It’s happened. I’ve gained the Prague 10. I know you all are probably rolling your eyes like oh this toothpick has nothing to complain about, but despite your brush-offs, it’s true. After six weeks of eating and drinking everything in sight and not putting enough emphasis on sleep (and completely dropping all physical activity this month), I can’t really be surprised. But it’s a welcome realization and I’ve spent this week reseting my diet and workout habits to something much more sustainable.
Things I did this week:
- Started the week with another wonderful Monday. I might be the only person in the world who loves Mondays but they’re almost always my most productive work day and being productive makes me happy.
- Found the MOTHERLODE of Haribo gummies. For those who don’t know, I’m basically obsessed with gummies. If we did superlatives (and we probably will) mine would be most likely to have a bag of gummies on her. I’ll probably go as a bag of Haribo gummy bears for Halloween this year. Heck I wouldn’t say it’s out of the cards for me to literally turn into a living, breathing gummy.
Sorry Dr. Herman…
- Walked around the village of Lidice on Tuesday morning. Lidice is a village about a half hour northwest of Prague that was completely obliterated off the face of the Earth by the Nazis in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The town had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination and its destruction was solely a reprisal from Hitler designed to prove a point.
A memorial to the 173 men who were murdered here on June 10, 1942
Not only did he prove his point by murdering every man in the village, sending all of the women to work camps and sending most of the children to death camps, he publicized the burning and then dynamiting of the village. And then used the rubble to reshape the landscape of the area so that anyone returning wouldn’t recognize it as what it was. Massacring an innocent village was a vehicle of propaganda for him, nothing more.
The 88 children who were sent to death camps are memorialized in this collection of statues. Some appear older than others because they were slowly added by artists over the years.
A street sign in the new Lidice village which was built just a few kilometers from the old one.
- Had a pretty strong emotional reaction to the tour and as it was finishing up I knew I needed to learn more about the evil that could commit such an atrocity and the repercussions of that evil.
- Started researching concentration camps on the bus ride home to find something that would be feasible and impactful to do over the coming weekend. I realized that while I’m here surrounded by so much history, it’s my duty as a global citizen and human being to learn as much as I can.
- Ran a ton of errands after getting back from Lidice, mainly stocking up on fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market near my apartment.
Asked for 12 eggs but somehow ended up with 20 instead.. #Prague #Languagebarriers
- Ventured out on my own on Saturday. With most of the group in Berlin, Vienna, or Budapest I took my chance to start working on one of my goals for the year- becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable- one part of that is traveling alone.
- Made it to my bus with literally a minute to spare..which meant that I got to ride standing up for an hour on the way to Terezin, a concentration camp about an hour north of Prague.
The walk up to the Small Fortress was extremely picturesque.
“Work sets you free”
A single person cell
The showers
A group bunk room
Block-A
The entrance to the Small Fortress
- Joined three tours before I managed to find one in English…that ended ten minutes after I joined. :/
The site where they found a mass grave of Jewish bodies.
- Wandered around both the Small Fortress and the Main Fortress and went to the Jewish Ghetto Museum. There was a lot of information to take in but I don’t feel like I got the true emotional reaction I was expecting from myself. There was a strong juxtaposition of the current idillic beauty and previous horror and it was hard to align the two- especially because most of the buildings were empty which made visualizing conditions back then very difficult.
Jewish memorial cemetery.
The entrance to the Main Fortress, currently housing the town of Terezin, previously housing the Jewish Ghetto.
- Waited over an hour for the return bus to show up. I checked two different posted timetables and the internet and the bus ended up showing up at a time that wasn’t on any of them.. the nine other people waiting were just as confused as I was. Alas, such is life! (I did get a seat on the way back though.)
- Made it back just in time to meet up with DDR, Ligia and Mariya to go to a Prague Spartans football game.
They certainly love their team!
When you’re in Eastern Europe everything is negotiable.. including talking your way into a photo sitting on the pitch.
- Went to the Pivo (beer) Festival across the street from the stadium after the game. I swear there’s a new festival every day here. It’s nuts.
The beer festival was under these huge beautiful tents.
- Made every young and old person around me laugh and shake their head at how god awful I was at learning flip coaster- a drinking game here in Prague (apparently they flip coasters here instead of cups #whowouldhavethunk).
Finally got Goulash!
- Spent all of Sunday galavanting around this wonderful city with DDR doing acro. Our first session was at a park off of the Yellow Metro line (I’ve now taken them all!!) where we played with two locals DDR knew for few hours.
- Hopped on the train back into the city center to cross another item off my list- paddleboating in the Vltava! (Prague’s main river) It was so cool you guys. The weather was perfect, the scenery was amazing and we met a couple of Americans who were more than happy to take a couple photos of us acroing around the world.
#Casual
- Headed back to the same park we were at before for our second acro jam of the day. This time we joined a group of people and I literally became that weirdo in the park I used to always walk past. But hey we had a GREAT time and nailed some new skills both in L-base and overhead. It was a good day.
We are those weirdos…
- Passed out early at home so I could get another great start to my work week. 🙂