I drool over interesting gargoyles. I guess the feeling is mutual. Because of its age and turbulent history, Prague has some amazing architecture going on. So many different styles, from Gothic to Art Deco to Neoclassical...It's as if the city designer was handed a slip that said, "Please build incredible things; no genre!"
Painted eggs for sale at the outdoor Easter market. A pysanky paradise.
I might have bought one of these boar skins, but I'm pretty sure customs wouldn't have approved.
A traditional children's folk dance at the outdoor market. I'm not sure what the story was, but it went somewhere along the lines of: the girls celebrate the advent of spring by picking flowers, milking cows, and parading with the milk tins, then the boys come along and beat the girls with sticks until they run away screaming. (Don't worry; the sticks have ribbons.) This photo shows the part where the boys are threatening to hit the girls. All the while, younger children on the edge of the stage merrily dance and sing.???
Watching this was one of the times I really wished I spoke Czech.
A McDonald's right outside the Museum of Communism. Two red symbols of terror. (Three, if you count the trash can that is clearly labelled as a bathroom.)
Top, a motivational poster greeting Czech workers during the height of the Communist era. Below, a translation for us schmucks wandering the museum.
If you're going to San Francisco, do the hair/flowers thing, but if you're going to Prague, take a can of spray paint. This is the John Lennon Peace Wall, which was once used to write covert Beatles-related messages opposing Communism. It's still being overwritten daily with fresh messages of love and peace. Now instead of carrying the secret hopes of a few Czech students, it's an international canvas for anyone who comes to visit a new free Prague.
4 comments:
That is so cool. I am a couple of years away from graduating and having a job that will allow me to travel. I am so jealous.
Well hey, don't be jealous. Grad school is an incredible place to be too, and once it's finished you can't go back to it like any old foreign country.
I think the key is not to *go* somewhere amazing, but to learn to look for the amazing wherever you are.
We have the postcard from the Museum of Communism up in our bathroom still!
Yeah! That's the best postcard ever. Who knew you could get nightmares from a matryoshka doll?
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