"There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams hurry too rapidly down to the sea, and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, turning to waterfalls under our very eyes."
--Elizabeth Bishop, https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/questions-of-travel/
DRUNK TRESSPASSORS
PSA: If you go to Prague DO NOT stay in Chili Hostel. Typically, hostels hold all or mostly young people, but this one had a bunch of middle aged men. My six-bed dorm room had only one other person in it (who was a middle aged man), there was no soap, it was super dirty, and to top it all off, there was a drunk guy banging on my door at 4 in the morning playing loud music on speakers and insisting we let him in. He shook the door so hard I thought it was going to break. I barely slept and help my personal alarm in my hand the whole night. Anyway, I moved to a hotel this morning and looked more closely at the reviews for the remainder of the hostels at which I will be staying.
Although my night was a bit scary, the rest of the day was wonderful. I went on a 3.5 hour walking/bus/boat tour of Prague where I learned a great deal about the history, politics, art, architecture, and religion of this gorgeous city. My tour guide was a handsome man named Jakub who was incredibly smart and funny, and who spoke 8 languages fluently. After learning that I was an opera singer, the tour group forced me to sing in the square where there was a mini stage with mind-blowing acoustics.
JEWISH HISTORY IN PRAGUE
**The stats here seem to contradict separate research I did, so I'm not sure they're accurate.
One noteworthy part of the tour was Jakub’s description of the history of the Jewish people in Prague. Jakub took us to the Jewish quarter and told us about how there were about 130,000 Jews living in Czechoslovakia in the early 1900s, and they were murdered and women and children were raped in groups periodically in pogroms. Then, after World War Two, the population of Jews in Czechoslovakia went from around 130,000 to 1,500. Over 70,000 were killed in concentration camps, about 20-40,000 were killed in the country, and the rest scattered around the world to escape—some to Israel, some to China, etc.
What I found most intriguing about Jakub's description of Jewish history was his idea that the mindset of the Jewish people shifted after the Holocaust. He described how the Jews had been facing mass murders for thousands of years, but they had always held onto their faith in the Messiah—that no matter how many of them were killed, as long as there were a few left, the Messiah would come and save them all. Jakub theorized that this faith made them meeker. He said that though they did fight back in ancient times, they were not considered aggressive in modern history, and were thus an easy target.
Jakub hypothesized that the Jews’ comforting idea of the Messiah coming to save them weakened after the Holocaust, and they came to the conclusion as a whole that they must fight for themselves—that perhaps God would not save them unless they worked harder to save themselves. This shift in mindset, Jakub argued, was what caused the Jewish people to fight with such force to protect Israel and themselves. He claimed it is what has caused them to become more aggressive and assertive as a people. Whatever your views on Israel’s politics and militaristic decisions, it is difficult to deny the number of Jewish lives saved by this newfound fierceness. Tragically, many lives have been lost as well because of it.
TOWERS AND GHOSTS
After the tour, I took a nap, and then hiked up a large hill to see the Petrin Lookout Tower. Apparently, people from Prague really liked the Eiffel Tower and decided to create a replica. Although the tower is a lot smaller, the top is actually just as high as the Eiffel tower because it is on such a big hill. The beautiful view is pictured above.
After the tower, I went on a ghost tour of Prague (which I missed half of since I was 45 minutes late). It was pretty cool but quite disturbing. There were many stories about young girls getting killed by guys who were mad at the girls for rejecting them. For example, the (really scary) picture above shows a man named the “Prague Iron Man” who strangled a girl he met in a shop because she didn’t accept his request to marry her. As he strangled her, she was apparently still able to breath enough to curse him so that he would turn into iron after death. If you look on the bottom right of the photo, you can see the virgin girl. It is said in Prague that his iron ghost appears every 100 years, and that the only way he will be freed is if a virgin girl sees him and forgives him. Our tour guide joked that there weren't enough virgin girls in Prague to make that likely.
After the ghost tour, I met up with some more friends from Princeton who happened to be in Prague (they are pictured above). I knew S and M, but I hadn’t met P even though he was in my year at Princeton. I still can’t believe how many people from my own class I have not yet gotten to know. P's girlfriend S was there, too, and the five of us went out to a couple bars and to the 5-story club. The best parts of the night were reminiscing about funny stories from college and dancing to music from the 80’s.
When I got back to my hotel, I almost cried with happiness about the fact that I had my own room (and my own bathroom!!) and a TV and shampoo and soap and carpeting. I have never been so grateful to be in a hotel room. It definitely made up for the horror of the previous night.
PERSONALITY QUIZ: WHICH GHOST OF PRAGUE ARE YOU?
Are you Hunger-Strike Girl, Iron Man, Headless Woman, Golem, or the Vain Countess?
1. What do you do when you wake up in the morning?
A: Daydream about marrying the person I have a crush on
B: Sleep is for the weak, so I don't need to wake up.
C: Organize a protest against child labor worldwide
D: Stare in the mirror and sigh
E: Swipe left on all my Tinder prospects
2. If you could have one super power, what would it be?
A: Being able to make the person I love fall in love with me
B: Don't need one
C: Changing other people's opinions so that they match mine
D: Getting followers on Insta magically whenever I want
E: Curing sick people
3. If you were a character from High School Musical, who would you be?
A: Troy
B: Ms. Darbus
C: Taylor
D: Sharpé
E: Gabriella
4. What's your favorite subject?
A: Literature, I'm a great love poet
B: Gym (let's get ripped)
C: History, and let's not repeat it!!
D: Science because my lab partner can do all the work
E: I'm great at everything, but I don't particularly care.
5. What's your dream vacation?
A: Walking through gardens with the love of my life.
B: Vacation is for the weak.
C: Traveling through Southern US with friends I meet along the way and knocking down all the Confederate flags
D: Spa and beach with my #squad (I hired my own personal Insta photographer for when I travel)
E: I'd travel alone to somewhere culturally rich--like Mexico, India, or China.
Mostly A's: Congrats! You're the Iron Man! Your passionate, romantic dreams were cute at first, but you took them a bit too far when you strangled the woman you love to death because she rejected you. You should probably go see a therapist.
Mostly B's: Yay! You're Golem. You were a stone monster, originally created to protect the Jews, but you became so entranced by your own strength that you attacked your own creator, Elijah. So, you were destroyed. :/
Mostly C's: Woohoo!! You're the Hunger-Strike Girl. You sat on a wall and didn't eat to protest the conditions of child labor and female education, and you're still siting there. Great will-power!
Mostly D's: Nice! You're the Vain Countess! You had a lot of fun bathing in milk and wearing shoes made out of bread, but sadly, because people around you were starving, a bunch of devils came and dragged you down to Hell. Now your stuck roaming the ministry, which can get pretty boring. Mostly E's: Great job! You're the Headless Woman. You're super hot and smart and popular, but you're pretty picky when it comes to men. You finally found someone you thought was good enough, and you got married. However, your husband disappeared, so after years of waiting, you married this other dude. When your husband finally came back and realized what had happened, he stabbed you to death and cut off your head. Now you walk around next to a cool Church, which isn't the worst place to be haunting.