Terezin

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you/ poison us, do we not die?" -Shylock, The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (Act II. Scene I. Line58.)

Feb 22, 2013

I had decided that I would make my first trip out of Prague today. After seeing the Jewish quarter last night, it felt like a good time to go visit a concentration camp. There is one in in the Czech Republic called Terezin that is about a 50 minute bus ride away.

Before going to bed last night, I meticulously checked the bus schedule online to make sure I knew which stations to go to, what time the departures were, and approximately how often the return busses left to come back to Prague. From the dorm, I would take the 9 to Wenceslas square. There I would catch metro line B to the Florenc station and then transfer to metro line C. Getting off at Nadrazi Holestice, the bus depot should be right there.

I woke up at 7:45. The laundry I had done last night still wasn’t dry so I put on some of the dirty clothes I’d worn the day before. In America, this probably would have been fairly gross, but here hygiene doesn’t seem quite as important. I also brought my passport with me, just in case I had any issues while I was out.  I also wedged one of my travel books into my pocket so I could get details of what I was seeing in case the exhibits weren’t in English.

On my way to the 9, I stopped at the ATM. I didn’t know how much the tickets would cost me, nor what the entrance to the camp would cost, so I took out some extra cash. Catching the tram, I transferred to the metro at the “Mustek” station in Wenceslas just like I planned. Walking through the station, the venders selling pastries and coffees all smelled so good. If I’d know the route a little better, I might have stopped but I didn’t want to be late.

I caught the B line tram. I felt like a real pro navigating the subway station and getting on the right train. I was even more proud of myself when I got off at Florence and found my way to the C line. Three stops later, I was at the station for Nadrazi Holestice (where the depot was supposed to be.)

As I got off the train, I started following the crowd towards the escalator. I suddenly remembered that in my book, it had said that the bus depot was located at the end of the station towards the front of the train. That was the other direction. On a whim, I turned and went up the opposite escalator. Sure enough, past venders and booths selling goods, there was an open depot filled with platforms for buses.

Checking my watch, it was 8:56am. I had four minutes till my bus was about to leave. The bus to Terezin left out of platform 7 (again, according to my book.) I was at platform 1. Jogging a little down the way, I saw platforms 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Rounding the corner, at the end of the station, was platform 7 with a bus waiting.

With two minutes to go, I walked up to the door. The driver opened it. For the Czech busses, tickets are purchased from the driver when you board.

“Terezin?” I asked the driver.

He nodded. I handed him the first bill I pulled out of my pocket. It was a 1000 koruna. He gave me a ticket and handed me a few coins. I went to sit down, glad that I had picked up the extra cash. As I looked at the ticket, I noticed it cost 88 crowns. I had been very short changed. I stood up and went up to the driver.

“Excuse me,” I said prepared to show him my ticket. That’s when I saw he was already holding the res t of my change. “Oh,” I blushed. “Thank you.” I took the money and went back to my seat.”

The bus pulled out of the station and started heading north to Terezin. I think in an earlier post I had referenced the camp as being on the eastern side of the Czech Republic, but it is actually on the western side, due north of Prague. The drive there looked very much like my drive back home between my house and my university. It was flat and barren, with only an occasional agricultural community popping up here and there. With the white snow on the ground and the white, overcast sky above, it felt like we were crossing some sort of arctic tundra.

I read a bit of my travel book as we rode along. It told about a few of the key sites to see in Terezin including the main courtyard, the museum, the barracks, and the crematorium. It cautioned that a rookie mistake was getting off the bus to early at the first Terezin stop, instead of waiting till the second one which was in the camp.

I made the rookie mistake.

It was a short half mile walk into the camp. Walking along the road probably made me look a little foolish but all of the cars gave me the right of way. When I arrived in the town, it took me a while to get oriented.

The town of Terezin, I learned from touring the museum, was built in the early 1900s. At the time the region was the northern border of Austria-Hungary. It was actually constructed as living quarters for the guards that worked the fort on the border, as well as a home for their families. When Hitler annexed the Sudetenland, Terezin came with it. He evacuated all of the residents out and converted it to “the ideal ghetto.” The ghettos were cities that housed the Jews once they had been removed from society, but before that had been shipped to the extermination camps. Most of the Jews that came through Terezin wound up in Auschwitz with a few traveling to Bergen-Belsen.

The town had been restored by the European Union in the 1990s, but now, it still looked like a ghost town. I didn’t see anyone, anywhere. Standing in the town square, there were no people walking around. There were no tourists. There weren’t even any locals. The whole thing felt creepy and uncanny.

Using the map in my book, I found the Ghetto Museum just across the street. I went inside and asked the lady at the counter for the student combo ticket that had been described in my book. I gave her my student ID and she asked me, “Where you from?”

“I’m studying in Prague,” I said, “but I’m from America.”

“USA,” she said typing it into the computer along with my name. Both printed on my ticket. On the back of the ticket was a small map (this had been the case on most tickets I’d bought.)

“This is museum,” she said pointing to where we were. “Barracks are here, five minute walk. Crematorium is here, 10 more minute walk.”

“Thank you,” I said, and she gestured for me to enter the exhibit.

The museum had been constructed out of the original Terezin school house. During the time it was used as a ghetto, it had been the dormitories for the teenage boys. There were also a few rooms that had been used for some light religious schooling. Thinking of the kids who had lived on the very floor I was now walking gave me chills. It was not as disturbing though as the names on the walls.

All of the children who had passed through Terezin had their name painted on the wall, along with their birthdate and estimated death date (this was done by the EU as part of the restoration.) I found one girl—Lily Dietrova—who shared my birthdate. Seeing it made the hair stand up on my neck. The only thing creepier was finding a young girl—Ruth—who shared my last name. Both girls were killed in Auschwitz; Ruth when she was nine years old.

Reading diary entries from the captives revealed so much fear and pain. There were stories of disease, death, and desperation. The cruel punishments and harsh living conditions were extraordinary. The naiveté with which it was reported was tragic. But also, the occasional glimpses of hope were just as numbing, especially when it was indicated that the author had been murdered.

The barbed-wire fences around the ghetto had been removed in June of 1943 when a Red Cross inspector came to evaluate the camp, based on reports from neighboring areas that it was suspicious. The city was “beautified” with gardens and paintings and the Jews were required to act as happy citizens. Fake sinks were installed in buildings (although there were no pipes leading to or from them) to satisfy health codes. The visit lasted about 3 hours and the city passed with flying colors.

After touring the museum, it was after 11:00 and my stomach was starting to growl. My book suggested the Palace Hotel Restaurant as the best place for tourists to eat (most likely to find and English speaker.) I snaked around the streets and found the restaurant.

Stepping inside I couldn’t help but notice how dark and quiet it was. There was a sign on the door in Czech that I tried to read it through the glass. Suddenly, a small voice behind me said something.

Turning, I said, “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Czech.”

“We are closed sir,” the young girl said. “Not open today.”

I apologized and stepped outside. Walking down the block I saw another little restaurant. There was a Budweiser logo in the window so I figured there was a good chance they would speak some English. Stepping inside, I took my chances.

Like most of the other restaurants I’ve been to, there were only five or six tables in the room. I sat down at one by a window. It is custom in Europe that guests seat themselves…you can spot Americans who wait by the door to be seated. The woman working behind the counter brought me a menu. The only other guests in the room sat at one table. They were four men in mechanic jumpsuits and laughed over their meal, while talking in Czech.

The woman asked me if I wanted something to drink. English was clearly not easy for her, but she knew a few words.

“Drink?” she said.

 I saw a large 2-liter bottle of orange soda on the bar. “Orange soda,” I said, pointing at the bottle.

“Orange?” she clarified. I nodded with a smile.

A few seconds later, she brought me a glass of the pop. It wasn’t really an orange flavor, but more of a guava or mango taste. It was good either way, and I drank it far too quickly.

When it came time to order a meal, I wasn’t sure what to do. The menu was in Czech with only English headings of “Beef,” “Pork,” and “Specials.” I pointed at something under the beef heading and she read it, then smiled and went back to the kitchen. That was when I realized the kitchen was really just a stove hidden behind a curtain in the corner of the room.

Looking around the room, it was very artfully decorated. It looked a lot like one of the little cafés or family restaurants we’d stopped at on Boy Scout trips before. On the television was a TV show in Czech. When I watched it for a while, I realized I recognized Matthew Perry. Watching it a bit longer, I realized the show was Friends dubbed in Czech.

When my meal came, it was very good. The main dish was slices of roast beef covered in gravy. The gravy had kind of a sweat maple taste to it. The side was potatoes, onions, and red peppers and tasted fantastic! I ate the entire thing (minus the small salad it came with…I don’t like lettuce back home and I hadn’t developed a taste for it here yet either.)

When I finished, she cleared my plate and asked if I was alright. I said I was. After that, I just sat there. She seemed to have no motive to get me out and I didn’t have a clue how to tell her I was ready to leave. I decided to put my beanie on, and that did the trick. Right away, she grabbed her money bag and brought me my bill.

It wasn’t a very formal check, just a couple numbers written on a sticky note, but the price was significantly less that I’d expected. I paid her and gave her the appropriate tip, to which she smiled and thanked me. And with that, I bundled up and stepped back into the cold.

The walk to the barracks was across the small town and down several blocks. I still couldn’t help but notice how quiet everything was. There didn’t seem to be any people in the town. I suppose it would be hard and disturbing to live in an area that was known to be a former concentration camp, but 23 years after the renovation, it still felt like a ghost town.

The path down passed a few soccer fields and a basketball court. According to the museum, several promotional films had been shot in Terezin to showcase “life in the ghetto” before transporting Jews to the camps. The soccer fields had been a special point of interest in these films so that people could see “social life” remained “normal” in the new living quarters.

When I arrived at the barracks, it too had been converted to a museum. The various displays showcased art, poetry, music, and theater that had been created by the prisoners. A few of them had gone on to be quiet famous, while most of the creators showcased here had been murdered. It struck me at how much creativity, brilliance, and intelligence had been lost in the holocaust; how many ideas would never be discovered and how many changes would never be made to the world because of that horrific event.

An example of this lost brilliance came in the form of Petr Ginz. Petr was the child of a mixed marriage between a Jewish man and a Christian woman. As a child, he had been able to travel around Europe and Asia and wrote several short stories. One of his tales—a science fiction story—was even published. Petr was fascinated by the sciences as much as he was by literature and studied lots of subjects on his own.

In accordance with Nazi law, all mixed children had to be deported to camps at age 14. Petr was sent to Terezin where he lived in the boys house I had toured earlier. While in the camp, he continued to study from confiscated books that he would steal. He also rallied the other boys and led them to produce a camp newsletter called “Vedeem” (which means “We Lead.”) Petr acted as the editor and distributed it to the residents every other Friday.

Like Anne Frank, Petr kept a diary that would later be published after the war ended. In it, he detailed interviews he had with various prisoners as well as his own commentary on sites around the camp (including a tour he gave himself of the crematorium.)

Petr was in one of the last groups to be sent out of Terezin before it was liberated. He was killed at Auschwitz in 1944 at the age of 16.

There was one bunk room that had been left intact. It looked just like the black and white photos had made me imagine it. Tri-layered bunk beds were lined up against the walls and in the middle of the room. It is estimated that each resident had 1.62m² of living space in the barracks (roughly 5ft².)

After leaving the barracks, I continued down the road, following the signs to the crematorium. The road gradually started to lead out of town, and the uncanny feeling of being alone only increased.

Crossing over a bridge, I was able to see down into the dry mote where the Jews had been forced to garden vegetables to feed the gestapo soldiers that guarded the city. They were no allowed to consume any of the food they grew; their only nourishment was to be their daily bread ration.

Down in the mote, the ground was swampy now. There were mallard ducks playing in some puddles of water. All of a sudden, a black slimy creature popped out of the marsh and dove into one of the puddles. When it came up again, I saw that it was a beaver. It was very soon joined by a second beaver. They, along with the ducks, splashed around and rummaged for food in the muddy mote below.

At one point as I walked along, I saw two caves on either side of the deserted road. Stepping over, I read a sign that described the ceremonial hall. Similarly to the synagogues I saw yesterday, this had been a place where the Jews could hold funerals and prepare the bodies for either cremation or burial.

Once again, not knowing if this was someplace to tour, I decided to take my chances and step into one of the caves. Just a few steps into the un-lit maze, and the uncanny feeling I had was quickly replaced by a flat out creepy one. My footsteps echoed like thunder as I walked down the dark, stone corridor. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. There were occasional electric lights every 20 meters, indicating people did come down here, but I felt like something was going to jump out and chase me at any second.

As I descended further and further down, it felt like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. When the tunnel finally opened up, I was amazed at what I saw. There was a giant candle holder in the center of the room. It looked like a menorah but it only held six candles. On one side of the room was a black carriage with a bench for a driver and a flat back for collected bodies. There were tables, separated by curtains to privately wash the bodied, and in the corner, coffins waited for their cargo to be ready. In another corner, there was an altar of some sort displaying the Ten Commandments. Plaques, some in English but most in Czech and German, explained the process around the room. It was both disturbing and fascinating at the same time.

I snapped a few photos and then started back up out of the corridor. As I did, I suddenly heard a voice. I couldn’t make out the language at first, but as it got louder, I recognized it as Czech. There was a couple coming down the corridor on the same personal tour I was on.

When I got to the top, I crossed the street and went into the next cave. This one had a guard behind a window as you entered. He was reading a book and smoking a cigarette. I tapped the glass and flashed my ticket at him. He nodded and I proceeded in. This one did not descend as much, but the halls kept dead ending with iron gates that blocked the entrances. I finally found the main chamber and discovered that it was the columbarium for the urns of ashes. The Nazis has burned many of the bodies that died of disease, promising they’d be given a proper burial when the war ended. In fact, when the camp was discovered by the allies, the ashes were tossed in the river to cover up the evidence. The columbarium had now been converted to a memorial with various plaques donated to commemorate deceased relatives that had died in the camp.

Walking further down the road, I started winding through a field. I still couldn’t see anyone ahead of me or behind me and the town was now starting to fade out of site. The path gradually turned to mud and was lined on either side by tall thorny bushes. My only assurance of where I was were the occasional “Krematorium” signs along the trail.

Finally, I came to a small parking lot with a sign asking men to wear head coverings. It also warned that pictures were not allowed. As I continued through the trail, there were bizarre frost covered trees that covered overhead creating sort of a tunnel. When they cleared, I was in an open field. Scattered around were tombstones marking a grave yard.

This graveyard had been used by generations, both before and after WWII as a burial ground. Guards and soldiers serving in the original fort had been buried here. Some Jews from the camp were buried here (which was why head coverings were required.) The soviet soldiers that had been killed liberating the camp were also buried at this site.

And off in the corner of the cemetery was the crematorium. It was a very unassuming building, painted a beige color with a single metal smoke stack coming out. As I walked up the steps and pulled the door, the hinges screamed as they pivoted open.

As soon as I stepped in, a guard barked at me. “Cesky? Duestch? English?”

“English,” I said.

“English,” he repeated and handed me a brochure. Reading it, I found the history of the four oil burning ovens and the Jews who were forced to operate them. At the one end of the crematorium was a morgue to perform autopsies. This was done to identify diseases and epidemics that ran through the camp. There was also a small room to house the guards that oversaw the crematorium.

As I finished reading the brochure, the guard again started speaking to me. I couldn’t tell if it was Czech, German, or a combination of both but I clearly understood what he was saying. He was asking me which of the souvenirs I wanted to buy. Opening a glass display case he began pulling out books, maps, cups, and candles and rattling off the prices. I looked at them but finally said, “I might be back in a few weeks with my family. Maybe I’ll buy them then.”

He didn’t seem to understand this. He did understand when I handed them back and said, “No.” He was not very happy about this.

I began walking around the room. I saw the autopsy tables and the small guard quarters. The ovens though were quite disturbing. The small compartments seemed so undersized for a body and the gravity of the room was incredibly poignant. Several people had placed white roses on the various displays as a sign of respect.

It is estimated that 30,000 Jews and other prisoners died in the camp from 1941-1944.

After I walked through the crematorium, I ventured out into the cemetery. It felt like an ocean of death. What was perhaps the most powerful was the monument commemorating the soviet soldiers that liberated the camp. While they freed the few remaining prisoners that hadn’t yet been shipped to Auschwitz, they invaded during a typhus outbreak. Most of the liberators perished soon after from the disease and were buried here.

The whole day was an emotional and disturbing experience. In many ways, the only way to cope with it was to be numb to the stories. To imagine the people who had stood in this town in their final moments was unbearably heavy. To picture the scenes of death and disease was painful. To think that people were capable of being so horrid to each other was beyond me. It was all too much to think about, and in some ways, I don’t think I could fully process it at the time.

While I hadn’t yet seen the jail cell which held Gavrilo Princip (the assassin who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which started WWI) my fingers were getting cold. I decided I would save that tour—which required its own ticket—for a different day and started heading back to town to catch the bus.

If You Prick Us...

"Surely God is good to Isreal, to those who are pure in heart." ~Psalm 73:1

Feb 21, 2013

On Thursdays and Fridays, I do not have class. I have a feeling that I could get used to this schedule by the end of the semester (not to mention it should give me ample time to travel and see the sites.)

When I got up today, I was surprised to see it was 11 o’clock. I had intended to get up earlier so that I could go to the area of town known as the Jewish Quarter. From everything I’d read, it would take the better part of a day to see all of the historic buildings.

I decided I might want to save that for a different day. A good family friend had emailed me some history about a church in Prague that was involved in the assassination of Nazi General Heydriech. I pulled up the email and checked my map to find it. Locating all of the transfers I set off to see the church.

On my way into town, I got off at the station for school to grab another slice of Pizza. I ate it on the walk back to the tram and rode into town. It seems to be becoming a habit for me, but I got off at the wrong tram station. I decided instead of getting back on, I would walk to find the church.

As I did, I passed the famous Dancing House. It’s called the Fred and Ginger house by most tourists and is artfully shaped to look like it is imploding. According to my books, there aren’t many dance shows there anymore, but the food is supposed to be great.

I wandered around a bit more and saw several churches. I finally came to the cross streets where I thought I’d find it. There was supposed to be a museum in the church’s crypt where the assassins had been hidden by my friend’s great-grandfather. The sign on the door read, “Krypta uzavrena kvuli rekonstrukci 18 Feb -16 Mar.”

 I could guess at the word “crypt” and “reconstruction.” My impression was it was closed for reconstruction from February 18- March 16.

A woman was walking by carrying some groceries. “Excuse me,” I said. “Anglisky?” That’s Czech for “English.”

“Yes,” she said, with a Czech accent.

“Is this church the site of the Heydreich assassination?”

“I think so,” she said. “Here.”

Walking around the corner, she showed me a remarkable site. Bullet holes littered the wall and a plaque commemorated the location. A few wreaths had been placed at the site as well and a white rose lay withered on the ledge.

“Is the church closed?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “But re-open soon.”

I was definitely coming back!

I initially went to find the Use-It office to pick up more of the free student maps that I could use for travel, but I discovered that the office was closed until summer.

It was only a little afternoon and I still wanted to see something today. It dawned on me that I was being a foolish American! I was seeing stuff. Everywhere I looked the views were amazing. Even if I just walked the streets all day, I would see millions of things I’d never imagined. But being a foolish American I decided to be productive. I caught the 17 tram headed north and decided to go tour at least part of the Jewish Quarter.

Getting there once again involved getting off at the wrong stop and retracing my route to where I wanted to go. I was definitely pulling out my map a lot more today than I had in the past but this part of town was new to me and the streets seemed circuitous and hard to differentiate.

Wandering up the street, the atmosphere began to become very somber. There were people mulling about, but they seemed very focused (and not in the straight-faced focus I have grown accustom to seeing.)  One of the buildings looked like it could be historic. There was a guard outside and a sign on the door that read “Tourists enter around block.” I wandered through markets and shops to the end of the street. I noticed the language around me wasn’t English, but it also was no longer Czech.

It was Hebrew.

The crowd was now filled with men who had large greying beards, and women dressed in modest clothes. The language sounded ancient, but also familiar. I’d heard it in movies before and was sure that I’d probably heard a Hebrew prayer somewhere along the way.

I asked one of the shop keepers, “Where is the Jewish museum?” That is what the series of historical buildings are called in most travel books.

The man was clearly disappointed I wasn’t interested in purchasing an “I heart Praha” t-shirt or an “I Czeched the beer” jacket. Either way, he pointed to a blue building across the street.

I walked over and began to turn the door knob.

“What you are doing!?!” a loud voice yelled. I was startled and jumped to see a man that looked something like a security guard coming towards me. He was clearly Jewish and did not look happy.

“I’m looking for the Jewish museum,” I said.

“It’s not this building. It’s all around. The synagogues and ceremonial halls can just be found up and down this street. There,’ he said pointing. “That is one there.”

“Thank you,” I said. “And what is this building?”

“This is community center. You must be Jewish to enter.”

I understood.

Walking around the corner to the building he had pointed at, I finally found an information window. Looking at the signs on the window (which were remarkably all in English) I found that a student ticket could be purchased to see many of the historical buildings. Presenting my student ID, I bought one.

As I learned the history, I found out that Jews had settled in the Prague region over 1,000 years ago. At one point, Prague had the third largest Jewish population in Europe. Some famous Czech Jews include Franz Kafka and Sigmund Freud. Prior to the 1800’s a wall had surrounded this particular part of the city and the Jews were not allowed to leave. The wall came down in the early 1800’s and in 1906, it was dedicated as “The Jewish Museum.” The quarter is currently home to the only remaining Jewish synagogues in the former Nazi regions. This is because the Nazi’s had intended to turn the Jewish Museum into what they called “The Museum of an Extinct Race.”

Photography was not allowed in any of the buildings and was frowned upon in general in some of the more historic areas. Men had to cover their heads to enter any of the synagogues or ceremony rooms. Head coverings were handed out at each entrance, but everyone told me my beanie satisfied the requirement.

The first building I visited was the Pinkas Synagogue. It was built in 1535. Now, it has been turned into a memorial to the Jews from Bohemia that were killed in the holocaust. All along the walls of the sacred building are names, birthdates, and estimated death dates. The camp names like Bergen-Belsen and Krakow were painted in large bold letters. It is estimated that 80,000 Czech jews (and around 183,000 Slovak Jews) were murdered in camps across Europe.

In the upper level of the Pinkas Synagogue was a display of children’s art. Some of it was from the camp Terezin (which was in the eastern Czech Republic) and some of it was from modern kids. The art that was modern was created through a national project that followed a similar craft used in the concentration camps. Kids in the camp had used magazines and crayons to create art expressing either their feelings in the camp or their hopes for the future. Elementary kids across Prague had been given a similar task and now their art was displayed alongside that of the Jewish kids from years ago.

The pictures—both past and present—were haunting. There were crude drawings of what looked like very immodest showers. There were pictures of men with guns shooting large crowds. Some of them were also hopeful, showing people walking out of the camp down long scribbled paths to home. The modern art was just as emotional. It showed things like kids wanting candy or wanting to go home from school. One of the pictures was of “heroes” and in the center had a magazine cutout of the 9/11 firefighters. I have to admit, it gave me chills.

Just outside the synagogue was the Jewish Cemetery. Again, photography was not allowed here. Most tourists will skip the cemetery, although others do try to sneak photos of it. It is a rather unusual site. Because the Jews were unable to leave the city walls for 800 years, this cemetery was the only location they could bury the dead. As a result, it is estimated that there are over 100,000 people buried in the small plot of land. The tombstones date back to the 1500’s and now look like misshapen and jagged rocks. Moss grew on many of them, and the falling snow made them seem especially lonely.

As I exited the cemetery, I wasn’t sure where to go next. I asked the security guard if the building he was standing in front of was part of the museum.

“Is closed synagogue,” he said in Jewish accent.

“Closed?”

“No, Closen,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

He ripped my map from my hands and pointed at a blue dot. “Is Klausen Synagogue.”

“OH!” I said, realizing where I was. “Thank you!” He nodded and smiled. I stepped inside.

The Klausen Synagogue was built in 1573 to commemorate the visitation of Emperor Maximilian II to the Prague Ghetto. While it originally burned in the fire of 1689 (which seems to have damaged many things in Prague, including the Castle and the Astronomical Clock) it was reconstructed later that year.

Throughout this synagogue was a display on Jewish customs and traditions. It talked about beliefs involving birth, circumcision, first born children, bar mitzvahs, and marriage. It amazed me how much of the Jewish culture permeated our culture today. Things that we still practiced, especially with marriage—such as rings or veils—even in secular society took the roots from Jewish tradition. The Ten Commandments truly make up the code of conduct across Western Europe and the United States (a fact the museum boasted proudly.)

Right next to the Klausen synagogue was the Ceremonial Hall. This was where bodies were prepared and funerals were held. Reading about the Jewish funeral and burial process was a very humbling display. It was very rooted in the psalms and quite beautiful and tragic.

After I exited this hall, I went to the Old-New Synagogue. This was the synagogue that was still used by Jews in Prague today. I walked around it a few times trying to find the entrance. I finally realized that the knocker on one of the doors actually was the door knob. The entire thing turned and the door pulled open.

The inside was dimly lit and a bit dingy.  As soon as I entered, I went down a few short steps. The woman at the bottom asked to see my ticket, as someone had done in each of the other buildings. I knew this wasn’t included in my student version so I asked where I could go to buy one.

“The bookstore across the street,” she said, also with a Jewish accent.

I went back up the stairs and outside. There was a sign on the bookstore that said “Tickets.” I went inside. The girl behind the counter looked younger than me. She sold me the ticket and, after paying my bill yesterday, I was glad I still had enough money.  With my new ticket in hand, I went back into the synagogue.

After the woman scanned it, she pointed to a small wooden display rack. “Information,” she said. I took a pamphlet that was printed in English and read about the history and architecture of this building.

It truly was beautiful, but in a very different way from the churches. The whole city of Prague felt like I’d stepped a few hundred years back in time. This building felt like I’d gone back a few thousand. It looked like some sort of temple. It wasn’t ornate or decorative, but the passion and the spirit of it were breathtaking. The room felt significant—from the ark in the center that housed the Torah, to the eternal flame facing Jerusalem—every detail looked sacred. In some way, the spirituality felt more authentic than it had in the cathedral.

I visited one more Synagogue (the Maisel Synagogue) on my way out of town. It was built in 1590 and now housed a display on the history of Jews in Bohemia. This building too was amazing. What struck me about it were the ancient prayer shawls and crowns that were displayed. The looked so wonderfully made and yet so ancient at the same time.

With that I headed back home. It was a little after 5pm and the sun was pretty much set (I’m assuming there actually was sun today—again the sky was pretty overcast.) I decided to navigate the subway system back to Wenceslas and catch the 9 from there. As I walked along the Vltava River to the subway station, I took in the great views of Prague Castle and Mala Strana.

Catching the subway and transferring to the 9, I made it without problems. When I got back, I thumbed through my travel book and picked out my Friday activity. I will be venturing away from the city for a day, but I look forward to sharing the excitement of this trip with you when I get back.

Blue Sky & Orange Soda

“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult--once we truly understand and accept it--then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.” ~Scott Peck

Feb 20, 2013
Last fall, after being accepted to study abroad, I had to go through extensive training at the university on “Culture Shock.” They explained that this was the natural series of emotions that everyone experiences on a semester abroad, and it essentially is why you study abroad. The lessons you learn from and the ways you deal with Culture Shock are essentially what you get out of the whole experience.

Anthropologists and psychologists identify five phases of culture shock: Honeymoon, frustration, acceptance, bicultural, and reversal. In Honeymoon, everything is exciting and new. This is how vacation feels; travelers want to do everything and fear there isn’t enough time. Frustration is a phase that usually won’t be reached on vacation. It is a phase where the nuances of the new environment start to become annoying. The reality that life here is different from life back home sets in and everything suddenly feels hard. Acceptance is when these frustrating things are no longer frustrating. Life just “is what it is” (for lack of better expression) and the routine becomes less cumbersome and more familiar. The Bicultural phase is when not only are the nuances not frustrating, but they make sense and feel comfortable. Reversal, of course, being the last phase, is the trip back home when the original culture now feels new again.

I would suspect that today, I hit the frustration phase.

The alarm blared, just as I knew it would. Five hours of sleep was not going to get me very far. I was exhausted. If I went to the club again, I was going to have to leave a lot earlier to pull this Wednesday morning class off.

Skipping breakfast, I got dressed and headed to the tram. I rode it to school and found the classroom without problem. This class was also in the Paradise Building and looked very much like the modern classrooms back home. It even had the annoying chairs that pivot away from the desks—everyone hates them here just as much here as we do in the States.

As I sat in a zombie-like stupor, waiting for class to start, a German girl came over and sat down next to me. “You’re in my marketing class, aren’t you?” she asked.

“I am,” I said recognizing her from the little ice breaking game yesterday.

“Karen,” she said reaching out her hand.

"I’m Zach,” I said.

"I actually came over to ask you about that bad mitten team you are putting together,” she said.

I laughed. “You have me mixed up with someone else. I don’t play bad mitten,” I said. “At least, not very well.”

“Oh,” she said. “Bummer. I really want to join this team.”

It was hard to focus through the first half of class. The session was 3 hours long, but after 90 minutes, there was a break. I stepped out to buy some breakfast at the café. I don’t know exactly what was in the pastry I bought, but it was covered in caramel so I liked it.

When the class continued I noticed that some of the professor’s advice, while certainly legal, seemed to border on unethical. He certainly had a lot of experience and I was sure these were things he’d learned from being hands-on in the field, but all of my business classes back home had thus far emphasized not cutting corners or hurting the company. He suggested we back up company data on our home computers in case we ever get fired so we can take the data elsewhere.

Again, I was still groggy from the night before, so when the class was over, I decided to go back to the dorm. Before I left though, I went to pay my room and board.

I sat down with the banker, the same blonde woman who had helped me before. I gave her my contract and the cash. She counted it and said, “Sorry. Not enough.”

Oh shoot! I’d been so tired I forgot that I was still 3000 short.

“I’m sorry,” I said gathering my things. “I’ll go to the ATM and be right back.”

“No,” she said. “We closed now.”

Closed! It was only 11:30! “What time do you re-open.”

She thought for a minute and grabbed a piece of paper. She wrote 13:30. Ok, so in two hours.

I thanked her and stepped outside. I waited for a girl to finish at the ATM. When she did I stepped up to the machine and put in my card. Another girl started yelling at me in Czech. I gather it was fairly vulgar because it caught the attention of several people walking by. That was when I realized there was a line.

It cracked me up a little. Ever since I’d landed in London, I had been in line for things only to get cut off and learn I wasn’t in line. Now, I hadn’t thought there was a line and, sure enough, there was one! I found it ironic, but also frustrating. It was a small reminder that things were different here.

After getting my money, I went back to the dorms. As I rode along, I began thinking, this is exhausting. Playing tourist had been fun; trying to blend in as a local had been fun; now actually living like a local and navigating a day to day routine was totally beating me down.

Homesick wasn’t the right word for how I felt (although right now, the remaining 111 days do feel like an awfully long time.) I didn’t want to go home. I just felt like I wanted a day off; a day where everyone speaks English and everyone does things the way I’m used to them. I know that defeats the purpose of being abroad, but it would make things easier.

I was sure that part of the reason I felt this way was because I was tired. I had four hours between my classes so I collapsed into bed for a nap. Before I drifted off, I thought back to being Lodge Chief for the Boy Scouts. I’d done that gig for a year and there were certainly times that I felt like I did now. There were times that I would have loved to just turn it off for a day and not deal with problems. A song that my team and I had listened to a few times for motivation was “Son of Man” by Phil Collins from the Disney movie Tarzan. As I drifted off to my nap, I grabbed my iPod, and put on the song.

When my alarm went off to wake me up for the afternoon, I felt even more tired than when I went to sleep. Naps are the worst that way! I gathered my things, checked that I had enough money for the bank, and went out to the tram.

As I walked outside, I saw something that totally lit up my day. The sky overhead—the sky that had been raining in London and overcast ever since I landed in Prague—the sky was now a sunny shade of blue!

It was the first blue sky I’d seen in twelve days. I had no idea the weather could make such an impact on mood, but it totally turned mine around. I got on the tram and for the entire ride to school stared at the brilliant sunshine.

By the time I got to school, clouds were rolling back in and my mood started to fade again. I realized that I was hungry. There was a small pizza place around the corner from school that sold slices for 25 crowns. I stopped by the window and bought a piece of pepperoni. Walking back to the school building I leaned on the window sill to eat in.

In that moment, I felt totally homeless. I was tired of cooking. I was tired of worrying about having enough money or enough food. I was tired of not being able to understand conversations around me. I was tired of missing blue sky.

When I finished the pizza, I went inside and back to the bank. The blonde banker was gone but the other one called me over. She was a lot younger but didn’t seem to know as much English. I gave her my contract and she started punching numbers into the computer. As she did, I double counted my money to make sure I had enough. Watching her face, she seemed puzzled by whatever showed up on the screen. She tried a few times but each time got the same confusing popup on her screen.

I felt like I was going to lose it. She wasn’t saying anything, but I just knew this wasn’t going well. Then, she turned to me and said, “Your money.”

I handed her the bills. She ran them through a machine that counted them and handed me back some change along with a form. “Your signature here.” I signed it. “Thank you.” She said. “All done.”

All done? All done! ALL DONE!!!

It had worked! I’d paid the bill! I had enough money; it was all taken care of. It was over. I know it was just a bill but it felt like such a small victory! I emailed my parented from my ipod to let them know, and went to class feeling completely re-energized. Out of the window, I caught a glimpse of blue sky. I took a photo of it, just in case I had to wait 12 more days to see it again.

The class, which was on international marketing, was very interesting and the professor used a lot of funny international examples. By the time class ended, it was snowing again. I made my way back to the tram and back to the dorm. I emailed with my Mom a little and explained how I felt. I really wasn’t homesick, but I was definitely not in the honeymoon any more.

As I cooked pasta, I realized this was a good thing. The other exchange students didn’t seem to feel the same way, but they were also congregating with people from their home countries. I was really trying to push myself to hang out with locals and have this great cultural experience. Frustration was just a normal part of it. The fact I’d hit it so early might mean that I would get out of it early too.

When my pasta was ready, I decided I would try to get a drink out of the vending machine. I hadn’t had any soda since I left the states and I was just craving something a little sweet. It was a bit of a challenge choosing the right beverage since they sold alcohol in the vending machines and the labels were all in Czech. I picked something that looked like soda and took it back to my room.

Sitting down with my pasta, my laptop, and my drink, I cracked open the can. Taking a sip, sure enough, it was Orange soda. It tasted amazing! Again, it was funny how the simple joy totally turned my mood around. At the same time, I realized that that very revelation was part of the experience. Finding the simple joys—the blue sky, the orange soda—that was the way to combat the frustration. Maybe if we spent more time doing little things that we enjoy in our everyday lives, our routines wouldn’t be as cumbersome and exhausting.

After dinner, I emailed with mom a bit more and then skyped with my friend Bryan. It was great to still feel connected to my family and to laugh with Bryan and hear about life back home.

As I went to bed, I thought again about the song “Son of Man.” It felt like it really fit this experience. The lyrics, which speak of “climbing mountains” and learning “to be wise”, seemed to capture the transformation I was starting to undergo. I’d like to share the song with you to conclude this post. I look forward to continuing on to my next adventure!

3:27am

Feb 19-Feb 20, 2013 (early in the morning)
The line—or rather, the mob—at the coat check area was almost as packed and uncoordinated as the dance floor. Everyone was pushing and shoving towards the window to get their jackets. There were only two girls working the coat check and they were retrieving jackets one at a time.

As I waited, I tried to read Lad’ka’s notes. I wasn’t going to make the 2pm bus that stopped right outside the club, but I might be able to catch the 2:15 that came down the street.

Putting the paper in my pocket and retrieving my claim ticket, I pushed my way into the mob. As I did, I ran into Aaron.

“You headed out man?” he asked.

“I am,” I said. “Are you?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

As we got closer to the front, he turned around and said, “Give me your ticket.” I did and he handed it to the girl behind the counter along with his own. She brought my jacket first and he handed it to me.

“You want me to wait for you?” I asked.

“It’s up to you,” he said. I was heavily trained in a program that taught us it is always safer to travel with a buddy. I decided to wait.

We walked out of the club and around the corner to the bus station. “We take bus X58 to,” I couldn’t pronounce the name of the station. “Then we transfer to tram 58, and take it to Flora, to transfer to the 56 night tram which takes us back to the dorm.” The 56 was the only night tram that made runs out to our dorms.

“We could just walk to Wenceslas Square,” he said. “The night tram stops there every thirty minutes.”

We waited for a bit, weighing our options. It didn’t look like a bus was coming anytime soon and there wasn’t anyone else waiting at the station. A man came up and asked us for a lighter, but other than that, we didn’t see anyone.

“I say we walk,” Aaron said.

“Yea,” I agreed. “I think you are right. Do you know which way it is?”

“I think it’s that way,” he said.

There was a group smoking outside of a pub across the street. I went over to ask them. Their English wasn’t very good and they didn’t understand when I asked, “Which way is Wenceslas Square?” After a few confused looks, I said “Wenceslas” in Czech and the all pointed the way Aaron had guessed before.

Starting out, the city was dark and desolate. The few street lamps  cast shadows which made the winding cobblestone roads far less inviting than they had looked in the day light. We wound through several alleys and in between buildings. Occasionally we would come to a small square that was lit better, but most of the streets were dim and haunting.

We passed groups of drunkards stumbling in and out of pubs. There were also a few homeless people that would wake up as we passed to raise a hand in our direction.

“I think we took a wrong turn,” Aaron said.

I agreed. “We need to get over like a block, I think.”

Taking a turn that went North, we quickly came to an area that looked familiar. “Look,” I said. “There’s the clock.” Straight ahead, behind a few buildings, The Astronomical clock rose up out of the shadows. We walked across Old Town Square, past the Jan Hus memorial and towards the narrow alleyway that connected this part of town to Wenceslas.

The familiar route that I had walked several times during the day—both with Ivana and on my own—now seemed exceptionally creepy at night. There was something uncanny about it. When we walked past that little market that sold toys, it was like running into an old friend and seeing that they hadn’t aged well. Homeless people and drunks littered the sides. One man approached us ranting in Czech. We didn’t respond but he followed us until the road took a sharp turn.

“My one travel book actually advised tourists to stay out of this street at night,” I said.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Aaron said.

When we came into Wenceslas Square, it only increased. Walking into the square, two different men approached us from either side, both talking about their “women.”

“Boys! Boys!” one of them said, “We show you nice women. Very beautiful and very fun.”

We walked past, straight-faced, and they both wandered off. As soon as they were gone, another man approached. “Boys! You need to see my women! They are right over here come with me.”

“No thanks,” Aaron said, but the man didn’t let up. He started walking closer and closer to us, forcing us to walk closer to the wall until we were practically cornered.

“You need to come with me boys,” he said.

Great! I thought. This is how it ends. I’m going to get mugged, or raped, or both here in Prague.

“Come on boys, we show I show you girls and you have good time.”

“You know what,” Aaron said. “We’re really busy tonight. How about we come back tomorrow?”

“Oh come on boys!” he said. We kept trying to walk away but he was persistent.

“Not tonight man,” Aaron said.

The man reached inside his trench coat.

Oh man! I panicked.

He fiddled around a little and Aaron and I continued to try and get passed him. As he pulled out his hand, he held, a flyer. “You come back tomorrow,” he said.

“Ok, man. See you tomorrow,” Aaron said taking the flyer. The man ran off to accost some other tourists.

“I’m not going back tomorrow,” Aaron said. “But if you don’t agree with them, they won’t let you go.”

“Well I’m travelling the city at night with a New Yorker from now on,” I said.

When we got to the tram station, we found that the 56 didn’t come for another 25 minutes. We mulled around a little trying to stay warm. I looked in the windows of a book store. Most of the titles were American.

“They have some weird games here,” Aaron said, pointing at a rack of board games inside the store window. One was called Titanic and looked a lot like Battleship.

“Ivana said that Titanic was her favorite movie,” I told Aaron. “When I watched it, I got bored and starting hoping the boat would sink faster.”

As we waited, a bus pulled up. It was number X56.

“There’s a bus 56 too?” Aaron said.

I couldn’t remember if it was bus X58 or x56 that we could have caught back at the club. “I think we should get on,” I said. “Worst case scenario, we get off at the next stop.”

We did, and when we sat down, I pulled out the sheet of paper from Lad’ka. It was bus x58. Crumpling it up and putting it back in my pocket, we wondered if this bus would still get us home.

“Excuse me,” I said, to the girl sitting across from us. “Do you speak English?”

“I do,” she said with a Czech accent.

“We’re trying to get to Chermlnice,” I said. Her face looked confused.

“Chermlnice,”Aaron repeated.

“We aren’t saying it right,” I said. I showed her the paper from Lad’ka.

“I think you do not want this bus,” she said. “Get off at the next station and wait for Tram 56.”

“Thank you,” we said, and when the bus pulled up to the stop, we got off.

“It looks like a lot of students are getting on here,” Aaron pointed out. We looked at the window and saw the girl we’d been talking to frantically waving at us. When we made eye contact, she started shaking her hand to motion us back onto the bus.

Jumping between the doors, we got on.

“I think this bus is running the tram route instead tonight,” she said.

I noticed Tibault from my Czech class was standing next to me. We quizzed each other on the few phrases we’d learned and talked about how hard it would be to get up in the morning. He hadn’t had much to drink either. In fact, it seemed that most of the European students had only had a small amount of alcohol.

All of a sudden, the bus made a sharp turn left and started heading up hill. We definitely weren’t supposed to be going this way.

While I can’t understand exactly what they announce on the trams, I do recognize the phrase “next stop” when I hear it in Czech. I couldn’t say it or reproduce it for you, but I’ve heard it enough that I can now pick it out when I hear it. The driver announced—in Czech—that the next stop was “Flora.”

“Aaron, I think we get off here to transfer,” I said.

“Here?” he asked.

“I think so.” I remembered hearing “Flora” before when talking to Lad’ka, and it was one of the few words I could read on the paper.

We got off and just as we did, Tram 56 pulled up to the station across the street. Jogging over to it, we got on.  Within about 10 minutes, we pulled up to our stop.

After taking a shower to wash the club off of me, I collapsed into bed. It had been a great night. I laughed—partially out loud and partially to myself—at ever feeling nervous about going to the club. It proved to me yet again that if I “said ‘No’ to fear” I could have new experiences that were both exciting and fun.

Checking my watch, the time was 3:27am. Within seconds, I was fast asleep.

Party in Praha

“May today be all you need it to be. May the peace of God and the freshness of the Holy Spirit rest in your thoughts, rule in your dreams tonight, and conquer all your fears. May God manifest himself today in ways you have never experienced. May your joys be fulfilled, your dreams be closer, and your prayers answered. I pray that faith enters a new height for you; I pray that your territory is enlarged. I pray for peace, healing, health, happiness, prosperity, joy, true and undying love for God. Amen” ~Devotional from my chuch's e-mail service

Feb 19, 2013 (continued)

I once again made mashed potatoes for dinner. They were easy and tasty, but I was really starting to crave some meat (or at least protein.) I felt like I’d become a vegetarian. The last time I’d had meat had been Friday at the castle. That meant that for the past four days, all I had eaten was oatmeal and potatoes. This wasn’t going to work for four months.

Luckily, I discovered I had some lunch meat left in the fridge that hadn’t expired yet. I couldn’t read the label, but like a feral animal, I tore into the package and started eating it. It tasted wonderful! I ate the remaining six slices while I waited for the potatoes to finish boiling.

After I’d cleaned up dinner, I waited for Ivana to come pick me up. I didn’t know where this club was, so she had offered to get me there. While I waited, I realized how nervous I was. After all, I am “boring” and clubbing has always been outside my comfort zone. I jotted down my thoughts while I waited. Regardless of how I felt, I wanted to go. I figured there was a chance I might even enjoy myself. After all, when I had been Lodge Chief for the Boy Scouts, one of the things we tried to do was create a “club” atmosphere for our new member orientation.

As I was writing the post, I got an email devotional from my church. I laughed as I opened. “This better be something about fear,” I prayed silently. Sure enough, the second line of the prayer addressed fear. In fact, the whole prayer spoke to how I felt: wanting to be free from fear to see something new. I smiled a little, letting out a quiet, “Thanks God.”

Just as I finished writing, there was a knock at my door. I answered it. It was Lad’ka.

“Hello,” she smiled. “I can come it?”

“Sure,” I said, pulling the door open. She stepped into the room.

“You guys have nice rooms over here,” she said. Lad’ka lives in the dorm building across the courtyard.

I went back into my bedroom to get my jacket. “Oh we have time,” Lad’ka said. “We meet Kevin at 10:00 and then go meet Ivana and boyfriend at train station at 10:30. Ivana and Suzanna have to,” she searched for the word. “Prepare themselves?” she said, not sure if that was right.

“That makes sense,” I said.

“You have lots of books on Prague,” she said, seeing the small stack I had next to my bed.

“I do,” I said. “I’ve been trying to read about stuff before I go see it.”

“You have map too?” I showed her the maps I had, both of the tram system and of the city.

“This area here,” she said pointing to a small section south of Prague. “Is called Vysehrad. Is castle famous for,” she paused. “How you say it? The myth or the legend about discovery of Prague.”

I knew what she had meant. I had read the legend that told of a princess who had found the city of Prague, giving it the Czech name “Praha” which in Slavic languages means “Threshold.”

“Very cool!” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “We can go there sometime. Is very beautiful.”

“That would be great!” I said. “I really want to start travelling but I don’t know how to get out of Prague or where I would stay if I went somewhere.”

“Is easy to get out of Prague,” she said. “You can even do day trips to Germany or Austria.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “Dresden is beautiful city and only take two hour to get to. But don’t go on Sunday. Germany is not open on Sundays.”

We laughed and studied more maps. “Is fun seeing Prague with you guys,” she said. “I feel like tourist in my city. Normally I just like, ‘oh is the Charles Bridge’ but I see things when I go with you guys that I don’t normally see.”

When it got to be 10:00, we went upstairs to get Kevin. “I don’t think he’s on this floor,” I said. “I think we have to go around and use the other staircase.

We did. On the other side of the building, the second floor was already partying. Exchange students were walking around with a beer in each hand. Some carried flasks of vodka, while others were downing bottles of red wine.

We knocked on Kevin’s door but there was no answer. “He’s probably not in there,” someone called to us. “Check down the hall in the party room.”

We went to the party room and asked if Kevin was in there. One guy went in and looked around but didn’t see him.

“Looking for Kevin?” a voice asked us in an Australian accent. “He’s my roommate. I’ll let you in and we’ll see if we can find him.”

We went into Kevin’s dorm and could hear the shower running. His roommate ducked into the wash room and confirmed that he was taking a shower. We waited in the kitchen and shared horror stories about cooking in the dorms. Apparently everyone shared my carbohydrate frustration and we all wished we could find a way to cook more meat.

While we were waiting I realized I forgot my tram card down in my room. I ran back downstairs real quick and grabbed it. Shuffling some stuff around in my pockets so that I wouldn’t have to worry about losing anything, I went back to meet Lad’ka and Kevin. I found them in the lobby but as we left, I realized I’d forgetten my ID. By Czech law, we have to either carry our passport or our residence ID, so I ran back to grab it again.

As we walked out to the tram we all slipped several times on the black ice that had formed. I confessed once again my fears about going to the club. I’d already told Lad’ka when we’d been looking at the maps but it weighed on my mind and made normal conversation rather difficult.

“Do not be nervous,” she said in her thick Czech accent. “You will be fine. I promise.”

Waiting for the tram we talked more about the alcohol in the club. After the previous weeks party, everyone seemed pretty resolved not to drink nearly as much.

“You’re sure you aren’t going to drink?” Kevin asked me.

“I’m sure,” I said. “I’ve seen enough issues with alcohol in my life, and I don’t like the taste of it enough to drink it, I’m just not going to.” They both seemed to admire what I said, but I think they also thought it was a bit strange.

When we got on the tram, Lad’ka started explain how the night time tram schedule worked. Fewer tram lines ran at night and they had different numbers. There were more buses at night, but they weren’t nearly as frequent as the trams were during the day. Lad’ka had copied down a few different routes we could take to get home. All of them would take between 35 and 45 minutes and required a few transfers.

“Don’t worry, when you go home, I will show you this again,” she said.

When we got to the main train station, we got off the 9. Ivana, Lubos, Suzanna, and Samuel were waiting.

“I am sorry your card did not work,” Ivana told me.

“It’s ok,” I said. “I’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

We caught the 26 to the stop for the club. Apparently we got off one station to early, but it was a short walk to get there. As we walked, I took note of various buildings and landmarks so that I could get back on my own if I needed to.

The exchange students had all been given tickets as part of our student fees to get into each of the N2N parties. Ivana, Lubos, Suzanna, and Lad’ka all had to pay.

“Do not be scared,” Lad’ka told me as we waited in line. My face must have been giving me away.

After they paid their fee and we showed our tickets, we had to go through a security frisking. This search was much more thorough and invasive than the one at Heathrow had been. The one guard who searched Lad’ka took her pepper spray which frustrated her for her walk home.

The initial room we went into was for checking coats. It was dark with blue flood lights shining up the walls and onto the ceilings. We checked our coats and I took note of a sign that said “If you lose coat check ticket, you MUST wait until club closes at 5:30am to find your jacket. No exceptions!!!”

I tucked my claim ticket into a deep pocket of my pants. Ivana suggest we go find the toilet before we enter the club room so we all went to find one. As we walked around the room, a woman came up to us and handed us little cellophane wrapped packages. We each took one.

“Don’t eat it!” Lad’ka cautioned. “Is like candy, but gives you energy.” Amphetamines? I threw mine in the trash.

 I waited outside the bathroom while the group went in to relieve themselves. When everyone was back, we walked into the main room.

The initial room was a balcony overlooking the dance floor. The “theme” of this party was Czechs & Slovaks, but from what I could tell, the only decorating was done with the lights (which were red, silver, and blue—the national colors of the Czech Republic.) Jennifer Lopez’s song “On the Floor” was playing and the bass was cranked up to chest-pounding levels.

We walked around the balcony a little before deciding to go downstairs. There was no one dancing yet, so Ivana suggested we immediately go back upstairs. “Usually, there are more people here,” Lad’ka said.

Back upstairs we found a little niche on the balcony with a few white couches to sit on. We’d lost Kevin at the bar, but the rest of us took a seat. Samuel and Suzanna sat on one couch. Ivana, Lubos, and Lad’ka sat on the one perpendicular to them. I sat on the next one down, next to Lad’ka.

Over the loud music, we talked quite a bit. Lad’ka asked me questions about my life back home and I asked about hers. We talked about our parents, our siblings, and our pets. She was graduating this spring and I asked what she was going to do with her degree. She wasn’t sure yet.

To communicate over the music wasn’t a problem for me because I am so used to talking with my hands. I’ve noticed however in Europe that this was not the case. I decided to find out more.

Showing her a thumbs-up, I asked Lad’ka, “Do you ever do this here?”

“This?” she said, and put her thumb up too. “Yes.”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“It means like good,” she said.

“How about this?” I asked, showing an “OK” sign with my pointer finger and my thumb.

“I do not know this?” she said confused. She tried to wrestle her fingers into the formation but the muscle memory clearly wasn’t there.

“Back home it means OK,” I explained.

“OK?” she clarified. She finally got it and smiled. “OK!” Suzanna later informed me that it was a vulgar gesture across most of Europe so next time I see Lad’ka I’ll have to let her know (Suzanna did tell me that “the middle finger rules the world” and its connotation is universal.)

Kevin eventually found us. “Are you sure you aren’t going to drink?” he asked me.

“Positive,” I said with a smile. Lad’ka and I were at this point the only ones not drinking.

“I’ll keep asking you, just to ask you, but no pressure,” he said.

The crowd was getting louder of the music. “I wonder how it looks down there,” I said.

“You want to see it?” Lad’ka asked. We walked over and looked over the balcony down to the dance floor. Sure enough, it was packed with people all dancing and enjoying themselves. Thus far, all of the music had pretty much been American pop and most people seemed to know the lyrics to each song.

On the stage by the DJ, a chugging contest had broken out. People were lining up to challenge each other to drink a pint of beer through a straw.

“You get very drunk when you use a,” Lad’ka searched for the word making a tube-like hand gesture.

"Straw,” I offered.

“The thing you drink from?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “When you drink from straw.”

After a few minutes we went back to the others on the couch. Lad’ka went to get a beer and I sat surveying the room. Checking my watch, I was surprised it was already midnight. Oddly enough, I was having a good time. The atmosphere was fun and the people were all very friendly. I felt foolish for every feeling nervous about coming!

Over in the corner of the couches, Samuel and Kevin were debating about smoking inside. The room was smokey, and Samuel was enjoying a cigarette, but it was not by any means the worst environment we’d been in.

Ivana moved over on the couch and talked with me. She told me about the various people from around the world that she’s met as a waitress. “The Americans really are my favorite,” she said. “They are always polite and they smile a lot and thank me. They seem to want to try the culture at least.” This surprised me because it was so contradictory to what I’d observed in the past 11 days.

When Ivana and Lubos got up to go get some more wine, I moved down on the couch and sat next to Suzanna. “Do you want to taste the beer?” Suzanna asked.

“I really don’t like it,” I said.

“It’s lighter here,” she said.

I conceded. “I’ll try a taste.”

I held her glass up to my lips and took in a mouthful. “Hey! Hey!” Kevin said, and Samuel clapped his approval. It burned the inside of my mouth and I had to gag to get it down.

I smiled a little as I set the glass down. “Is good, no?” Kevin asked.

I shook my head and stuck out my tongue. “No. Is not good.”

“You are the devil woman,” Samuel said to Suzanna. “You made poor nice boy try beer.”

When Ivana and Lubos returned, Ivana sat down next to me. “I like this music better after I’ve had some wine,” she joked. The music was still mostly American and the few foreign songs they played I recognized from back home with my friends.

“I use to be rap girl,” Ivana admitted. “I was hard core when I was younger. But next week’s party is Canadian. I hope they play Celine Dion. I love the movie Titanic! Was favorite movie of my childhood.”

We laughed. “I think Leo and Kate both could have fit on the bed board in the end,” I said.

“They could have!” she agreed, getting all excited. Apparently this too was a belief that was shared across cultures.

“I made him try beer while you were gone,” Suzanna told Ivana.

“You like it?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s too strong.”

“Beer is too strong?” Lubos asked. “Vodka and rum are stronger than beer.”

“Maybe you like wine,” Ivana suggested. “You want to taste mine?”

I again took a small mouthful. Once again, gagging it down, it burned all the way to my stomach. My sinuses felt like they were exploding as I swallowed it. “I don’t like wine,” I said and everyone laughed.

“We still need to dance!” Ivana said.

“I’m not very good at dancing,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “All that matters is you have fun.”

As they finished their drinks, Lubos explained to me different types of alcohol, including some so strong they are only legal in the Czech Republic. Once all the beers and wine were finished, we made our way down to the dance floor.

It was a wall of people. No one seemed very coordinated in their movements but they were just shuffling along to the beat of the music. We watched for a few seconds trying to find a path into the action. Suzanna and Samuel lead the way and we started in. The song died down but another one started up. I recognized the beat. It was a French song called “Ma Cherie” and my friends and I listen to it quite a bit back home.

As it started to play, Ivana took my hand and pulled me further into the floor. “Just start dancing!” she said. As she held my hands and swayed my arms back and forth, I started shuffling my feet to match her rhythm. Once we were moving to a beat, Ivana raised my one arm so that I could twirl her. After the first cue, I did it on my own a few more times and we laughed.

When “Ma Cherie” came to an end, I let her go so she could dance with Lubos. Suzanna, Samuel, and Lad’ka were dancing in a circle and I joined them. Kevin appeared out of the crowd and asked me, “So what do you think?”

“Do I look as awkward as I feel?” I asked.

He laughed. “Not at all!”

The song “Scream & Shout” came on and everyone started singing along. I got a little excited and started fist bumping along with the crowd.

When the song came to an end, I noticed that Kevin and Lad’ka were gone. There went my info on how to get home.

“We are going to get drinks,” Samuel said. “Do you want anything?”

“No I’m good,” I said.

“I’m sure you are,” he laughed.

I followed him and Suzanna anyways. Suzanna bought a round of shots while I went back and sat at the couches we’d been at earlier. While I waited, Ivana and Lubos came over and sat down. Checking my watch, I saw that it was 10 minutes till 2am. It was a 45 minute trek home and I had a 9am class tomorrow. I decided to call it a night.

It took a little effort to communicate to the group that I was ready to leave. They had some difficulty understanding that they did not have to leave and I was ok going on my own. Before I left, Ivana helped me find Lad’ka who tore her paper in half so that I would have the station names and transfers to get home.

Ivana and Lad’ka both gave me hugs and wished me luck. “Text me when you get home so I know you ok,” Ivana said. “And call if you have problems.” I promised I would.

And with that, I began my 2am adventure across Prague.