontaneously suggested that we stop and look at the monument erected in celebration of Napolean's defeat outside of Leipzig. The Germans must have been really proud of this victory because the monument they build is gigantic. It has dozens of stone steps leading up to the top where soldiers carved from the rock are engaged in battle, and a long rectangular pool reflects the structure's image. After this brief historic pit-stop, we forged ahead to Dresden.
In 1945 the city had been seen so many Ally air raids, it seemed certain Dresden would never again be an international hub of activity, and would take decades to even be inhabitable. In 2009 though, the city is beautiful. The bridges spanning the Elbe river have been rebuilt and the city center has been restored with great care taken to preserve the original architecture and extravagant ambiance of German royalty. Our first stop was the "Green Vault," a collection of jewels, antiques, historical artwork, and rare oddities first displayed in the 1700's. The treasury is apparenlty one of the most valuable displayed anywhere in the world. To emphasize that we were not quite worthy of viewing it, a strange machine first brushed off the bottoms of our shoes and we were then admitted two at a time into a small chamber. The door closed behind us and after a three-second wait, another opened into the first room of the vault on the other side. I imagined the reason for this was some sort of Star Trek-esque method of cleansing the public from all germs and bacteria before allowing them into the vault, but I don't know the real purpose of regulating our entry this way. Among the hundreds of items on exhibit we saw jewel encrusted goblets, strange animals made from opals, ivory, and amber, and intricate statues depicting biblical and mythological scenes.
Next we visited a Baroque church that boasts one of the world's oldest hats, worn by a prominent bishop 900 years ago. I laughed about it, even though I probably wasn't supposed to. Afterwards it was clearly time for a treat. The four of us wandered the city, enjoying the sunshine and building fascades, in search of cheap ice cream cones. Because we started this hunt in the most tourist-y part of the city, it took a while to find anything cheap, but eventually we found a cart selling scoops for a reasonable price and we sat down in front of yet another Baroque church in the sun to enjoy it. Shannon was nearing the conical stub of her ice cream cone when she said, "Ugh. What is THIS?" I peered at the cone. "A raisin?" I suggested. "Raisins don't have wings" was her reply. And that is how I learned the German word for "giant disgusting fly stuck in your otherwise tasty ice cream cone." Yuck.
After a few more stops and a lot more walking, Damaris suggested that since we were less than an hour's drive from the Czech Republic, we should continue driving east and have dinner in another country. We drove through the German countryside, passing stereotypical German houses with triangular roofs and slatted siding. When we crossed into the Czech Republic though, the landscape changed. The buildings appeared run down and we spotted at least four prostitutes on the way to the town called Teplice, which was our destination. In Teplice (Tep-LEECH-ay) we found a diner with bizarre interior decorating of neon green and orange, and an inexplicable disco ball hanging from the celing's center. The menus were in Czech, but we paid in Euros and the waitress spoke enough German for us to get by. The food was cheap and the dessert of fruit and ice cream rolled into a crepe and topped with whipped cream, was the size of a Duraflame fire log.
During this trip, I attempted to speak German as much as possible with Damaris, and the combination of being a tourist and concentrating on a foreign language made for a tiring day. But my search for a German tutor was successful, as was my trip to Dresden, and I had a trip to Prague ahead of me for the next weekend.
Damaris is finishing her degree in economics and hoping to find an internship in an English-speaking country later this year. We met for coffee and discovered we both enjoyed chai tea, ballroom dancing and shopping at H&M--a good match. One difference between Damaris and I (besides the height difference, which is around 8 inches, I'm guessing) is that she is very spontaneous. This means that sometimes I receive invitations to barbeques less than an hour before the coals are hot, which is probably a healthy change for a meticulous planner like myself.
Early in April Damaris and I decided to visit Dresden, an east German city with a rich history. Her boyfriend, whose name cannot be spelled without an umlaut and my friend Shannon came along. Joern (Or Jorn with an imaginary umlaut) was especially important because he was our mode of transport for the day, as he actually is a young person who owns a car. The four of us fit snuggly in his Renault and headed on down the autobahn. It is completely true that some stretches of the German highway have no speed limit at all. What one discovers though, is that cars have speed limits. Even if you are allowed to drive 150 miles per hour, whenyou are driving your grandmother's 1976 Carolla, you will still top out at 55. I watched the spedometer and calculated to the best of my ability the conversion from kph to mph and I'm sure we drove over 100 mph at some point. We also whizzed right by a police car that was driving about 60 mph, which shocked Shannon and I, but was completely natural for the two Germans in the vehicle with us.
On the way to Dresden, Damaris, completely in character, spontaneously suggested that we stop and look at the monument erected in celebration of Napolean's defeat outside of Leipzig. The Germans must have been really proud of this victory because the monument they build is gigantic. It has dozens of stone steps leading up to the top where soldiers carved from the rock are engaged in battle, and a long rectangular pool reflects the structure's image. After this brief historic pit-stop, we forged ahead to Dresden.
In 1945 the city had been seen so many Ally air raids, it seemed certain Dresden would never again be an international hub of activity, and would take decades to even be inhabitable. In 2009 though, the city is beautiful. The bridges spanning the Elbe river have been rebuilt and the city center has been restored with great care taken to preserve the original architecture and extravagant ambiance of German royalty. Our first stop was the "Green Vault," a collection of jewels, antiques, historical artwork, and rare oddities first displayed in the 1700's. The treasury is apparenlty one of the most valuable displayed anywhere in the world. To emphasize that we were not quite worthy of viewing it, a strange machine first brushed off the bottoms of our shoes and we were then admitted two at a time into a small chamber. The door closed behind us and after a three-second wait, another opened into the first room of the vault on the other side. I imagined the reason for this was some sort of Star Trek-esque method of cleansing the public from all germs and bacteria before allowing them into the vault, but I don't know the real purpose of regulating our entry this way. Among the hundreds of items on exhibit we saw jewel encrusted goblets, strange animals made from opals, ivory, and amber, and intricate statues depicting biblical and mythological scenes.
Next we visited a Baroque church that boasts one of the world's oldest hats, worn by a prominent bishop 900 years ago. I laughed about it, even though I probably wasn't supposed to. Afterwards it was clearly time for a treat. The four of us wandered the city, enjoying the sunshine and building fascades, in search of cheap ice cream cones. Because we started this hunt in the most tourist-y part of the city, it took a while to find anything cheap, but eventually we found a cart selling scoops for a reasonable price and we sat down in front of yet another Baroque church in the sun to enjoy it. Shannon was nearing the conical stub of her ice cream cone when she said, "Ugh. What is THIS?" I peered at the cone. "A raisin?" I suggested. "Raisins don't have wings" was her reply. And that is how I learned the German word for "giant disgusting fly stuck in your otherwise tasty ice cream cone." Yuck.
After a few more stops and a lot more walking, Damaris suggested that since we were less than an hour's drive from the Czech Republic, we should continue driving east and have dinner in another country. We drove through the German countryside, passing stereotypical German houses with triangular roofs and slatted siding. When we crossed into the Czech Republic though, the landscape changed. The buildings appeared run down and we spotted at least four prostitutes on the way to the town called Teplice, which was our destination. In Teplice (Tep-LEECH-ay) we found a diner with bizarre interior decorating of neon green and orange, and an inexplicable disco ball hanging from the celing's center. The menus were in Czech, but we paid in Euros and the waitress spoke enough German for us to get by. The food was cheap and the dessert of fruit and ice cream rolled into a crepe and topped with whipped cream, was the size of a Duraflame fire log.
During this trip, I attempted to speak German as much as possible with Damaris, and the combination of being a tourist and concentrating on a foreign language made for a tiring day. But my search for a German tutor was successful, as was my trip to Dresden, and I had a trip to Prague ahead of me for the next weekend.
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