Friday, July 29, 2005.
Today is our last day in Prague. Packing has finally begun, and the last load of laundry—mostly towels and sheets—is hanging on the line.
I left the house early to get to the jewelers at 9am to pick up Rick’s ring, but they were closed. Even the sausage vendors on Wenceslas Square are open at 9am. Veena and I had an appointment to meet at the Palace Flora shopping mall at 9:45, to go to see Karin’s new facility for the preschool she is starting this fall. Veena has written a case study about Karin, so we took pictures and got a bit of an update as to Karin’s plans and funding success. After a tour of the preschool facility, Veena and I took the bus to the metro station, and headed downtown. I got to the jewelers shortly after 11:00, only to see a sign that said “closed Friday.” Fortunately, the proprietor of the shop was standing by the partially-opened door, so I showed him my receipt and was able to pick up the now-repaired ring.
I was home by noon, and Rick and I spent the better part of the afternoon packing and cleaning. We took a short break around 3pm to go to the store and turn in the last of our beer bottles for some ice cream bars! We also bought some Czech chocolate to bring back for gifts.
This evening was our last Shabbat with Bejt Praha at the Spanish Synagogue. We had planned our last dinner here at Zlata Studna (“Golden Well”), next to the Royal Gardens and below the Prague Castle, but didn’t get things done in time for dinner. Instead we had dessert there with Howard and Marketa after services. The restaurant is situated on the top floor of a hotel, and has one of the most captivating views of Prague. The building is a historical 16th century Renaissance building, that once belonged to Rudolf II and later to the famous astronomer Tycho de Brahe. The interior of the hotel is furnished with beautiful, authentic reproductions of antique pieces from 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, created by world renown Richelieu furniture designers. Shortly after 10pm, there were fireworks visible from Letna plain. A nice way to say good bye!
So ends our year in Prague. Tomorrow morning, Vojta, our landlady’s son, will pick us up at 8am to take us to the airport. We have only three large suitcases to check, but they are very heavy, of course. We hope they’re not over the weight limit. Fortunately, we only have one carry-on bag each. Rick has a backpack packed with papers, chocolate and his computer, and I have a computer bag packed with books and toiletries. As I finish squeezing last-minute things into the suitcases and computer bags, it has started to rain—and cool off the city that has had record heat for three days. Somehow Prague seems more natural when it rains.
Thursday, July 28, 2005.
It’s actually been hot and sunny yesterday and today, much to the dismay of every Czech I know. Czechs don’t mind the cold and are used to the rain. But heat wears everyone down, so only tourists are at the outdoor cafes. Czechs stay indoors or go to the forest.
Eva and I had planned to go into town together in the morning, but instead postponed our get together until late afternoon. So this morning I took advantage of the sun to do the penultimate load of laundry, which was nearly dry by the time I left the flat.
My first errand was to the Sue Ryder charity shop, to drop off a bag of clothes. Then I went across town to meet Yehudes at Pohorelec and we walked to her old dorm to use the music room so we could “jam” together, she on her cello and me on the piano. I told her I wasn’t up for Chopin, so she brought Brahms. I haven’t touched a piano in a year, and it’s disappointing how stiff my fingers are – no muscle memory whatsoever. But, we had fun together and even sounded pretty good at times. Mostly, we just had fun playing and talking. I hope I’ll be able to come back to Prague for her medical-school graduation in a few years.
After our too-short session, we raced back to the tram to get downtown. I wanted to stop by and drop off a copy of my brother’s book to Bruce, and I needed to meet Eva at 3pm, so my time was tight. Fortunately, all missions were successfully accomplished, and I was only a bit late for Eva.
Eva took me for a walk through Vrtbovska Garden, which is accessible through a small passage just off Karmeletska near Malastrana Square. The Vrtbovska Garden was built in conjunction with the Vrtbovska Palace (1715-1720) for the chancellor of Prague castle (Jan Jospeh, Lord Vrtba). The garden plan is trapezoid and ascends the slope of a hill. The lowest level, overlooked by a delightful garden room (the salla terrena) has a pool, a parterre and an aviary. It is fully secluded. There is a baroque stairway that allows one to walk up to each level of the garden, each with a more glorious view of the garden itself and of the city. The garden is almost adjacent to the rear garden of the American Embassy, which is inaccessible to anyone (except, perhaps, some staff members). It is interesting to see the American flag wave over this Czech garden.
We walked toward Kampa to find a café. As we passed the Ministry of Culture building, we saw flags at half-mast for Pavel Dostál, culture minister, playwright, wit and one of the last of the 1989 revolutionaries remaining in politics, who died July 24 after a long and public battle with cancer. He was 62. Dostál was known for wearing a single stud earring and having a curly mass of gray and black hair. After his diagnosis with cancer, he went from being one of the nation’s most popular politicians to becoming the most popular. He headed the Culture Ministry from 1998 until his death. As the nation's longest-serving minister, he developed a reputation as a defender of the arts in a funding-starved era and as a scourge of the Catholic Church, which he opposed on issues such as restitution of state-seized property and mandatory registration for religious entities. Dostál was liked even by his opponents, who credited him with transcending political rivalries through honesty and charisma.
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2005/Art/0728/news2.phpAfter a pleasant stop for a drink at an outdoor café beneath the bridge, overlooking the river, Eva and I went to see the Mucha exhibit at the Galerie U Křižovníků (at the Cross), the exhibition space on Křižovnické Square next to St. Francis Church. This underground venue was formerly a monastery that included a mediaeval hospital, the halls of which now serve as exhibition space. The current exhibition “Le style MUCHA” is a display of Alfons Mucha’s decorative designs and posters, intended to capture and present the line of the artist’s thought and work against the background of his life. The core of the exhibition lies in Mucha’s decorative designs and patterns for “La belle époque,” a work that contributed to establishment of the last universal artistic style, Art Nouveau. The exposition is focused mainly on Mucha’s two famous books, “Documents decoratifs” and “Figures decoratives,” which contain all the key patterns for Art Nouveau style. The exhibition opens with Mucha’s famous Paris period when he worked for Sarah Bernhardt and theatre, following with decorative designs and later works, including a poster for the St. Louis exhibition of 1904.
In return for Eva’s showing me the hidden Vrtbovska Garden, I showed her the historical Judith’s Bridge, the first stone bridge in Prague, that has been incorporated into the Galerie U Křižovníků building. There are still so many things in Prague that neither of us has seen!
We hurried to the metro station to get home for dinner. I arrived only shortly before Rick. This is our last meal in the flat. We’ve dutifully finished nearly everything in the fridge and cabinets now. What is left – and non-perishable—we will leave for the new renters. The bigger tasks of cleaning and packing are still before us.
After dinner, we went downtown for dessert with Marty and Harriet, fellow Fulbrighters from Kansas. They are leaving on Sunday, one day after us. Our last time in Prague with them was spent on the 6th-floor terrace at the top of the Prince Hotel, overlooking Old Town Square. This evening is a happier one than our other farewells, since we will see Marty and Harriet in less than two weeks when they come through Denver for a visit.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005.
Today is full of goodbyes. I met Martin at his office at VŠE this morning to discuss a case study that he is writing about his wife’s NGO, which provides training and employment for mentally handicapped individuals. Martin is one of the people who has made my professional experience here so wonderful. I wrote three cases and one chapter for his book, which will be on the bookstore shelves for fall classes. Since the book went to press, Martin is visibly less stressed. Nonetheless, even last spring when he was struggling to meet deadlines, he was unfailingly pleasant to work with.
Hanka, the director of the Czech Fulbright Commission, met me for lunch at Stoleti. Over the course of the year I have come to appreciate not just how smart and competent she is, but also how sensible and personable. We chatted about interesting things, both Czech and American, including people, politics and funding issues. With each discussion with someone like Hanka, I get a better insight into situations and points of view from a Czech perspective. Sometimes the differences are subtle, and sometimes the history explains the nuanced meanings. But these conversations remind me about how long it takes to incorporate cultural learning into your mindset, so that attitudes and behaviors no longer seem strange or unpredictable.
Ales and Jitka took us to Posezení U Čiriny (Gathering at Čirina’s) for dinner. The main attraction of this restaurant is the chef, Irena Kosiková, who was once the personal chef to President Havel. The menu serves predominantly Hungarian/Slovak specialties. Needless to say, our meals were delicious. But I think the meal was especially enjoyable because of the elegant-yet-friendly ambience and, of course, the delightful dinner conversation with Ales and Jitka. They are some of our closest friends, here or anywhere, and we will sorely miss them next year.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005.
I went to Žižkov to see Bruce’s new building and met Jeff, the general contractor, Paul, the architect, and a few other people who are managing the project. John M has been acting as a supervisor, visiting the site daily and giving Bruce progress reports. We walked through the building, basically a brick shell, and Bruce and John described where each unit’s walls, doors, and gardens would be. After the tour, John and I went to the “The New Jewish Cemetary” at Olšanska, which is a short walk and two tram stops away from the building. The Olšanska Cemetery is a huge complex, only one section of which is the Jewish Cemetery. This is where Franz Kafka and his family are buried. Many of the names on the tombstones are of German origin. The New Jewish Cemetery is a preserved cultural monument as a whole; partly due to its character and disposition, but also thanks to a hundred-year excellent administration supported by the Hevra Kaddisha (burial society) in Prague’s Jewish community. The Hevra Kaddisha saw to it that graves were established in cemetery lots both chronologically and in accordance with the family’s wish and significance, which was important socially in the bourgeois society. The Hevra Kaddisha also saw to it that inscriptions on tombstones were truthful and testifying to the buried person’s character. Since its establishment in 1891, the cemetery has been surrounded by the wall protecting the space for some 100,000 graves. There were also structures built in the neo-Renaissance building style that prevailed in Prague in those times. The funeral parlor contains a respectable hall of prayer, and adjacent rooms needed for the ritual preparation of the burial. There is an administration building that houses the cemetery caretaker’s office and his and gravediggers’ apartments, and other structures such as a storehouse of wood used to make coffins. Since the very beginning, the cemetery has been properly divided in lots which were gradually used as graves. This cemetery will never be completely filled with graves because the devastating scourge of Nazism exterminated those who could and should have rested here one day, but there are memorial plaques on the walls to commemorate those who were killed. One memorial that draws most visitors’ attention since its installation in 1985 is that commemorating the Czechoslovak Jews who perished in concentration camps or were killed in resistance fights. This memorial is a sandstone block of concave ellipses concentrated around a hole, evoking the impression of a tortured world in whose midst the Star of David is shining. This piece of art deeply effects the conscience of all, regardless their faith or world outlook.
I then went back to the center to have lunch with Charlotte – our last lunch together this year in Prague. Regardless of when I return to Prague—and where Charlotte is living at the time—I predict that if I show up at lunchtime, she will insist on making something for us to eat and we will have a sisterly conversation. Obviously, I hope not too much time passes before we have lunch together again.
Today is Rick’s birthday, and he requested that we see a movie, so I rented the DVD of Želary, a movie set in the 1940s when the Czech lands were occupied by the Nazis. The story is about Eliška, a young woman who was unable to complete medical school because the Germans closed the universities, and who was working as a nurse in a city hospital. She was also involved in the resistance movement along with her lover, the surgeon Richard, and their friend Dr. Chldek. One night, a man from a rural mountain area is brought to the hospital with serious injuries, desperately in need of a transfusion. Eliška’s blood saves his life and a connection is formed between the two that in the course of the story becomes an extraordinarily strong relationship between the modern, cosmopolitan, and educated Eliška and the uncultivated, salt of the earth man with the soul of a child, Joza. The resistance group that the doctors are involved in is uncovered by the Gestapo, and suddenly their lives are in grave danger. While Eliška’s lover, Richard, flees the country overnight, the group quickly has to find a different safe haven for her. They ask Joza, the patient whose life she saved with her blood, to hide her in his remote mountain cabin. Eliška is forced to leave her urban life and, all at once, become a new woman: Hana, the wife of a mountain man. Her new home is the wild mountain village of Želary, where time stopped one hundred and fifty years ago. Despite the fear, misgivings, suspicion and clash of different worlds, Eliška/Hana and Joza fall in love. This is a profoundly moving and dramatic story, filled with unexpected twists of fate, that takes place in a God-forsaken part of Europe surrounded by the storm of war.
Monday, July 25, 2005.
The weather report said “sunny intervals,” which apparently means “it won’t rain all day long.” The sun did come out briefly during dinner. Mostly, it’s been pretty wet and dreary.
Today is errand day. I went downtown to change money and then to the bank to inquire about the $1.23 transaction charge and to try to close my bank account. As to the first question, this is the charge for my “cash withdrawal” last month. (I should have suspected.) The second is, closing the account takes 45 days from the time I turn in my ATM card. There is a 400 CZK charge, so I am told that can’t draw down less than that. But, I managed to withdraw all but the remaining 50 CZK (roughly $2) by recharging the mobile phones with the ATM card, so I think I will just abandon the account and not try to deal with the customer-unfriendly bank bureaucracy here.
After my banking errands, I looked at several stores to try to find a store with a suitable card to send for my father’s birthday, and also went to the jeweler that Charlotte had recommended to get Rick’s ring repaired. The ring should be ready on Friday, the day before we leave! I went to Howard’s office shortly after 1pm to drop off the last of the books he had lent us (Rick). Next I sent to Czech National Bank to meet my landlady, Milena, for coffee—and to settle accounts. She was very kind. She calls me her “best friend renter.” She is especially happy that I rented the flat to another Fulbright couple for next year, and she proceeded to tell me about some of her bad experiences with renters. She and her husband would like to move back to this building—to the flat on the first floor (between us and her brother’s flat), but the elderly woman and her son have rights to this flat, at least until the old woman dies. Right now they pay almost no rent, but the state is changing that, albeit slowly.
Rick and I are trying to finish off the food in our fridge, much of which is cheese and sausages and braunschweiger that Rick bought a few weeks ago. We our last “domaci” chicken dinner, and finished the last of the desserts from Jitka and Eva.
After dinner, we went to AghaRTA Jazz Centrum, one of Prague’s classic underground jazz clubs. It’s a cozy cave, probably not much bigger than our living room, and it’s always standing room only if you don’t get there before the show starts. I had wanted to go this evening to hear Jiři Stivin, whom I adore. Seven or eight years ago, we had heard Stivin perform various flute music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque periods. He’s really an extraordinary musician. He has been interpreting pre-Classical music on the recorder since 1975 and has been intensely involved in jazz, composition, and in the improvisational New Music, using saxophone, clarinet, flute, recorder, and several kinds of folk pipes. He gives solo recitals with harpsichord, organ, or guitar, and sometimes performs with the sole aid of a tape recorder. For over ten years, as part of the Prague Symphony Orchestra’s concert subscription series, he has been giving a series of performances called “All Manner of Flutes” and has written a large corpus of film, theatre and concert music. Jiri Stivin teaches at the Prague Conservatoire, at the annual jazz workshops in Frydlant and is frequently involved in many other projects, including educational concerts for children. This evening’s performance was smooth jazz, with his own jazz quartet, Jiri Stivin & Co. Jaroslav Sindler, his guitarist was wonderful, but Zdenek Tichota, on the bass guitar, was extraordinary. We could have listened to him play solos all night long.
The drummer, Michal Hejna, was playing with a band on a cruise ship in the Caribbean during the 1989 Revolution. He had left on August 22, and came back on December 19—a month after the revolution—to a different country. Otakar Svoboda, who founded Artia Records, the communist-era label that controlled almost the entire music industry in the Czech Republic, hired Hejna to oversee recordings of a new subsidiary, Arta Records, in 1991. An offer to manage the newly opened AghaRTA jazz club soon followed, and Hejna found himself in charge of booking talent as well as recording albums. In 1992 he started using his contacts to bring international talent to Prague under the auspices of the AghaRTA Prague Jazz Festival. Artia was liquidated in 1994, but Arta Records is still a successful independent jazz label.
We can really tell Prague has changed by how few smokers there were this evening. I had to move around a few times, but easily stayed through the last set.
Sunday, July 24, 2005.
Rick spent much of the morning consolidating the remaining vitamins to fit in the fewest and smallest containers. We had brought more than a large full suitcase worth; we’re taking back a small (heavy) suitcase full.
This afternoon, Rick worked on math while Vojta, our landlady’s son, put slats on the metal fence that borders the front of our building. Vojta was not happy about his work. His mother thinks it is good for him to learn these carpentry skills, but Vojta prefers accounting.
I spent the afternoon downtown. I finally went to the Czech Museum of Music, which I had wanted to see since Charles and Claudia’s visit in March. The museum is now housed in a reconstructed old Palace in Karmelitska Street in Malostrana (“Lesser Town”), which originally was the Church of St. Magdalene, built in the seventeenth century in Baroque style according to a design by Francesco Caratti. It was owned by a Dominican monastery until 1783, at which point it was remodeled in stages, serving successively as a post office, a police barracks, and, from 1948, the headquarters of the State Central Archives. So this building has an unusual mix of early Baroque church architecture with functional modifications in Classical style and a recently-completed remodeling for the museum.
The atrium is immense, set up as a concert hall, with Petrof pianos and a biography of Anthony Petrof, who took classes about the construction of pianos in Vienna, and made the first concert piano in the Czech Republic in Hradec Králové in 1864 before moving to his hometown of Brno to convert his father’s workshop to a piano factory. The rest of the main floor hosts an art exhibit. The amazing collection of instruments is on the first floor (second level).
The entry hall of the tour is a strange visual/aural composition by Milan Cais titled The Four Elements, of the diversity of popular music of the twentieth century as preserved in film, television, photographs, and sound recordings. Proceeding to the instrument displays, there are pianos, clavicords, harpsichords, and organs of many shapes and sizes, stringed instruments dating from the thirteenth century. During the early 20th century, master musician Alois Haba found a piano maker—the Forster company—to make a piano with quarter-tones and even sixth-tones. There were only two ever made. One of them disappeared somewhere in Egypt before the war, so the quarter-tone grand piano in this museum is the only existing example of a quarter-tone piano.
There are “glass harmonicas,” which resemble nothing I had seen before. They are not blown or strummed, they are rubbed. There are no-pedal, single-action-pedal and double-action-pedaled harps. There are wooden wind instruments from the sixteenth century, which were very fashionable at the time, but disappeared in the baroque era, when they were overcome by more modern types. There are “bombards” and windcap shawms in a collection from the Rosenberg family in South Bohemia. There is also an extensive collection of old string instruments: lutes and zithers that are not used in contemporary music anymore, as well as predecessors of modern-day violins and violas. There is a violin made in the 17th century by the famous Italian violin maker Nicolaus Amati.
There are displays of woodwinds, brass and a few percussion instruments. There is also a small display of musical devices, one of which is a “flute clock,” another a manual synthesiser from the Prague Radio & Television Research Institute, made in 1967. Most of the rooms have headphones set up to listen to some of the instruments played by famous Czech musians. I walked through the exhibits several times – I think I would have been happy to stay all afternoon.
I walked from the museum to Malostrana, across the Charles Bridge to Old Town, and eventually made my way to the Muncipal House at Republic Square. I then took the tram back to Malostrana, and took the metro to Hradčanská, and boarded the bus home. I didn’t realize until I got out at our stop that Rick was on the same bus, returning from the gym. We had a nice dinner together and watched the news (about the terrorist attacks in Sharm El-Sheik) and were able to see some coverage from Lance’s 7th victory in the Tour de France.
Armstrong’s new record of seven wins confirmed him as one of the greatest cyclists ever. Although riders were still racing, with eight laps of the Champs-Élysées to complete, organizers said that Lance Armstrong had officially won the Tour de France. The course was wet from the rain, and several riders had already fallen. Armstrong took the podium with
his three children, Luke, 5, and twin daughters, Isabel and Grace, 3. Both girls wore yellow dresses to go with their father’s jersey while the boy was in blue with a yellow logo. In a brief speech after a French military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the American flag was raised on the Champs-Élysées. Armstrong had barely caught his breath amid the cheers of his record victory in the Tour when he took a call from President Bush, who told his fellow Texan how proud he was of him. The White House said the president called Paris from his retreat at Camp David to congratulate Armstrong for “a great triumph of the human spirit.”
Saturday, July 23, 2005.
It’s still dreary and rainy, not at all like summer. We hear that Denver has 105-degree weather. If that persists, we will surely be in for a “temperature shock” when we return next week. Today I have started making a list of final things to do, including paying final bills, closing my bank account, backing up my computer, etc. I’ve already sent change-of-address forms to my US banks, securities, and credit card companies. Among things on the to-do list: 2004 taxes, sabbatical report, syllabus and book orders for fall classes. My committee obligations start August 4 (although I can gracefully back out of this first meeting if I want to). Fortunately, I had some time to think about my DU obligations this afternoon, so I have made a course outline and activated my Blackboard container. I still have two manuscripts to review, but they should be easily finished tomorrow.
Rick and I had a delightful evening with Jana and Edvard Outrata. Rick said he has not had such a pleasantly stimulating, deeply intellectual and worldly discussion of world affairs in quite a long time! Jana and Edvard are highly educated, well-traveled, and well-read, so it was interesting to hear their take on world affairs and Czechs (and views of Czechs). Edvard is in his last senate term, so we are eager to see what his next “retirement” looks like – he surely won’t be idle. Jana’s International Women’s Network has been renamed “ALTISA,” and she is still a women’s advocate and social activist. She gave me a copy of her new book, “Where is my Home?” which is just recently available in Czech, as “Not Stepping Twice Into the Same River.” We had been invited to come at 5pm for “a glass of wine,” which was poured from a vat that Edvard had gotten directly from the vintner in Moravia. Jana served several spreads and pate, a delicious cauliflower-cheese soufflé, and rum (tuzemák )-berry custard. We had intended to eat dinner at home afterwards, but were both quite full when we left their house at 7pm.
If you’ve been following the Tour de France, you know that Lance Armstrong won the penultimate stage today, thus securing his lead. Armstrong’s time for the 55-km time trial around St. Etienne was 1 hour, 11 minutes and 46 seconds, 23 seconds ahead of Germany’s Jan Ullrich. This puts Lance’s overall race lead at 4:40 over second-place Ivan Basso of Italy. Tomorrow Armstrong will ride past the Arc de Triomphe and up the Champs-Elysées to his seventh victory. Amazing.
Friday, July 22, 2005.
Eva came by this afternoon, mainly to talk about her Fulbright application. We discussed the nature of her project and who she should work with/talk to at DU and, perhaps, other Colorado universities. I hope she will decide to stay for a full academic year, but mostly that depends on funding. We also exchanged digital photos from our trips and made a date for one last gallery expedition next week before I leave.
This evening was our last dinner with Charlotte and Bruce and Michele and John. Bruce’s nephew Rob and his girlfriend Jill are visiting, so there were 8 of us for dinner. Rob competed in the Iron Man triathlon in Switzerland a week or so ago, so he and Rick talked a lot about athletes, especially cyclists. Charlotte made the best crepes ever, with vanilla-bean whipped cream, chocolate sauce, homemade raspberry jam, and fresh nectarines. I think we ate enough to last a week.
Thursday, July 21, 2005.
It is such a pleasure to have a day to myself. I have lots of errands to do – bank and post office errands among them – and catching up on e-mail and blog entries. Writing a diary is hard, since the details of the days blur quickly. Most of my official projects are finished here, with just a few case studies and reviewing duties remaining (some of which, like Olga’s company Gity, will not be finished before I leave here).
Vladimir came to re-set our wireless router so that Donna, the Fulbrighter who will rent our flat this fall, can use it for her computer when she arrives next month. So now we are thinking about how we will set up our internet connection in Denver when we return. We have more options now than when we left a year ago. We have several things to consider, among them our phone options, since we disconnected our telephone when we left last August. We have gotten quite used to mobile phones here. On the other hand, landline calls are not free here as they are in the US and mobile phones here are cheaper to use – especially for text messages – than in the US.
Rick and I had dinner with Veena at Cantina, a Mexican restaurant on Ujezd near Bohemia Bagel. The food was good, but not as good as Mexican food in Denver. I miss hot salsa and refried beans.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005.
Ondra and I met at the Florence bus station at 7:15 for our trip to Zlin, an industrial town built by Tomáš Bat’a not far from the Czech/Slovak border. Olga has arranged a tour of the city for us, and planned to meet us in Zlin at 4pm. We got a call at 8:30 from her secretary, after we were on the bus and on our way, to say that Olga was sick and would not be able to meet with us, but we would still have a tour. We arrived in Zlin around 12:30 – delayed because of an accident on the Prague-Brno highway that necessitated a half-hour detour—and were greeted by Dominika, whose father works for Gity in Brno. Dominika is from Zlin, but is here just for the summer, visiting family and friends. She will finish her baccalaureate degree this fall from Indiana University, having gone there four years ago on a tennis scholarship. Dominka took us to the Tomáš Bata mansion, which is now the Tomáš Bata foundation. We were supposed to have been met by someone to take us for a tour of the mansion, but no one showed up so we just walked through the rooms on the main floor ourselves.
Tomáš Baťa was born in Zlin on April 3, 1876, and was known as the Cobbler of Zlin. With his brother and sister, he founded the Bat’a Shoe Organization in 1894, which became one of the world’s largest multinational retailer, manufacturer and distributor of footwear and accessories. Bat’a introduced factory-style production and long distance retailing, and modernized the shoe-making industry. Eventually Bat’a obtained sole control of the company and the company surged ahead in production and profits. WWI created a booming demand for military shoes, and the company quickly became one of the prime brands. Tomáš also exhibited his business acumen with his initiatives towards producing low-cost shoes for the general public, whose purchasing power had been significantly reduced in the aftermath of the war. He also set up factories and companies in other countries like Poland, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK and US. Each factory was self-sufficient and autonomous in its design, production and distribution strategies, in a move to focus them towards catering to the local population. By the early 1930s, the Baťa enterprise and Czechoslovakia were the world’s leading footwear exporters. Baťa was also widely regarded as a businessman with an acute sense of social consciousness. He is quoted by many as one of the first pioneers of employee welfare and social advancement programs. He is credited with efforts to modernize his hometown providing the people with employment, and housing facilities, making him a very popular citizen in the town. His goal was “Good and cheap shoes, even for the very poorest, and high wages for all who worked for him.” He also became the mayor of Zlín. Tomáš Baťa died in a plane crash in 1932. After his demise, his son Tomáš (who is still living in Canada) took over the company. The Zlín factory was appropriated by the communists and is no longer part of the Bata empire, but the Bata company still exists, now mainly as an importer and distributor, rather than a manufacturer, of footwear. Today the company operates in 68 countries.
Dominika took us for a drive around Zlín to see the town and the brick houses that Tomáš Bata built for his factory workers. These small brick houses still exist, but many have been renovated and expanded to suit today’s tastes and affluence. Dominika’s mother has worked as a buyer for the Bat’a company for many years.
Next, we went to Tomáš Bata University. Again, no one was there, and we only walked through the first floor. The university was established in 1995-97 by Tomáš Bata, the son/nephew of the founders of the Bata shoe empire. The building we visited was new, built in 2000. Apparently there was a school of Technology here in 1960, built as a college workplace for the Svit factory, which had previously been the site of the Bat’a shoe factory before state appropriation. At that time, this school was part of the Technical University of Brataslava (Slovakia). In 1963 it became a part of the Technical University in Brno to train specialists in leather, plastics and rubber technology. Officially, Tomáš Bata University in Zlin was established on November 14, 2000, when then-President Václav Havel signed the legal foundation documents.
Our last stop was the top of the 16-story building that Bat’a built in the 1930s, the tallest building in the country at that time. We had coffee on the terrace and talked about some of the differences between Prague and Zlin. To the Czechs, Prague is not typically Czech, since it is such a tourist city, and so influenced by German multinational companies, expats and visitors.
Dominika took us to the bus station, where I caught the 4:30 bus back to Prague and Ondra walked to the train station to visit some friends in the nearby area. I arrived home shortly after 9pm, and Rick had dinner waiting for me.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005.
Martin’s brother Jakob and his girlfriend Marcela arrived late last night and joined us for breakfast this morning. Jakob works at the Konopiste Golf Club where Bruce plays golf, so we have a mutual acquaintance. The rain last night put a damper on today’s plans for a swim, and we spent most of the morning relaxing indoors. Jitka made a Slovak dish of chicken, sausages and vegetables for lunch, topped off with delicious apple strudel. After lunch we took a short hike down to the Vltava River. There is a resort hotel with a pool that overlooks the river and has a great view. Later in the afternoon, Rick and Ales and Martin and Jakob played bocce ball (petanque) on the lawn.
We had intended to take the train home, but Jakob was kind enough to drive us back to Prague, so we stayed at the cottage until 7pm. Jakob dropped us at a convenient metro station, and we were home shortly after 9pm. The train would have taken more than 3 hours.
Petanque: a close match
Monday, July 18, 2005
This morning we are off by train to Cerneva nad Vltavou (in Jetetice Samoty) for two days with Ales and Jitka. We arrived just in time for lunch—a splendid Hungarian ragout, with a nut cake for dessert. Jitka’s cooking is always a treat. Joining us at the cottage this time was Jitka’s older sister Pavla and her 17-year-old grandson Martin. Martin is quite an athlete, and was on a long bike ride when we arrived. He is in training now for the Czech police SWAT team.
After lunch Ales took us for a hike through the forest. We looked for mushrooms, but most of them had been picked off during the weekend. We did find some acceptable Babka mushrooms to take back to Jitka.
The main dinner course was chicken kabobs cooked on a grill in the yard. We brought the last of our marshmallow supply to roast after dinner, but barely had time for one marshmallow each before it started to rain.
Sunday, July 17, 2005.
After a typical Czech breakfast of cheeses, meats, bread, yogurt and fruit at the pension, we drove to the baroque castle at Manetin. Manetin originally was a Johannite knights´monastery. From 1622 to 1945, the monastery was property of the Lazansky family of Bukova. The Church of St. John the Baptist (Virgin Mary of Loretto) dates from 1712 - 1719. The Church is connected by a covered passageway to the Manetin chateau.
One of the more interesting tours was our visit to the Cistercian monastery in Plasy. We were not able to go into the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, but the convent was amazing, especially the painted ceilings and the blend of architecture and waterways. The Plasy manor was given to the Cistercian Monastery by King Wenceslas II in 1144. Our tour of the monastery included the Baroque Chapel, Strettius Gallery, and Exhibition of Pharmacies. (There is a contemporary art exhibition along the corridor walls, which I think detract from the baroque atmosphere and the ornate ceiling murals.) We saw the little Church of St. Wenceslas, and walked around the mausoleum of the Metternichs nearby.
Our last tour of the day was at Karlštejn Castle, the best known Gothic castle in the Czech Republic. We were almost late for our tour because we stopped for a drink at the café nearby. We had forgotten that it takes about 30 minutes to walk up the castle path from the parking lot. We had to take a taxi, but we were in time for our 4pm tour. We had been to Karlštejn 7 years ago, and remembered many of its feataures. The Church of the Holy Cross in the Great Tower, which dominates the skyline, was closed for renovations when we were here before, and has only been reopened since 2000. The church vaults are decorated with semi-precious stones, set in the shape of crosses, and contain the castle’s unique collection of portraits of saints, popes, bishops, and other religious leaders. Above the altar is a niche enclosed by golden bars, where the crown jewels and relics were once placed. The vault’s decorations show a sky containing stars, the moon, the sun and the five planets that were known at that time.
Karlštejn is one of the most notable Czech castles and one of the more famous symbols of the Czech Kingdom. It was founded in 1348 by Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV. The castle is built on three levels: The first level contained residential rooms used by the emperor, his wife and their court. The second level was a place of catharsis, housing the Church of Our Lady and Charles IV’s private chapel, which was connected to the church by a narrow corridor. The chapel was devoted to St. Catherine, his patroness. The highest point of the castle was the tower which is the site of the Chapel of the Holy Cross, symbolizing “Heavenly Jerusalem.”
Charles IV originally intended Karlstjn Castle to be place of relaxation but, during more than seven years of construction, its role began to change. Ultimately, the crown jewels and various religious relics were housed here, and during Charles’s reign the castle was predominately a representative seat. In the course of the Hussite wars, Karlštejn was a frequent target for attacking Hussites; in 1422, its fortifications proved strong enough to withstand a siege. In the late 15th century some alterations were made to the castle, in the Late Gothic style. In particular, reconstruction of the Great Tower altered the outline of the castle. Between 1578 and 1597, during the reign of Rudolf II, extensive reconstruction was carried out in the Renaissance style. In 1625, Emperor Ferdinand II downgraded Karlštejn’s status, and the castle and its dominion became the dowry of Czech queens. Maria Theresa donated the dominion to a noblewomen’s institute, and it was only in the late 18th century that Karlštejn’s historic significance was appreciated. Under the guidance of architect Josef Mocker, a “regothicization” of the castle began in 1887, involving the demolition of some castle buildings and the construction of new ones. With much the same appearance that it has today, the castle was first opened to the public in 1910. Eva and Honza’s tour was the last of the day, so we were almost the last ones to leave the castle grounds.
Before heading home, we went to see the Amerika limestone quarry, now an abandoned, water logged quarry just off the main road towards Prague. We headed home at 7:30, arriving at Eva and Honsa’s flat shortly after 8pm. Immediately we started mushroom preparations for 5-course mushroom dinner. Honsa had brought camping refrigerator in the car to keep mushrooms cool, but it didn’t feel cool at all when we got it home. Maybe it was not very cool because the car was very hot from sitting in the sun on a warm day. So, while three of us prepared dinner – lots of mushroom chopping and stirring, Rick looked up tour coverage. Honsa was master chef. I must admit I have never seen, much less tasted, so many mushrooms. Needless to say, we had a wonderful dinner.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
This morning is the start of a two-day weekend trip with Honsa and Eva. We left our flat at 9am and drove to Baroun, just southwest of Prague toward Plzen. The weather is lovely today and the countryside is lush and green. Honsa wanted to pick mushrooms but Eva and Rick and I went to Krivoklat, a medieval fortress with a royal castle and prison that dates back to 1109. Premysl Otakar II, one of the kings of the first Czech dynasty, annexed Krivoklat Castle and its lands to the royal family and made the castle one of his official seats in the 13th century. The king Vaclav IV was passionately fond of the castle and hunting in the surrounding forests was especially to his liking. The castle declined after fires in 1597 and 1643, and suffered further damage during a fire in 1826. But the castle has been restored and we were able to take a short tour inside.
We then drove through the former Sudetenland to Kralovia and Marianske Tynec to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. We made a brief stop at the St. Nikolas Church in Potvorov, and then took a lovely drive through Rabstejn. The baroque Church of the Virgin Mary at Rabstejn is a former monastery, but we could only look inside. Allegedly, Rabstejn nad Strelou is the smallest town in Central Europe. Its population is 27 inhabitants. The town records can be traced back to the year 1269. There is a gothic castle and fortifications that date back to the 14th century. The Church of Virgin Mary of the Seven Sorrows was built between 1766 and 1768. There is also an early-Baroque monastery and a Renaissance palace that was rebuilt in Baroque style in the 18th century. There is very old stone bridge with statues nearby, but not adorning the bridge. We stopped at a small, neglected Jewish cemetery and then went for a hike along the river. There are bunkers not far from the border, fortifications built in the 1930s that were intended to prevent an attack by neighboring Nazi Germany. These are big concrete “pillboxes” that are now abandoned and overgrown with weeds. The Czech fortifications were constructed according to French fortifications—the so-called Maginot Line. Similar structures were built in almost all European countries. But those designed by the Czechs, along with the French and the German, are considered among the best built. Some people believe that the bunkers are reminders of their time, proof that Czechoslovakia was indeed ready to defend itself. The Ministry of Defense intends to sell them, following an upcoming advertising campaign, to anyone who is interested and offers the best price. It’s unlikely that people will turn them into holiday cottages, however, since they are humid and difficult to maintain. Right now they are ideal homes for mushrooms.
We ended the evening at the Pension “U Zamku” (“near the Mansion”) in Novy Dvůr (New Courtyard). The “mansion” is now a ruin on the grounds next to the pension. We had dinner at the pension and then roasted marshmallows in a firepit on the old mansion grounds.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Olga G set up an appointment for me to meet Milan Zeleny, from Fordham University in New York, who wrote the book about Tomas Bata’s management system. He is visiting the Czech Republic this week. He’s a very interesting man – born in the Czech Republic, but moved to the US in 1967, before the Prague Spring. He’s a professor at Fordham University, but now has “dual” appointments in several places, including Zlin. I think I’m more interested in his stories about the Czech Republic and Czech/American “values” and culture than I am about his view of management and Tomas Bata’s innovations.
I met Brad for coffee at Radost at 2pm. Bruce (Brad’s father) joined us, so we had a very interesting conversation about Bruce’s business deals and golf-course plans. Next stop was meeting Eunice for tea at Ami’s. Our time in Prague is nearing an end, so these short get-togethers are becoming more precious.
Dinner this evening was with Marty and Harriet at Zlaty Dvur on Husova, near their flat. We ate on the terrace, accompanied by live music: a jazz trio of trumpet, electric bass and electric piano. It didn’t start to rain until we had just finished dinner, so we stayed under the table-umbrellas for nearly an hour longer. We finally ventured out just as the rain cleared. On our way home, we ran into two drunken Scots. Prague is full of Brits coming to Prague for party weekends. It’s not uncommon to see them in matching t-shirts or kilts. These two had a list of bars and had only begun to work their way down their list. We had a hard time understanding them, since their brogue was so thick. Marty and Harriet graciously escorted them to Old Town Square and pointed them in the direction of Dlouha Street to the Roxy Club, their next bar stop.
Thursday, July 14, 2005.
Rick is off to see Ales and Jirka again this morning. His math collaborations have gone extremely well, but he is feeling the pressure of time as we realize that we have only two more weeks here before we head back to the US.
We had arranged to meet Hana and Radim for dinner near the Strahov monastery near Prague Castle. They are in Prague visiting their parents and this is their last week here before they return to New Hampshire. We took them to the "Peklo" ("Hell") brewery/restaurant, where Rick and I had eaten earlier this fall with the Fulbright folks. This evening, however, we sat outside, enjoying the warm weather. After dinner we strolled down the hill to Malostrana, enjoying the lovely view of the city on an unusually clear evening. We had eaten dinner early, so we were home before 10pm, just in time to beat the sudden change in the weather – more rain.
This evening’s email contained a note from our renters informing us that they will be leaving at the end of this month. So, it looks like we will be moving back to our old house, at least for awhile.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005.
Rick was able to schedule a Czech class with Irena early in the day, to free up our evening for dinner with Henry. Sasha is out of town, but Henry had suggested dinner at one of their favorite places, “Little Buddha” near the Strahov Monastery behind Prague Castle. The atmosphere was interesting – not so much because of its Tibetan/Buddhist décor, but because it was so un-Czech. Rick tried to speak Czech to the waitress, but she seemed more comfortable in English. Nonetheless, the food was good and not very expensive, and our conversation with Henry was delightful as usual.
Perhaps a more interesting thing about this evening is that we met Henry at his flat, just by the arch near the Castle, which is in the same building as Jana and Edvard Otrata. Edvard used to head the Czech Statistical Office and is now in the senate. Jana was one of the first people I met here seven years ago, at her International Women’s Club, which met at her house. So I recognized her apartment immediately as we walked up the stairs to Henry and Sasha’s place. Henry boldly knocked on her door and we received a pleasant “how nice to see you again” greeting from her.
Henry drove us home after dinner, so we were home by 10pm. We decided that that gave us time to watch the last DVD that Harriet and Marty had lent us, since we want to return them when we see them on Friday. This movie, another Menzel/Hrabal collaboration, is called Postřižiny (Cutting it Short, 1980). The story is based on one that Hrabal published in the seventies, and it goes back to the time of the writer’s childhood (Hrabal was born in 1914) spent at the brewery in Nymburk, a small town close to Prague. The story is set at the beginning of the new century when the enchantment of technology started with the advent of motorcycles, cars, electricity, short skirts and short hair for women. This film is lit up by the magic of the old “golden age” of the optimistic early years of the First Czechoslovak Republic. The breaking up of the Old World with the new century is represented by the wonderful long and bright hair of Maryška that she cuts in accordance with the new tempo of civilization. According to a review of the movie by Ivana Košuličová [
http://www.ce-review.org/01/9/kinoeye9_kosulicova.html], the characters in the film are based on Hrabal’s parents. Whereas Hrabal uses the literal figure of his mother as the narrator of the text, the director, Menzel, transforms the storytelling into the third person form. Menzel also does not show the motifs of cruelty in his film: for example, Maryška (Hrabel’s mother) cutting the tail of the dog because of the new age in which everything seems to be getting shorter, from travel times to skirt lengths. But Menzel does show scenes that are very close to events in the actual text. One example of this is the scene following the slaughter of a pig: Maryška chases the butcher and the doctor Gruntorád (Rudolf Hrušínský) and they both try to spread bloody sausage meat on each other’s face. This is a return to that now familiar device, the ceremonial aspects of everyday existence, with the killing of the pig becoming a kind of pagan ritual. The same ceremonial tones are showed between Maryška and her husband Francin (Hrabal’s father). Their ritual of seeking for presents is not just an erotic game, but it also turns an ordinary moment into a unique event. Menzel also relies heavily on the use of slapstick. A typical illustration of it is the figure of a laborer in a brewery played by Rudolf Hrušínský Jr, who is always getting hurt as a result of accidents caused by Uncle Pepin, Francin’s brother who has—much to everyone’s dismay—come to stay with them for 2 weeks. Rick especially liked Maryška, the beautiful (and seductive) characterization of every man’s fantasy, who loves beer and steaks for breakfast and takes every opportunity for risk and adventure.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005.
Ondra met me at Dejvicka at 7:30 am to drive down to Brno to meet Olga G., who had called just yesterday to suggest a meeting with her today. We made good time and were in Brno in 2 ½ hours, which gave us time to have coffee and plan our interview with Olga. We went to her office promptly at noon, where she greeted us warmly and spent 1 ½ hours with us. Ondra said he was surprised at how open she was. We were both very pleased. Olga was not only generous with her time and information, she was charming. We considered the interview a favor for us, but she presented us with a bottle of Moravian wine, some stationery, and a book about Tomas Bata as thank you gifts. A high point of the interview was when she showed us photos of her friend Tomas Bata at a company party earlier this spring. He is 99 years old and still going strong! She wants us to go to Zlin next week and see the town he built and the university that bears his name. This sounds wonderful, but Zlin is farther from Prague than Brno and my schedule is already full. We’ll see if we can pull it off.
This evening’s dinner was at Café Slavia, looking out at Prague Castle, with Yehudes. She only has one more exam –this one on physiology – to end the term. She’s planning on going to Guyana with my brother and son and nephews in early August and is very excited. She’s exhausted from her medical school studies here, but still very enthusiastic about the prospect of achieving her dream of being a doctor in the foreseeable future. As always, it was a pleasure to see her and chat about our experiences here in Prague. Yehudes is one of the many people we’ve met here with whom we’ll keep in touch for a very long time.
Monday, July 11, 2005.
My agenda this morning was simple: buy a strudel for dessert, go to the bank, meet Eunice for tea, and get some work done before dinner with Pavel and Ivka. I had sent a revision of the textile company case study on Saturday and had gotten an immediate and positive reply from the editor, who asked for very minor revision. So I was eager to get closure on the case before I leave town (thinking, naively, that this would leave me with only Eunice’s case left on my research to-do list here).
By the time I left to go downtown, it was pouring rain again. I went to three bakeries and none had strudel. I barely had time to go to the bank before I had to meet Eunice. She suggested that I try the rhubarb pie at Carrefour. So, taking her advice, I went to Andĕl to the Novy Smíchov shopping center and braved the crowds at Carrefour. It took me a half hour to get to the store, only about 15 minutes to find the section with pies and desserts, and then over half an hour in line. Instead of walking back to the metro (subway) station, I jumped on the #9 tram to the center, which was, in hindsight, the wrong decision, since it took me over an hour to get home.
Pavel and Ivka showed up at our flat at 7:30 and we chatted briefly over cheese and crackers and beer before walking down the street to Pizzeria Siesta. It was strange to have an evening with them with no kids! And wonderful, as always, to chat about families, life in Prague and the US, and a bit of politics. After dinner, we came back to our flat for rhubarb pie and coffee. Fortunately, the pie was tasty, even if it did take up half my afternoon to get it.
Sunday, July 10, 2005.
I headed off to the airport with a small but heavy suitcase to give to Kyle and Steve to take back to Denver for us. Normally, we could take it back ourselves when we return at the end of the month, but the airlines are now weighing the carry-on bags as well as the checked bags, so we are concerned about being above the weight limit for our luggage. I was surprised that there were no lines for Lufthansa, unlike the last trip Rick and I took, so we had time for coffee and a last conversation.
I had arranged to meet Bill and Peggy at Old Town Square at noon, so I had time to pick up a few groceries on my way back from the airport before I headed downtown. One of the nice things about playing tour-guide to out-of-town friends is that I get to see things I might not ordinarily come across. For the first time today, I was able to go inside the Tyn Church. The Church of Our Lady before Týn (Kostel Panny Marie pred Týnem) is the Gothic church whose 80m high steeples dominate the skyline of Old Town Square. It was built in 1365 on the site of an earlier Romanesque church. Entry to the church is through an arcade; the Gothic northern portal with its original preserved sculptural reliefs is accessible from Tyn Street (Tynska ulice). The entrance portal is decorated with scenes of Christ’s passion and there is a huge Rococo altar on the northern wall. To the right of the altar there is a tomb of the Danish astronomer Tycho de Brahe who worked at the court of the Emperor Rudolph II. A gilded statue of the Madonna dating back to 1626 stands in the late Gothic gable between the two towers. Between the early 15th century and the year 1620 it was the main Hussite church in Prague. The interior was reconstructed in the Baroque style after a fire in 1679. The Týn church has a grand pipe organ and occasionally it is a concert venue.
We continued walking through the Ungelt, the quaint courtyard that originally served as a marketplace for foreign merchants bringing goods to Prague, toward St. James church. This attractive Baroque church began in the 14th century as a Minorite monastery church. We couldn’t go in, but we could see inside about 20 altars decorated with works by Jan Jirí Heinsh, Petr Brandl and Václav Vavrinec Reiner. The guidebook says that a tomb of Count Vratislav of Mitrovice is the most beautiful Baroque tomb in Bohemia. Hanging to the left of the main door is a mummified forearm. It has been there for over 400 years, since a thief tried to steal the jewels of the statue of the Virgin. Legend says that the Virgin grabbed his arm and held on so tightly that it had to be cut off. Because of its excellent acoustics many concerts and recitals are given in the church.
I took Bill and Peggy to Kolkovna for lunch, and we then headed toward Vyšehrad. This trip had a dual purpose: I wanted to show them view from the Nusle bridge and the old castle and also to transport them back to the Holiday Inn to get their bags before heading to the airport for their afternoon flight back to the US. Their taxi picked them up at 3:00 and I was home before 4:00.
For the first time in a long time, Rick and I had a quiet evening at home, just the two of us. Marty and Harriet had loaned us several DVDs, so I suggested we watch Pupendo, a movie about the difficulty of life in Czechoslovakia during the 1980s. Apparently, “Pupendo” is a child’s game in which a joker promises something mystical and pleasurable to his victim and then delivers a sharp slap on the stomach. Pupendo is another period piece from the collaboration of Hřebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchovský, who also produced Divided We Fall (Musíme si pomáhat) and Cozy Dens (Pelíšky).
Pupendo is a story about two families set against the backdrop of art and politics. A talented artist Baedrich Mara (Bolek Polivka) is blacklisted by the Communist government following the Russian occupation. Since he can’t live from his art and he won’t take a day job, his family has to make kitschy ceramic piggy banks to get by. A chance encounter with an art historian combing through a garbage can brings the artist back into contact with a former student and lover. She’s more ambitious than principled and can make life easier for him in return for some gesture art. The artist can handle making a wall mosaic for her husband’s school, but a hideous statue of a Russian marshal is naturally more problematic. Eventually it doesn’t matter. Through the art historian, their names land on the Voice of America, and as a result, both families end up in the drink together.
Rick was so tired from his yachting trip that he fell asleep after the first scene and woke only to see the last half. Then he stayed up to watch the first half that he had missed! It may take him a few days just to feel like he’s on level ground again.
Saturday, July 9, 2005.
The sun is out today, but the weather is not particularly warm. Steve and Kyle are spending their last day in Prague shopping and walking around the city center; I’m spending mine finishing page proofs for two articles.
Rick and Howard were scheduled to return from Croatia at 4:00, but their flight was delayed two hours, so they went downtown directly from the airport. Our dinner reservations were for 7pm, so I met Steve and Kyle at the Municipal House at 6:45 (and gave them a mini-tour) and Marketa met us at 7pm at the Patriot X restaurant nearby. Rick and Howard and Howard’s Israeli friend Yaki (Jacob) arrived shortly before 7:30. We had a nice dinner downstairs in a secluded room so we could talk and linger. Jaki had to leave at 9:30 to go back to the airport for his midnight flight back to Tel Aviv, but the remaining six of us stayed another hour. As we walked Kyle and Steve to their hotel, Howard explained a bit about the history of some of the buildings, filling in pieces here and there of things I hadn’t heard. There is still so much that I don’t know about Prague.
Friday, July 8, 2005.
Today is unseasonably rainy and cold, not a good day for walking around town. I went to the cafe at the Municipal House to meet Peg, a Florida professor of Communication and Public Relations who will be spending part of next year here as a Fulbrighter. She and her aunt Carol are taking a week to see Prague and Peg is using this visit to line up housing for herself for next year, and get a head-start on preparing for her year by meeting with her university hosts and with Hana at the Fulbright Commission.
Our good friends from Denver, Steve and Kyle, are here this week with Kyle’s sister Janice and her husband Andy who live in Florida (and are not used to cold, rainy weather). Our plan was to meet at the Spanish Synagogue for services at 7pm and afterward go to dinner in the dining room at the Jewish Town Hall. Services were nice – a moderate sized, but quiet and diverse crowd – with Petr presiding. The service ended at 8pm and Steve had been told that dinner at the Jewish Town Hall would not be served until 9:30pm, so we went to the Svejk Restaurant for drinks before dinner. We had planned to go to Kolkovna, just across the street from the Spanish Synagogue, since it is one of the restaurants that is known for its Pilsner Urquell tap, but the place was very crowded (perhaps an indication of its popularity) and quite noisy. Shortly after 9:00, we walked to the Jewish Town Hall to see when dinner would start – the orthodox services start at sundown, which is late at this time of year – and were told that the tables were just being set up. I had neglected to get a dinner ticket for myself and foolishly we mentioned that there would be five of us instead of the four that were reserved under Steve’s name. The security guard at the door, who was quite polite and pleasant, informed us that I would probably not be allowed to eat, since no money could be exchanged on the Sabbath. The officious guard inside the town hall, however, decided that I should not even be allowed to enter. Despite the security guard and Steve’s appeals to compromise – giving money to the non-Jewish guard, assuring them that I would forego the dinner if we could all go inside—the man was steadfast. Steve was outraged, so we all left to find dinner elsewhere. Fortunately, we had a very elegant dinner a few blocks away at Ristorante Amici Miei, a much quieter and upscale venue with Italian food, which was more to the taste of these travelers. We had a lively conversation, mostly about business in the Czech Republic, since Andy has recently retired from a career in broadcasting and is looking for somewhere to invest his time and money. Andy and Janice are leaving for a cruise around the Italian and Croatian coasts in the morning, so they will not be able to meet Rick or Howard who return from their cruise tomorrow. I wish we could have had more time together – I barely caught the last (midnight) metro train home.
Thursday, July 7, 2005.
A string of explosions rocked at least three London subway trains and ripped apart a double-decker bus during this morning’s rush hour, killing more than 33 people, injuring more than 360 and sending bloodied victims fleeing from debris-strewn blast sites. The first explosion, at 8:51 a.m. (0751 GMT), caught a Tube (subway) train which was 100 yards (meters) into a Circle Line tunnel outside Moorgate station in the financial district, killing at least 7 people. The second blast, at 8:56 a.m., hit a Piccadilly line train between the King’s Cross and Russell Square stations, killing 21. The third explosion, at 9:17 a.m (0817 GMT), killed five people, and involved two and possibly three trains. The blast that ripped apart the double-decker bus was reported at 9:47a.m. (0847 GMT). This is the worst attack on London since World War II, coming just a day after an overjoyed city celebrated its successful bid to hold the 2012 Olympics. Streets echoed with sirens and the entire bus and underground transport network was shut down. BBC TV broadcast footage of a paramedic trying to revive one of the wounded, pumping the chest of his bloodied and blackened body. Police said they had received no claim of responsibility.
Elaph, a secular Arabic-language news Web site, and Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine reported that “Secret Organization – al-Qaida in Europe” claimed the explosions were in retaliation for Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The whole of Europe was in a state of alert Thursday. Transportation systems in major U.S. cities also were ordered to be vigilant. U.S. President George W. Bush is in Scotland for the G8 summit, but offered “heartfelt condolences from Americans for the terrorist attacks on London."
My day was spent fairly hunkered down, editing proofs of two articles to send back to journals for publication next month, doing laundry, and watching the terrible news on television.
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Today commemorates the Martyrdom of Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake on this day in 1415. Hus was the most important 15th-century Czech religious Reformer, and his movement anticipated the Lutheran Reformation by a full century. He was embroiled in the bitter controversy of the Western Schism for his entire career, finaly to be convicted of heresy at the Council of Constance and burned at the stake. Jan Hus (John Huss) was born in Bohemia in about 1371. He received a master’s degree from Charles University in Prague in 1396, became a professor of theology in 1398, was ordained to the priesthood in 1400, was made rector of the University in 1402, and in 1404 received a degree in theology. Most people who come to Prague remember the distinctive art nouveau monument to Jan Hus in the Old Town Square.
Eva and I decided to skip the morning conference sessions and instead walk around Brno and take a tour of Špilberk castle. Relatively little is left of the original Gothic castle of the 13th-15th century (basically only in the eastern wing), although its fundamental character is intact. Among the parts that have best preserved their original appearance are some of the ground floor spaces, including the passageway with ornamented stone benches. The majority of the present buildings—the southern, western and northern wings, as well as the central tract dividing the former large courtyard into two sections—only came into existence with the extensive conversion of the fortress into a prison in the 1830’s. Unfortunately, this radical reconstruction wiped out practically all that remained of the original medieval castle and its later building projects, with the exception of the eastern wing. Špilberk thus acquired its present appearance, which even the relatively extensive reconstruction executed by the German army was not able to alter. Apart from minor additions and complements, they basically unified the castle in a certain architectural manner, and only demonstrated their identity clearly in the interiors (staircase) and historicist details. It was the latest reconstruction in 1995-2000, particularly involving the eastern wing, that substantially interfered with the appearance of Špilberk, so well-known from engravings, paintings and old photographs. The present distinctly “Gothic” appearance of the whole eastern wing is a result of a rather problematic and controversial reconstruction, executed—after extensive construction and historical research—in 1995-2000 and designed by Zdeněk Chudárek. On the ground floor of the western wing, archaeologists have revealed part of the foundations of a massive cylindrical tower, which are displayed with exhibits of the architectural history of the fortress. We went to the exhibition floor that gave a history of the castle and of the area.
We also toured the casemates, rows of prison cells and torture chambers accessible through tunnels that extended well beyond the fortress above. The casemates originally served as shelter for a garrison comprising some 1,200 men, as well as armaments and other materials should the fortress come under artillery bombardment. Mainly, they were used to store military equipment. But the Emperor Joseph II decided, in 1783, that a prison ought to be created for felons and the most dangerous criminals, so he ordered the reconstruction as a prison of the upper floor of the northern casemates in 1784. The following year, under Leopold II, the upper level of the southern casemates was also transformed as a prison. After extensive damage by Napoleon’s army in 1809, the fortress lost its military significance and was converted to a civilian prison. Under Emperor Franz Joseph I, the castle was used as a barracks and military jail from 1855 until the Nazi occupation.
Eva and I walked to the center of town to see the town square, some of the Art Nouveau houses, and Gothic and Baroque churches. We walked through the “cabbage market” square to St. Thomas Church and the magnificent Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul on Petrov Hill. The Baroque Parnas fountain in Cabbage Market square was built in 1690-95 on the site of a Renaissance fountain from 1597. It is the most valuable piece of Baroque sculpture in Brno; an isolated example of Baroque naturalism and illusion of considerable dramatic force. In the center of the fountain is built a three-sided craggy rock. Sitting on top of the north-eastern side is an allegoric statue leaning against a quiver with arrows. Beneath it is a winged dragon. On the north-western rock sits the figure of Babylonia with a crown on her right foot and to her right is a winged lion. On the southern rock is the allegoric statue of Persia with a horn of plenty and underneath to the right a bear crawls out from the rock. At the top of the grotto stands the statue of Europe triumphantly holding a scepter over a vanquished dragon. The whole structure comes to life with miniature creatures and dragons.
We walked through Svobody (Freedom) Square, with its Marianne Column, erected to commemorate the end of the plague; past the Noble Women’s Palace, or Ladies’ Institute, so-called School of the Virgin Mary, dedicated to the upbringing of orphaned daughters of noblemen. We had wanted to visit the synagogue, but did not have time.
The modern Jewish community in Brno dates from around 1856 and the founding of the Jewish Society. The building of the so-called Great Synagogue was already finished in 1855. After building and opening the synagogue, a new Board was elected and Phillip Gomperz became the new chairman, and Leopold Löw (the famed Rabbi Löw) from Szegedin was engaged as the first official rabbi. The population of Jews in Brno was about 2,230 people in 1857, the whole city of Brno had 59,819 inhabitants. For comparison, there were only 135 Jews in Brno in 1834. The right to collect taxes from Jews was reserved only for Jewish communities. That’s why they applied in 1858 for full-right registration of the community, which was permitted in 1859. Baruch Placzek was accepted as rabbi in 1860, and he served in this position for many years. A religious school opened in Josefská Street 49 in the 1861. From the beginning, 77 boys and 76 girls attended the school. The school’s enrollment quickly exceeded its capacity, and many children, especially from less wealthy families, were not accepted because of a lack of space.
The period between the two World Wars was the best time in the history of the Jewish community of Brno. By 1938, there were around 12,000 members of the Jewish community. About 10,000 people were deported from Brno during the Second World War to Terezin (Theresien Stadt) and further to Auschwitz and elsewhere. Less than 1000 of them survived. There were about 800 members of the Jewish community in Brno in 1960 and there are slightly less than 300 people now. Eva and I did not have time to see the synagogue or the “Chapel of Rest” cemetery. The cemetery was established in 1852 and was enlarged in 1911 and 1936. Gravestones from closed cemeteries in the vicinity of Brno dating from the 17th to 19th centuries were brought here, but the vast majority of graves date from the 19th and 20th centuries.
We hurried back to the university so that we could attend one of the last sessions before heading to the bus back to Prague. We left the session a bit early, to allow plenty of time to retrieve our bags at the hotel and get to the bus station in time for the 4:00 bus. We had no trouble getting there on the tram, and even had time for coffee and ice cream sundaes in the lobby café at the Grand Hotel across the street from the Main Station. Our 2 ½-hour bus ride was spent productively, going over the latest version of a case study so we can send the revised draft to the journal this week.
Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong is in the leader’s yellow jersey for the second day in a row. The Discovery Channel team won the team time trial when David Zabriskie crashed into a barricade in the final moments of the race, putting Team CSC in second place. Today, even though Lance wanted to start the race without the yellow jersey on his back – as a gesture of sportsmanship to honor the former bearer, who lost it when he crashed yesterday – wore the jersey to another win, retaining the overall race lead. Spared the crashes and strokes of bad luck that have befuddled others, Armstrong enjoys breathing space between his main rivals in his quest for a seventh straight Tour victory. Tomorrow is a rest day.
Parnas Fountain
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Today is a holiday honoring Saints Cyril and Method (Methodius), Apostles of the Slavs, whose missionary activities during the Great Moravian period brought Christianity and education to the Slavs. This year marks the 1,120th anniversary of St Method’s death in today’s territory of Slovakia. The occasion inspired the Association of Slovaks in Switzerland to organize a celebration to remember the saints today at Devín castle, with a discussion on Cyril and Method’s message and a mass at Devín’s church.
After this morning’s WACRA conference plenary session in Brno, Eva and I walked to Tugendhat Villa, a “functionalist” art-deco mansion not far from the university grounds.
http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Tugendhat_House.htmlThe Villa Tugendhat was built by the German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in his traditional Bauhaus-style. The three-story building is partially tucked into the hillside in the Brno residential quarter Černé Pole facing the city centre, Špilberk castle, and the spires of St. Peter and Paul Cathedral on Petrov Hill in the distance. A broad staircase joins the dining room with the garden which makes an integral part of the building, because of large windows that can recede into the walls by means of a mechanized pulley system. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also designed the furniture and interior details, such as door handles, curtains, lighting fixtures. Mies’s style is characterized by a severe simplicity and the refinement of its exposed structural elements. Although not the first architect to work in this mode, he carried rationalism and functionalism to their ultimate stage of development. His famous dictum “less is more” crystallized the basic philosophy of mid-20th-century architecture. Rigidly geometrical and devoid of ornamentation, his buildings depended for their effect on subtlety of proportion, elegance of material (including marble, onyx, chrome, and travertine), and precision of details. Mies was director of the Bauhaus School of Design, the major center of 20th-century architectural modernism, from 1930 until its disbandment in 1933. He moved to the United States in 1937, where, as director of architecture (1938-1958) at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, he trained a new generation of American architects. He produced many buildings in the United States, including skyscrapers, museums, schools, and residences. His 37-story bronze-and-glass Seagram Building in New York (1958; in collaboration with the American architect Philip Johnson) is considered the most subtle development of the glass-walled skyscraper, while his glass-walled Farnsworth House (1950, near Fox River, Illinois) is the culmination of his residential architecture. With the French architect Le Corbusier and the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies was one of the three most influential 20th-century architects. His skyscraper designs in particular have been copied or adapted by most modern architects working in the field.
We were told that the villa was closed for renovation, and in fact it has been scheduled for renovation for quite some time. However, before the renovation starts next year, the villa will be used as a movie set. Eva and I were fortunate to have arrived when some folks from the movie studio were taking measurements, and the caretaker of the villa allowed us to come in and gave us a personal tour. He apparently takes care of the machinery, so he was particularly enthusiastic about taking us downstairs into the bowels of the building to show us the heating, air conditioning, and electronics controls—to raise and lower the patio windows—and the storage areas for furs and valuables.
We returned to the university just in time for a hurried lunch before the bus left for an excursion to Lednice, about 45 km south of Brno. We had a guided tour of Lednice Castle, one of the two important castles of the Lichtenstein family (the other is in Valtice, not far away, but we didn’t get to go there), who lived there from the early 13th century until 1945. The renaissance chateau is decorated opulently and set off by ponds and gardens and a very impressive—and enormous—greenhouse.
On the way to Cejkovice, our dinner destination, the bus stopped at Mikulov, a sleepy, hilly South Moravian wine village on the Austria border. Pavel Zufan, our host in Brno, suggested we spend time shopping and walking around the old center of town, but Eva and I hiked up to the limestone cliff to the castle that dominates the skyline. Although the castle allegedly closes at 5pm, and we were there at 4:30, the last tour started a 4pm so we could not get in. However, we were able to see the High Synagogue in the old Jewish Quarter. At one time, Mikulov had a thriving Jewish community—the country’s second largest before WWII –with 16 synagogues. In the 15th century, Jewish people settled in the town and the Jewish community gradually took a leading position among Moravian Jews. Mikulov’s history of being a town of religious tolerance gave Jewish people a home after their exile from Vienna and Czech royal towns. The head Rabbi was in residence from the middle of the 16th century till 1851. Between 1553-1573, the legendary Rabbi Löw—the creator of the fabled Prague Golem—lived in Mikulov and founded a Yeshiva (religious college) here. In 1524 Anabaptists (religious emigrants from Switzerland) arrived and during their one hundred years’ stay gained recognition for the development of crafts and wine traditions. We went to the site of the old Jewish Cemetery, where the oldest tombstones date back to 1605, but could not get beyond the outer gate.
The bus then took us to our dinner destination, the Anabaptist restaurant and wine cellar at Cejkovice. Apparently, the development of wine production in Bohemia was largely due to Charles IV, Czech King and Roman Emperor, the very same monarch who built the Charles Bridge and founded Charles University in Prague in 1348, the oldest university in central Europe. Charles IV understood his priorities: three years before founding the University, he granted the right to produce ceremonial wine to the cellars of Kromeriz, which, after the 18th Century, became the Archbishop’s Wine Cellar. The first evidence of vine-growing relates to the Knights Templar, whose arrival to the Czech lands dates back to 1232; the Cejkovice stronghold and St. Kunhuta’s church were founded at that time. The might and wealth of the Knights Templar provoked envy and hatred that ultimately resulted in an allegation of heresy. The order was disestablished in 1312. After that, the stronghold often changed owners and was finally acquired by the Olomouc Jesuit college in 1624. This was the conference’s “gala party,” with folk music and dancing and a tour of the wine cellars—and more than enough wine to drink.
Monday, July 4, 2005
Today is Independence Day in the United States so I am wearing the lovely American Flag bicycle pin that Barb Buchan gave me last fall. Today is a regular workday in the Czech Republic, so I don’t expect any fireworks or barbeques here today. The Czech holidays start tomorrow.
I am in Brno at the WACRA conference, a group of 110+ academics of various disciplines who are involved in case writing and teaching, interactive pedagogical methods and curriculum reform. The presentations so far have been fairly interesting, but the organization of the conference is less professional than I had expected, with more people on the program because of who they know than for what they have to say. Eva and Martin and I gave our presentation after lunch to a small crowd, since there were competing sessions and an optional bus tour to Olomoc at the same time. We had only a few minutes for participant interaction and questions during the session, so it is not clear how much discussion we may have sparked. But, if the success of the presentation can be gauged by the hangers-on after our session who wanted to talk with us further, then I can say our presentation was well-received.
I went to the hotel lobby to use the internet before dinner because I wanted to check the Tour de France results. You will be relieved to know, if you don't know already, that Lance Armstrong was again content to ride safely behind in the main pack while Tom Boonen of Belgium won a stage at the Tour de France for the second straight day. Boonen captured the third stage, a 133-mile leg from La Chataigneraie to Tours, in a riveting sprint to the line. He won Sunday's stage in similar fashion. U.S. rider David Zabriskie of Team CSC kept the overall leader's yellow jersey, narrowly ahead of second-placed Armstrong. Boonen keeps the green jersey as the best sprinter.
The evening’s “gala dinner” was at Špilberk Castle, a huge baroque fortress overlooking Brno, that was once the heaviest prison in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the infamous “dungeon of the nations.” It was built by Czech King Přemysl Otakar II in the mid-13th century, on a fairly low, but rather steep, rocky hill (290 m), rising directly over the historical centre of the town (at about 220 meters). It functioned as a prison after the defeat of the Uprising of the Estates in 1620, when leading Moravian members of the anti-Habsburg "insurrection" were imprisoned. In 1939-41, the German army and Gestapo carried out extensive reconstruction at Špilberk in order to turn it into a model barracks in the spirit of the romantic historicism so beloved of German third reich ideology. The Czechoslovak army left Špilberk in 1959, ending its military era. The following year, Špilberk became the seat of the Brno City Museum and today it is one of the most significant cultural centres in Brno. It was certified as a national heritage monument in 1962. There was no planned tour of Špilberk Castle, and the castle itself was closed after dinner, so Eva and I will try to go back on our own tomorrow.
The dinner was very nice, accompanied by Moravian musicians—violins, cimball (cembalo, in Czech), and bass. On our way back to the bus, a group of us Americans sang patriotic American songs in honor of America's Independence Day. I imagine there are fireworks in Prague tonight—although nothing to compare with those in America—but no fireworks are visible (or audible) in Brno.
Sunday, July 3, 2005
Eva and I left Prague on the 7:00am bus to go to Brno for the WACRA conference. Brno is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, and the largest in the region of Moravia (Prague is in Bohemia). WACRA (World Association for Case Method Research and Application) was started in 1984 when its founder and director, Hans Klein, was a professor at Bentley College in Waltham, Mass. Hans claims to be a native of Czechlovakia (he is from Austria), but came to the US for post-graduate (MBA and DBA) studies. He still lives in Massachusetts and teaches accounting and finance part time at Babson College. WACRA’s purpose is to spread case method research and teaching beyond US boundaries, but it functions largely as a professional-conference travel club.
This year’s conference host is Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry in Brno, the oldest institution providing agriculture and forestry studies in the Czech lands. It was established in 1919 as the University of Agriculture in Brno and it maintained this name till 1994. Currently, Mendel University is divided into four faculties. The Faculty of Agronomy, the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, and the Faculty of Business and Economics are all located in Brno. The Faculty of Horticulture is located in Lednice. The university gets is name, of course from Gregor Mendel, the famous Augustinian monk and horticulturist who cross-bred peas in attempt to create hybrid strains. Later known as Mendel’s Laws, his famous principles of hereditary transmission were to revolutionize the cultivation of plants and the breeding of domesticated animals in the twentieth century. Mendel’s name marked not only the beginning of genetics as a scientific discipline in its own right but also the beginning of the systematic use of mathematics, quantified measurements and applied statistics in biology.
Mendel was born on (approximately) July 20, 1822 in Hyncice, northern Moravia (then Austrian Silesia) to farmers, Anton and Rosina. Mendel studied mathematics, physics, philology, theoretical and practical philosophy and ethics at the Institute of Philosophy in Olomouc from 1840-1843 and joined the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno as a novice in 1843. In 1846 Mendel completed a course in agricultural studies, apple and wine growing, at the (Brno) Institute of Theology, and was ordained as a priest the following year. Between 1851 and 1853, Mendel studied physics, mathematics and natural history and attended courses in “Experimental Physics,” “Anatomy and Physiology of Plants,” and in “Practical lessons in using the microscope” at the University of Vienna. Between 1854 and 1864, Mendel carried out experiments on garden peas in the abbey garden. He lectured on “Experiments in Plant Hybrids” at the February and March meetings of the Natural Science Society (Brno) in 1865. In 1866, Mendel published his lecture, a work that was to establish him as “the father of genetics.” In 1868, Mendel became abbot after Abbot Cyrill Franz Napp, his benefactor and mentor, who had died in 1867. In 1872, Mendel was awarded the Cross of the Royal and Imperial Order of Franz Joseph I, and he became Director of the Mortgage Bank of Moravia (Brno) in 1881. Mendel died on January 6, 1884. He was buried three days later in the Central Cemetery in Brno. His obituary in the Gesellschaft zur Förderung des Ackerbaues, der Natur- und Landeskunde 1884, No. 1, said: “his experiments with plant hybrids opened a new era.”
Eva and I arrived at the main station in Brno at 9:30a.m. and took the tram to Mendel University, arriving just in time for the session to start at 10:00am. The morning session was crammed—too many cases to discuss in too little time—and few of the participants had received appropriate materials, but we managed to add enough value to the novice casewriters in the session that people seemed to leave happy. After lunch, we were taken by bus to the hotel to check in and rest before dinner, which was back at the university. The dinner was preceded by folk songs from groups representing various countries, not in any planned format—almost as a spontaneous songfest. Over half the crowd has been at these conferences before, so it was almost like a reunion—similar to the Western Academy of Management crowd that goes to the international conferences every other year. After dinner, Martin and Jirka and Eva and I walked back to the hotel—a nice break from sitting in stuffy rooms all day—and went to the bar at the top of the hotel for drinks and conversation.
Meanwhile, in France, Lance Armstrong stuck to the main pack and finished in 63rd place (with no time lost) during the second stage of the Tour de France that was won by Belgium's Tom Boonen. Lance finished in the same time as Boonen and kept his second place standing. American David Zabriskie retained the yellow jersey as the leader. Exciting!
Saturday, July 2, 2005.
Saturday, July 2, 2005.
Rick left for the airport around 10am to rendezvous with Howard and his friends for their flight to Split, Croatia. Howard has chartered a yacht for a week-long cruise around the Croatian coast, as a pre-birthday party (he will turn 60 next spring). Rick is honored to be considered such a close friend, and delighted to have been invited on such an adventure.
I am left alone today—such a lovely reprieve from the fast-paced week of guests and activities—to get ready for my conference presentations in Brno tomorrow (and catch up on a week’s worth of blog entries).
Meanwhile, the Tour de France started today. The first stage of Lance Armstrong’s final Tour started badly when his right foot skidded off the pedals after 100 meters, but the incident did not prevent him from taking second place to American David Zabriskie. Zabriskie, who left Armstrong's Discovery Channel team this season to join Danish outfit CSC, beat the Texan by just two seconds at an average speed of 54.68 km/h in the opening stage, one of the fastest individual time trials in the history of the Tour. But Armstrong, bidding for a seventh consecutive Tour success, humbled all his rivals for overall victory and especially German Jan Ullrich, who he overtook three km from the finish on the small Atlantic island of Noirmoutier.
Twenty years ago, television viewers were glued to MTV’s coverage of Live Aid, the pop music world’s valiant, if ineffective, effort to combat hunger in Africa. Today, I joined millions of viewers watching live streams of Live 8, Live Aid founder Bob Geldof’s bold effort to get the world’s eight top economic powers to relieve debt and boost trade in Africa and Third World countries. Live 8 brings together more than 100 artists - including U2, Coldplay, a reunited Pink Floyd, Jay-Z, Destiny's Child, Toby Keith, Tim McGraw, Green Day, Elton John, the Killers, Paul McCartney (an interesting rendition of St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with Beetles look-alike backup musicians), Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Neil Young and the Dave Matthews Band - in 10 cities around the globe. There should be more concerts and protest activities in anticipation of the upcoming G8 summit in Scotland next week.
I watched fireworks from my balcony at 10pm. More Canada Day celebrations? Part of Live 8? In anticipation of Lance’s 7th Tour victory? Or early U.S. Independence Day celebrations?
Rick in Croatia
Friday, July 1, 2005.
I was up early so that I could meet Anne and Paul and their daughters at the train station at 5:30am. Anne is teaching a six-week course for George Soros’s CEU in Budapest this summer, so she and her family are using this as an excuse to travel around central Europe. The rain has let up a bit, so I was able to take them for a short walk from Wenceslas Square to Old Town. Our intent was to have breakfast downtown and then drop off their bags at their hotel. However, despite the fact that Praguers are early morning people, and most businesses start early, we found no restaurants that opened before 8am – just fast-food kiosks. So, after walking around a bit, we headed to their hotel with the bags, and then to Old Town Square to a tourist café for breakfast.
I arrived home just as Ari and Elana were waking up, so I had time to chat with them as they were packing (and repacking to make sure everything was within the airline baggage restrictions). The taxi was set to arrive at 10am, and we were downstairs with all their bags just before the taxi arrived.
Shortly thereafter, I went downtown—in the pouring rain—to meet Sarah, to give her keys to our flat. Sarah will give the keys to Terry when she comes to Prague on Monday, so that she and her friend can use our flat when we are out of town. I then went back to the money exchange place to get Czech currency for Paul and Anne. I actually returned home in time for a rest – and to work on the material to send to Eva and Martin for our conference on Sunday – before heading back out for Shabbat Services and dinner.
The Shabbat crowd at the Spanish Synagogue was not so large as last week, but there were at least 60 people. Jiři had told me that he and Elana would be bringing their baby daughter this evening, but they did not show up, probably because of the rain. Rabbi Patz was there to conduct the service, and give a short sermon about independence and self-governance.
We left the service early to meet Anne and Paul and Emily and Carolyn for dinner. We decided to take them the Švejk Restaurant just down the street from the Spanish Synagogue. This is one of the many Restaurants named for the “Good Soldier Švejk” around Prague. We had never eaten there, but the menu looked decent – lots of traditional Czech dishes, many of which had names referring to characters in Hašek’s book—and the atmosphere looked appropriately “cute” for the girls (lots of pictures and references to Švejk and small-town Bohemia). We were pleasantly surprised that the food and service were excellent, and the prices moderate. Unfortunately, they did not have Czech fruit dumplings or crepes for dessert, so we had to settle for ice cream sundaes.
Today is Canada Day, and I can see fireworks from our balcony this evening.
