Save the bananas

So, for those of you that haven't heard: don't eat bananas. This has been a running joke this week at CHP, but in all seriousness... apparently there is a fungus or mold that is attacking the banana population, and since they take a long time to grow, if we continue to consume them at our current rate, the bananas that we typically eat will become extinct. There are, however, other less-commonly consumed varieties of bananas, so try to eat those instead. This has been a topic of much joking and debating just about every day of class this week (the frat boys here really like their bananas) so it is in fact related to me being in Prague.

Anyway... it has been a long, eventful week in Prague. We have had countless hours of Czech language and more 3.5 hour walking tours than one could ever hope for, haha. On one field trip this week, we went to visit the crypt at the orthodox church of cyril and methodius. This crypt was the secret living quarters of czech soldiers during world war II who assassinated Heydrich. They slept in the niches which used to house the coffins of dead priests, but the soldiers were eventually discovered by the Nazis and murdered there.

Another field trip took us on a tram, then a bus, then a long walk up a huge hill which led to a bunch of steps which led to.... a relatively pointless statue of a man on a horse.

Then this weekend brought some very interesting day trips. First there was an action-packed Saturday on which we went to a romanesque church in a random town, to Kutna Hora, to the bone chapel, and to another random town where we took a nature hike to a prehistoric settlement.

The romanesque church was beautiful, and of course, super old.

So then we continued on to Kutna Hora, a pretty mining town in the Czech countryside, where we saw a high gothic cathedral and had a 2 hour lunch break. You can check facebook for pictures of Kutna Hora and the Cathedral. The most interesting part of the town, however, proved to be the town nutter / drunkard. I have no idea who this guy was, where he came from, or what he was doing. He was a fairly young (probably about our age) Czech guy, and we first encountered him in a square at the end of our walking tour. He came up to us with a beer in hand (at about noon, btw) exclaiming that you couldn't drink too much czech beer because it is very stong and will make you vomit on the street which is "illegal". He then offered for us to try his beer (no thanks).

Then later, after having a delicious lunch at a pizzeria, we were walking back to the bus when we met up with some other people from our program. Guess who was with them? Yup, the random drunk boy. He was talking all sorts of nonsense, saying that it was illegal to throw trash in the trashcans, etc. He kept claiming to be part of our group and that he was coming with us. He drank Becca's coffee (eww). He followed us all the way back to our bus. For a while, our Student Assistant, Petr, managed to block the guy from getting on the bus, but eventually he found his way on and sat down. He was very amusing for a while, but the whole situation was also very strange. He decided to have 10 minutes of silence, so he set his cell phone alarm. He told Becca that they should get married. He also claimed to be the only "normal" czech person that we had met. This went on for a while, and it was hilarious to see the reaction of other kids from the program returning to the bus (most of whom remembered seeing the guy earlier). Eventually, when our professor got back, he kicked the guy of the bus (which the crazy guy wasn't too happy about). Quite a strange time.

After all that excitement, the day was still far from over. Next we went to the bone church, which was a small chapel decorated entirely with human bones. Most of the skeletons belonged to victims of the plague.

There are more pictures of this place on facebook. It was pretty cool, but also pretty creepy. Then we went to another small town in the czech countryside on our way back to Prague. We stopped to take a nature hike up to a prehistoric settlement. There was basically a large rock of mythological importance, and a hole in the ground that used to be a sacred lake of the settlement. There really wasn't much to see there, but it was a nice walk, a nice view of the countryside, and a great view looking back down over the town.

Today, Sunday, was day 2 of fieldtrips outside of Prague. Today we went to Terezín, a small city a little over an hour from Prague that served as a Jewish Ghetto / work camp during WWII. Needless to say, the mood of today's trip was significantly depressing. We went to two museums and saw a small Jewish prayer room. The second museum had lots of artwork that was done by inhabitants of the Ghetto. It got to be emotionally exhausting as the end of almost every little plaque with biographical information about the talented artists ended with "until he/she was transported to a concentration camp and exterminated in 194#." Most of us finished up at the museum earlier than our teacher had anticipated, so Marissa, David, and I went to find the cemetary and crematorium. Thankfully, Terezín was not a "final solution" camp, but unfortunately many people did still die from the poor hygiene and crowded living conditions. These people were sent to the on-site crematorium, which was a very creepy place to visit. We could only handle the huge furnaces and the scary looking autopsy tables for a few minutes, but I'm still glad that we had a chance to go see it. I think that it's important to witness these places firsthand, however unpleasant they might be.

Anyway, this blog entry has gotten to be about as long as the week has been. Did I forget to mention that both of the day trips began at 8am? Yeah that's right, 8am on satuday AND sunday. So, I'm quite exhausted, and I need to study for my Czech test tomorrow.

Na shledanou!