Last Wednesday I met up with my friend Nikola, and she took me around to see some parts of Prague I hadn't been able to see yet. So first we went to Vyšehrad, which afforded some pretty great views of Prague... and the rather muddy river. Since the floods it's been pretty brown and gross, but at least it's not causing any more damage, or messing with the bus lines and making it difficult for me and everyone else reliant on public transport to get around. 

Vyšehrad is the site of an old fort that was built in the 10th century. In the 11th century it was remodeled into a royal residence. The leaders of Prague switched between using this castle and Prague castle as the main seat of power many times. It has undergone a lot of renovations and in the 17th century the Habsburgs turned it into a training ground for the army. Now there are a few old buildings (including the oldest one in Prague from the 11th century), a cool church, and a really cool cemetery a la Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, where all the famous people are buried.

Below is Smetana's grave. He's a pretty cool composer who wrote the song 'Vltava' which is a really good classical piece. I've posted a video of the score at the end of this post for you guys to listen to if you are interested. I would say the best part is after about 09:40 if you don't want to listen to the whole score, but I think it is interesting to listen to the whole piece. It is about the river Vltava which runs through the Czech Republic and through Prague, so it starts out very quiet like the small spring where it starts, and ends very loud and epic as it makes it way as a large powerful river through the city of Prague. A very cool progression.

According to the Wikipedia page, Alfons Mucha is also buried here. I didn't see his grave, so I think I'm going to have to go back and look a little harder for him. There were some things I think I missed while I was there, so I could use another day to explore the area some more. Maybe try and take some creative/conceptual photos over there as well...

After Vyšehrad, Nikola took me to Palladium, which is a pretty cool mall in an old building with lots of great shopping. I think I will take my mom and McKenna there when they come to visit (which is in two days! Bah! I can't wait!). We window shopped for a little while and she showed me some good stores to buy cheap, but good clothes/shoes/etc. Then we got dinner at this Italian restaurant, which was pretty good, before heading over to a hipster party the Academy of Art's end of semester art show. There were some pieces that I did not understand (like a pile of dirt on the floor, or a tv playing a clip of someone popping a balloon over and over...), but there were also some really cool things that if they were for sale I would have purchased them right then and there. There was this cool crib someone had made to look like a nest. I so would have bought it to use as a prop for some cool conceptual work for my photography...