Last Day in the Czech Republic

Helloooo from Prague!

Okay, so I know that I said I'd update yesterday, but with all of our important stuff to do (and by that I mean napping again), I never got around to it.  Sorry :-(

So we started our day with music class, then we went to Prague Castle for a tour for art class.  They have this incredible gothic cathedral there called St. Vitus, which was hands-down my favorite cathedral that we've seen in Europe.  The Castle also has incredible views of the whole city and the river, so we stayed up there for lunch before walking down the hill.  After that we went to find what's called the "John Lennon Wall," which is basically this giant wall filled with graffiti about peace and love and the Beatles.  It was really cool--there were words from people from all over the world all talking about the same concepts.  Sadly, though, I forgot to put my battery in my camera yesterday, so there isn't any photo documentation.

After the wall (and another English-language bookstore) we came back to the hotel for our afternoon naps.  Last night most of the group decided to go on another organized pub crawl, so we headed out after a quick dinner of kebab to go there (Note: I'm going to miss kebab/schwarma/gyro/whatever SO MUCH when I go back home.  It's the best fast food EVER.).  The pub crawl was fun--I met people from all over the place (Bermuda, Oxford, New Jersey... it was an interesting mixture), which is always a good time.

This morning we had our last music class before our final (eek!) and then went to Terazin, a fortress that was converted into a prison by the Nazis during their occupation of what is now the Czech Republic.  This prison was primarily used for intellectuals, rabble-rousers, and Jews who refused to follow Nazi policies regarding identification and registration (it was also where Gavrilo Princip, the man who assasinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was imprisoned until his death).  One of the major Jewish ghettos of this region was also connected to the prison, but we didn't have time to go down there and see the museum, which I was kind of disappointed about.

One of the most interesting things we learned today was that once the Russians liberated Terazin, they then converted it into their own prison and locked up many of the same people who the Nazis had already been holding there.  Several years later the compound was converted into the historical site that it is today, but until 1989 (and the Velvet Revolution) the tour guides were closely monitored by Soviet officials.  They weren't allowed to mention the ghetto or the Jewish imprisonment at all; they were only supposed to discuss the famous communists who had been held there by the Germans.  Hm.

After our tour there we headed back to our hotel where we got lunch.  We're now all in the lobby blogging, although I should probably head upstairs and pack (and take another nap, let's face it).  Tonight we're finally getting to see La Traviatta, which is kind of acting as the culmination of our music class.  I'm so excited--I've seen it before, but hopefully this will be a much larger-scale production.  Tomorrow we leave to drive back west...we'll be staying overnight in Strasbourg, France tomorrow and then getting to Bruges, Belgium the next day.   After that it's just finals and hopping the channel to Oxford.  Time flies, eh?

Anyway, lots of love,

Dara