A bit of the doom and gloom, and beer...

I swear I meant to up-date this a little more often but, as you can probably imagine, things have been busy. In addition to this, weather has been in the 90s with no A/C anywhere... so we've all been exhausted! But, we've still managed to see/do some amazing things.

Last weekend we ended up making it to another brew-pub and the Vysehrad Cemetary. Now, I won't say much about the brew-pub because if you read Daniel's blog I'm sure he's written about it- I will mention that I had Nettle beer for the first time and thought it was AWESOME because it was bright green :)

The beer sampler at Pivovarsky Dum.

The cemetary, though was far more interesting for me.

The Vysehrad Cemetary is home to the resting places of such greats as Dvorak, Capek (the man who invented the word robot), and Mucha, to name a few. The most interesting part for me though was that on many of the graves, the top was built up so that it was like a planter. Many of the graves had beautifully carved headstones that were accented by flowers or other greenery spilling out over their edges. I thought it was a beautiful way to paint an image of life coming from death. It also had another amazing view of the city.

 The mosaic work here is phenomenal.

After that, we went on a tour of the five synagogues in town with the teacher of my Jewish Studies class. I didn't really take pictures, but I will tell you I was extremely moved. The Pinkas Synagogue is actually a monument to those Czechs who died during the Holocaust. The entire first floor of the building is white but covered in the names of the dead. I was in there for literally about a minute and a half before I was just completely overwhelmed with emotion. To think, that all those names added up to only about 1% of those who were murdered.

I must say, one thing I truly respect about the Czechs I've met is their intimate relationship with their history. No one mentions Hitler without also calling him a bastard-in a weird way, I really respect their frankness.

After that, we walked around the Old Jewish Cemetery, which was another insanely moving place. It is one of the oldest cemeteries of its kind and also in the best condition. The insane thing is that they're all jagged, here's a picture I stole off-line:

Among the thousands, buried here is the legendary Rabbi Loew, fabled creator of the Golem.

After that, we went to the other synagogues which had some beautiful textiles and were really interesting... but I must say, the first place we went has stayed with me the most.

So, it's been a bit of an emotional week... Saturday we'll be going to Terezin. I've been fighting with myself about whether or not I wanted to go. When it comes down to it, I don't want to go but I feel I need to. I may not be a religious Jew but I feel the need to pay respect to my heritage because, as always, the more I learn about it the more I want to learn.

And with that, we're almost half-way done with our time here! Unbelievable!