This has been a very interesting weekend, filled with lots of different experiences and emotions. I somewhat went back to the busy schedule, and I also was super American and went all out for Halloween.
Saturday my friends and I went on a trip with our program. We went to the towns of Lidice and Terezin in the Czech Republic. I had never heard of Lidice or the story behind the town, but I was pretty shocked when I heard the whole sequence of events. I'll give you a QUICK summary.
During WWII Hitler's number three man, Heydrich, was assassinated in Prague. In order to teach the Czechs a lesson, Hitler ordered that anyone who was remotely responsible be punished. There were very vague connections to the town of Lidice, so Hitler ordered that the town be "erased from the map." (I'm paraphrasing.) Nazis went to the town, separated the men from the women and children, and executed the men on the spot. They then sent the women and children to separate camps in Poland where most perished. They burnt down the town, blew up any buildings that were left, and even dug up the cemetery. It went from being a town to being nothing but a field.
All that exists today is a field with several monuments and a museum. It was a very sobering experience, and I was shocked and almost embarrassed that I had never heard about this part of history before yesterday.
After Lidice we went to the town of Terezin, which was a major concentration camp during WWII. It wasn't an extermination camp, but it was one of the Eatern-most camps so many Jews from Western Europe went through there during the war. We visited a few museums there, as well as the cemetery and prison. A lot of what we learned was sad and sickening, so I'm not really going to get into details. On a somewhat lighter note we did see a cell that previously held Franz Ferdinand assassin, so as a history geek I found that pretty interesting.
After our day trip I spent a while trying to warm up. It has gotten pretty cold here, which makes some touristy things more difficult. Once I had recovered from the depressing day, I put on my pretty pathetic Halloween costume and was an obnoxious American. I'm not usually that into Halloween at home, as it is one of my least-favorite holidays, but I think that being away from so much American culture I was much more excited to celebrate it this year.
We bought a bunch of candy and some other "spirits" (haha), and had a little Halloween party with our friends in our program before venturing out to a Halloween party at a place called Sasazu. It was a lot of fun, and apparently there were over 2000 students there at one point. It was definitely crazy, but it was a good way to celebrate Halloween.
This morning was a little rough, but we went to Radost (where we had been the other night), because they have a restaurant too which has great breakfast. It felt a lot like being back at PC where we tear ourselves out of bed and drag ourselves over to the dining hall for breakfast and gossip about the previous night. This weekend was definitely a very American one, but it was worth it because breakfast was amazing.
After breakfast some people headed back to go back to bed, but some of us decided to explore an area of the city known as Vysehrad. We hadn't realized that it was like a big park with a lot of walking paths and great views of the city. It was great to walk through fallen leaves and see the colors on the trees. The fresh air was good for us as well.
When I got back to my room I put on some Christmas music, got out more of the decorations I had purchased, and finished decorating my room! The windows are decked with sparkly snow flakes, and I cut cute pictures out of wrapping paper to decorate my doors and drawers. I know this is early for Christmas spirit, even for me, but my room was very impersonal anyway, and Thanksgiving doesn't really exist here, so I can throw out that date as the social norm for when it is acceptable to begin the Christmas season.
Currently we're at the Globe for their movie night. I had some pumpkin soup and cinnamon tea to complete my very autumn day, and we're watching Casablanca. This is a very home-y way to wrap up a fun weekend. I would say back to the real world tomorrow, but Prague isn't the real world. It doesn't just look like a fairy tale; it is a fairy tale, and therefore, I am never coming home.
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