Dancing Lessons from God

Dawning

Posted on Monday, July 15, 2013 | 2 Comments

The morning we left Prague my mom and I woke up at the crack of dawn to take some photos of Prague that not a lot of people have the chance, or really the desire, to get. We were out of the apartment before 5am, and it was probably very obvious that we had woken up about 2 minutes prior to walking out the door, but it's not like there were many people out, so whatevs man. The only people who were out and about were drunk (some interesting experiences with that...) so I'm guessing they probably didn't even notice. Or they won't remember it if they did.

But I digress. I think I can count on two hands the number of people we saw on our little excursion, which was awesome because you could really appreciate the buildings and the monuments without having to push everyone out of your way. Or get frustrated when that stupid tourist steps right into your picture. Because you are obviously not a tourist, with your big huge camera, massive bag (carrying your guide book, anti-bac, lenses, napkins, etc.), and comfortable walking shoes. Oh wait....

Right about here is when two guys came up to my mom and I and asked if we knew of any bars that were open. Really? 5 am and you want to continue to get drunk? Why not just go to bed?! Young people....

Yep, definitely look like I got out of bed two minutes before walking out the door. Oh well. I need some kind of proof that I was crazy enough to get out of bed this early.

And my mom, of course looking bright and chipper, unlike me. Haha.

And behold! The fruits of our labor: Karl's Bridge with basically no one but a few pigeons to keep us company! The only time I've seen it this empty was when it was closed off during the floods, and even then there were more police officers on it then the total amount of people that were walking on the bridge while my mom and I took our time snapping some photos.

Luckily there were these three younger people on the bridge when we first got there who were able to take a photo of my mom and I together. Then they also cleared off the bridge and my mom and I were truly the only ones there. It was totally awesome seeing this other side of Prague. A quiet and peaceful side. Huh... who'd a thunk it...

After this post I'll post one more for this little trip with my mom and McKenna. We also went to Dresden and Poland, so I'll share some of that in a bit.

Labels: Au Pair, Czech Republic, Photography, Prague, Travel

Birthday Antics

Posted on Sunday, July 14, 2013 | 0 Comments

Ok, I will admit that I am not a very good blogger. Considering it's been about a month and I've been on several trips since I last posted and I haven't written a thing about any of them. Better late than never, right?

Anyway, last month my mom and sister (McKenna) went on a roadtrip to visit me in Prague for my birthday (in case anyone doesn't know, my family is living in Harrogate, England right now, so no driving through the Atlantic Ocean was necessary). My mom's friend Heather also met us there with her daughter Abby and niece Lucy. We had a really nice time, and I had a lot of fun showing my mom and sister around the town I've been living in for the last two months.

The first day we went to the Alfons Mucha exhibition in the Obecní dům (Municipal House), which is a collection of Mucha's prints that a famous Czech tennis player had collected over the years and displayed in his home in Florida. He agreed to set up this exhibition in Prague so people could see the impressive amount of work Mucha did for various advertising commissions. We weren't allowed to take any photos, hence me trying to describe this with words, rather than just show you the pictures. It was pretty cool though, and I think even McKenna, who hates museums, enjoyed going to it. Of course, Alfons Mucha is one of her favorite artists, so it would have been hard for her to not have liked it.

That night we ate at a Thai restaurant and walked around Prague at night, which was great because I'm not usually.... actually I'm never in Prague at night, so I finally got to get some cool shots of all the buildings all lit up and at their prettiest. I love seeing cities at night because there's just something almost magical about it. Peaceful... (well, as peaceful as Prague can get, anyway. There are many things Prague is, but quiet is not one of them...)

The day of my birthday we walked down Karls Bridge and up to the castle. We took a tour of some of the buildings on the castle grounds, then grabbed lunch and went to the Museum of Communism.

St. Vitus Cathedral on the castle grounds.

Left to right: Me, Mom, McKenna, Heather, Lucy, Abby.

The Tyn (pronounced teen) Church on the Old Square.

For my birthday we went to Hard Rock Cafe. My first American meal since I left the United States back at the beginning of May, and it was awesome. As much as I love Czech food, and other traditional foods around this awesome Earth of ours, sometimes it's nice to just have a burger, you know?

The Old Square at night.

The next day we went to the Jewish Quarter and saw some of the synagogues and the Old Cemetery. I've been a couple times now, and each time the Old Cemetery and the Spanish Synagogue have been my favorite. The Jews were confined to this area of town, so in the Old Cemetery they didn't have enough room to bury people after a while. Whenever they ran out of room, they had to lay another layer of dirt on top of everything, pull up the existing tomb stones to ground level, and then bury people in the new layer. So it's literally hundreds of tombstones squished next to each other everywhere. It's a very somber place, but very peaceful.

The Spanish Synagogue. It's so intricately decorated and the colors are gorgeous! (My mom was like "Maddie, take a picture of that so I can paint my dining room that color!" Our house is literally inspired from all of our travels, not even kidding.)

Eating some awesome traditional Czech food. Meat and potatoes, what's not to like?

And I may be way over enthusiastic about this, but there's this place Nikola showed me downtown that serves soft serve ice cream that is seriously the best soft serve ever. And I know I'm definitely overrating this, but whatever. It's delicious. You can get strawberry and banana, or chocolate and yoghurt. Not chocolate and vanilla. Chocolate and yoghurt. It's. So. Good.

Yay! I'm older! I do not feel any older, and I definitely don't look like I've aged since I was 18, as everyone likes to tell me. "Yeah, I've actually just graduated from university, not high school" is how that conversation generally ends.

After Prague, my mom, McKenna, and I split with the Jarmans and headed out for Germany and Poland. Considering the ridiculous number of photos on this post already, I'll split this little trip into a few posts so it's all a little more digestable.

Right now I'm visiting my family in Harrogate, England and I've really been enjoying this time with all of us together (except Megan and Chadd). Christmas will be great when we're all together for real. Can't wait!

Labels: Au Pair, Czech Republic, Holiday, Prague, Travel

Vyšehrad

Posted on Wednesday, June 19, 2013 | 0 Comments

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...

There were also some pretty epic views of Prague Castle from the Academy of Art's windows. I felt like I fit in with all the hipsters with my fancy DSLR camera. Although maybe I was a little too mainstream with my 2012 camera, instead of an SLR camera from 1952...