Prague

Prague is a beautiful city, but I am sure that there were nine tourists for every Czech person walking around the downtown core.

'The reason that I had rushed so much through Eastern Europe was to meet my friend Brad here. His lab had paid for a hotel room for him, and I got to crash for free. The first day, I was so exhausted that I could barely move. I slept and bought some groceries and then met Brad later before he went off to his conference's banquet.

'The next day, Brad gave me his badge and then went to the main desk to get himself a replacement pass for his lost one. Every drug company with osteoporosis medication was there. One had a free juice bar. Another had a free cafe and Internet terminals. All of them had free stuff to give away if you took a quiz or played a game (that showcased their product.) I went into the main conference hall with brad and sat through two or three presentations by researchers. All the assembled scientists were interested in calcified tissues also known as bones. I could follow along a bit, but sine I am not up with which protein does what and which mineral occurs where in bone formation, I was smiling and nodding a lot. Back out in the foyer, I did a quiz and got a really cool outlet converter that works for most world plugs (but not Korean plugs). I also one a pilates workout band.

In the Afternoon, Brad and his colleges wandered around downtown. The thing that is remarkable about Prague is that all of the architecture is uniformly baroque. The city's never been bombed and hadn't suffered massive expansion making for a very beautifully preserved downtown. We walked had lunch at an inexpensive Italian restaurant and then made are way across the river where we strolled through a park with a peacock in it (being chased by a toddler). Our goal was to make it to a baroque church called St. Nicolas south of the river. The church was so gaudy that it looked fake. It was covered in marble and wooden carving covered in gold leaf. I commented to brad that real marble looks like it's made of plastic. About five minutes later he read that the marble pulpit we were looking at was made of fake marble. If anyone knows how fake marble was made hundreds of years ago, let us know.





We saw that there was a concert going on later. I wasn't keen initially,. but was glad we went. it was a small concert with organ, trumpet and soprano. The strange thing was that they performed from balcony so that we were left looking at the decorated walls and ceiling paintings.




Over the next couple days brad and I had a lot of fun. We ate, we drank, we slept and wanered around. On our last full day we went on a day trip to the town of Kutna Hora about 60 km from the city. Kutna Hora is significant because of the silver mines found underneath is in the 13th century. King Wenceslas II decided that the mine made the place the perfect spot for the royal mint and closed the dozen or so mints around the kingdom. This mint began making sliver coins called Groschens that were used throughout Europe and made until 1547. The Groschen was replaced by the Tolar made elsewhere in Bohemia (Czech Republic), which became the new widespread currency in Europe and eventually became the word Dollar by which the British referred to any silver coins weren't British (and may be why so many former colonies used the name Dollar to describe their alternative currency to the pound.)




The other really cool place that brad and I visited near Kutna Hora (and the real reason I suggested we went) was to see the Sedlec Ossuary. Sometime after the plague and a bunch of wars, a lot of dead bodies were left around and buried in shallow mass graves. A priest at the local parish church in Sedlec though this was a shame and exhumed the bodies and arranging their bones in 6 pyramids in the basement of the church (the ossuary). A couple hundred years later, another guy decided to take the bones from two of the pyramids and decorate the ossuary with them. There are bone chandeliers, crests, and other wall displays.







We spent the rest of our last day getting soaked in the rain, shopping for shoes and taking pictures with statues in a square near where a bar we drank at.