The Hotel Salvator - the first nice place we've stayed in. And because its Prague, its still cheap!

Mon 10-Sep-2001 Since this was our last night at the hostel, we had to get up early to checkout. We went to the Salvator and checked in. The suite wasn't ready so we wend to the supermarket to get some breakfast, where we had a bit of culture shock. I noticed that when I was in the checkout line, the cashier was very quick to place a divider between my stuff and the person in front's stuff. Later on I found out that when Chris was in the checkout, he had some trouble because his stuff was counted with the previous person, and the cashier could not void them, which caused an interesting scuffle. We then went back to the hotel to actually get our room. For once, the room was actually quite nice. We ended up splitting up; Corey went off to mail a package and to investigate trains to Vienna and Chris went off to Prague Castle. Erik was very lethargic so I ended up waiting for him. By the time we were ready to leave, Corey got back and he informed us, much to our dismay, that there no overnight trains to Vienna. Therefore, our first thing to do was to make sure that we had accomodations there. We went to a pay phone and got reservations at a hostel. After that, we headed off to Josefov - the Jewish quarter in Prague.

Prague formerly had a very large Jewish population; as a result of the Holocaust only a few thousand now remain. In spite of that, there is a very extensive Jewish museum that documents Jewish life in Prague. The museum is actually a collection of synagogues. The first one we went in was Pinkas Synagogue. The first thing in there is the wall. Similar to the Vietnam memorial in DC, it contains the names of the Jews of Bohemia that perished in the Holocaust. The upper floor also has an interesting exhibit; the artwork of children who would later die in the Holocaust. Apparently when the Nazis started deporting Jews from Bohemia and Moravia, a small garrison town to the north called Terezin (ironically Terezin was originally built to protect Bohemia from the Prussians) became an intermediate stop for Bohemian Jews before Auschwitz. A teacher named Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (who would eventually die in October of 1944 at Auschwitz) encouraged the children to draw. The children's artwork was preserved here. Typically depicting things like trains and the people around them, each drawing was accompanied by three dates; the date of birth, date of the drawing, and the date of death. All and all, quite a somber experience. The other places considered to be part of the Jewish Museum focused more on the pre-WWII era, back to medieval times. The cemetery was interesting because the ground is raised; bodies are stacked on top of each other. And also, much like most cathedrals, the synagogues are very beautiful.

More of the streets of Prague

Instant tourist attraction - just add water!

Afterwards, we all met up for food. Over my veto, the guys chose to go to a vegetarian place called Country Life. So I skipped out and went to the main tourist traps of the Old Town Square; the torture museum and spider & scorpion gallery. They were both overpriced by Czech standards (140 Kc and 100 Kc respectively). The torture museum was cool but the spider and scorpion gallery was iffy. What they both had in common is that they gave the impression that they were "instant tourist attractions" - someone had a bunch of torture implements or spiders and just put them up in a building in the tourist center of Prague. I then met up with the others and browsed the old town square some more, then we decided to go bowling.

I was initially opposed to the idea of going bowling; I do that all the time back home, but when we saw what the alley was like, I changed my tune. The bowling alley was bewilderingly primative; the pins were at the end of strings that were used to pick up and reset the pins. The lane itself was elevated and you could not walk up to it. Very weird indeed. It was then back to the hotel. After a few chess games with Erik, we (except Corey) decided to go clubbing. We set foot to a club for which Erik had a card. After a long walk, we found the place. Because the Czech Republic is not nearly as fascistic as America with regard to substance laws, Chris and I were able to try some absinthe. After taking a shot, we both found the stuff to be quite foul and putrid. In spite of that, the overall experience turned out to not be very exciting, mainly because it was a Monday night. We tried two other places with the same results before going back to the hotel.

The single most bizarre bowling alley that I have ever seen

The front of the Mucha Museum

Tue 11-Sep-2001 We had a lazy morning and we checked out of the hotel, and we split up, choosing to meet at the train station at 5 PM. Chris and I went out on our own to the train station to get tickets (unlike the others, we didn't have Eurail passes). We found out that our train was to leave from a different station (Praha Holešovice) rather than the main station (Praha hlavní nádrazí). We set out on the unnerving task of finding them so that we could make it to the correct city that night. Finding Erik was easy, but relaying the info to Corey required a few trips to internet cafes. After resolving that issue and eating lunch at a nice pizza place, Erik and I visited the Mucha Museum. Alphonse Mucha was a very influential art nouveau artist from Prague. Even an uncultured buffoon like me recognized much of his work. Afterwards, it was off to the train station, where I bought some cool souvenirs (a short Japanese sword and a flask with a Soviet insignia on it, both obviously mass produced for tourists), and we caught the train. On the train, I spent a good amount of time catching up on my journal and playing chess with Erik.

I was just getting ready to close my entry for the day by preemptively describing what I thought would become the "uneventful arrival" at Vienna when we crossed into Austria. First the Czech border guards came and stamped our passports, and then the Austrian border guard came by and stamped out passports. After stamping our passports, he said "So you are Americans...". After we affirmed that, he asked "Did you hear the news?".

"Did you hear the news?"

Oooohhhh boy. Were we in for a revelation.

After saying "no", he proceeded to tell us about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He didn't speak English very well so it was hard to get the full good story. Erik and I were in one cabin and were just staring in disbelief, and we got up to go to the cabin where Corey and Chris were to break the news to them. Chris stated that he thought the guard was pulling a fast one on us, but I wasn't so sure.

Later on, the border guard came back with a German language newspaper with pictures. While I do not speak German to any significant degree, I was able to pick out tidbits like "Boeing 767". Wow. For someone who is used to having virtually immediate access to a TV or the Internet, to have to wait a few hours to get the news was a very unnerving and anxious experience.

A few hours later, we arrived in Vienna and after we got a taxi to our hostel (ironically called "Believe it or not"), we set out for an internet cafe, which seem to be somewhat less common in Vienna when compared with other European cities. We ended up finding a conventional bar that happened to have a computer and a modem. After spending a bit of time getting the machine to work with the help of the bartender, we sat down and read in horror all of the news, and comiserated with the bartender. I'm normally very desensitized, but I was in shock. In the process of all this, I downed two beers and three vodka shots. Then, we went back to the room, all called home to check in, and got some sleep.

Wed 12-Sep-2001 Woke up early, played solitaire while the others slept. I took a walk to see if I could find an English language newspaper, without success. When I got back, everyone was almost ready. When we left, our first order of business was to find an internet cafe to catch up on the news. After riding around on the U-Bahn and making a brief visit to Stepanhof (St. Stephen's Cathedral), we went to the Virgin Megastore, which had internet terminals. When the manager saw a bunch of Americans checking up on the news, he got a very shocked look on his face and immediately said "Free of charge", which I thought was very considerate. After we were done, he asked us for our perspective on the incident. His suggestion for the US was that we should deport all Arabs (where didn't matter as long as it wasn't Europe) and nationalize their property, to which I expressed my disapproval. This incident and a few others would later contribute to an impression that the Austria overall is a bit more right wing than most nations in Europe. We then went to a store called Saturn, which reminded me a great deal of the TechnoMart in Seoul. Overall, pretty nice. We then had lunch at Schnitzelwirt Schmidt, a place apparently famous for very large portions. I had the Zigeunerschnitzel, which was very good. We came back to the hostel; everyone seemed pretty bummed out largely due to events in the US. While the others napped, I went back to the Virgin Megastore to get my news and email fix. I also used MSN messenger to briefly chat with the folks back at work, who expressed an interest if the shutdown in air travel will leave me stranded in Europe. My attitude was that the worst that could happen is... I have to spend more time on vacation :-). On the way back, I realized that the neighborhood between the Virgin Megastore and the hostel had quite a few nifty shops selling medieval weapons and other interesting things. I ended buying a nice new wallet. Later on, Chris, Erik and I went off to get tickets for a show, but I had to run back to the hostel because I forgot my transit ticket, and I failed to meet up with them. It would later turn out that it didn't matter, because they were unable to find the ticket place. So we ended up passing the evening away at a billiard cafe

Our tiny room at "Believe it or Not"	Stepanhof (St. Stephen's Cathedral),	Huh huh... that sign says... (supposedly, my taking this photgraph earned me a scowl from some random Viennese)