Prague: Week 3

On Sunday, November 8th, I realized we had only one more foreign Sabbath. I was seized with alternating and emphatic emotions. The previous two weeks I had longed to be home in my own room, my own kitchen, with the kids in school and the freedom to do what I wanted to do. Now, realizing that in 14 days I would be flying home to the States, I felt guilty for my homesickness and ungrateful for the amazing experience that was about to end. I worried that I had wasted time, that I should have done more--but I also don't know what that would have looked like. When I think carefully, I hope I can say I have done the best I could with the time and circumstances given me. And where I didn't do the best, I hope the Lord will forgive me as I repent of squandering.

So our last week in Prague was spent trying to fill time and keep the kids entertained. There was ample time for playing on the computer and tablet, especially when I took off on my own one day, but mostly we just did fun stuff.

DinoPark: Right next door to the football stadium is a new mall with an open air dinosaur exhibit on the rooftop. Some of the "life-size" dinosaurs were animatronic, some you could play on, but otherwise it was pretty small. There was also a great playground up there, both a traditional climbing structure and a musical section where pulling and pushing various rods and levers made different sounds.

European malls can be like mini-cities, with lots of play space added to the eating and shopping space. They target the moms with young kids, that's for sure.

The view from the playground of the DinoPark with the soccer stadium behind.

The girls loved this dinosaur you could play on, but Joe was so tired that day he wouldn't even smile for a photo. 

You could climb inside this T-Rex head and pretend you were being eaten alive. Once Isaac did it, the other kids of course had to have their picture taken, too. 

My hatching dinosaurs.

This mall also had a storefront that was just for driving kid cars around. For one CZK per minute, Linda, Abby and Joe could ride on any of the motorized cars they wanted (Isaac was bummed he was too big--I told him he could go choose a new Lego set at the toy store instead--he was indecisive and went home with nothing.) Then we also took a ride around the inside of the mall on a miniature double-decker bus. Can you tell I was willing to pay for just about anything if it was fun and diverting? I was never that kind of mom at home.

The top of this mini-bus was so narrow I could barely fit my legs in and almost had to hang them off the railing. It was a pretty fun ride, although we felt pretty darn conspicuous riding around inside the mall with Czech children's songs blaring from the vehicle's loudspeaker. Good thing it was on a weekday in the late morning and the mall was mostly empty. 

Gutovka: Mary, and lately Isaac, had been very patient about going to parks and playgrounds that were primarily of interest to the younger kids, and having little to do themselves while we were there. Isaac was great at entertaining other little kids at the park by getting them to chase him, but Mary was especially bored, and often. I stumbled onto a website that listed parks in Prague by age group, and I was surprised to see a park particularly for tweens and early teenagers. It was a little way out of the city on the tram, but it had a skating rink, a climbing wall, a water park (which was already turned off for the season), and a high ropes course. There were also regular play structures and a smaller ropes course for the younger kids, as well. It was creative and interestingly laid out, and even though it was cold we kept ourselves busy there for a few hours.

The trams were often very full, but Linda found a place to sit on the floor between two seats.

These climbing ropes led up inside these green pods, where the kids could sit and play. Unfortunately for the younger ones, the space between the lower ladder and the pods was taller than they were, so they had a lot of trouble getting inside. 

Mary was brave and tried out the ropes course--she said it was the hardest one she had ever done. She had to work quite hard to get through some of the obstacles and said her muscles were sore afterward. This photo was taken when she missed  grabbing the tether at the end of the zip line and got stuck halfway back up the line. We all--including Mary--had a good laugh as the employee had to push her to the end with a broom.

Joe was very upset that he couldn't do the ropes course. He'd been able to do the one in Italy, and he couldn't understand that this one was too big for him. He cried for at least 30 minutes--the entire time the older three were working the course--and wouldn't settle down. It is always entertaining to watch Joe throw tantrums, but I also felt bad because I knew he was tired and sick of traveling. 

We didn't spend too long on the roller-skating rink, because the kids got tired of falling down a lot. But it was a good first effort for the younger three who hadn't skated before. I tried to help Joe and Abby, but we discovered that they stayed on their feet much better when they worked on their own. I cringed every time someone fell down, worried they would hit their head and get a concussion. (A year ago our family went to the ER four times in three months for head trauma, two of which were my own--the thought of concussions now makes me physically sick.) I masked my concern by laughing at them as they fell. Such a nice mom. There are probably more videos here than you'd care to look at, but here they are.

Karlstejn Castle: Our last family field trip (sans Ed, of course, who had to work) in the Czech Republic was to the 14th century Karlstejn Castle, a significant castle during the early centuries of the Holy Roman empire. It's also situated on a steep mountainside, with a small village in the beautiful river valley below. When we arrived, we discovered you had to either hike two kilometers up the hill or pay for a taxi service. I had learned by now that the best way to ruin a day trip with my kids is to march them too far at the beginning. So we splurged and thoroughly enjoyed a wagon ride up the hill. The kids were enamored with the horses, of course. It was fun to make them happy.

The view from the lower village.

It was also fun to see Isaac cuddling with Joe to keep him from falling out of the wagon.

Our horses.

The wagon took us almost all the way, but we had to walk the last few hundred meters. The kids sprinted it.

The downward view from the main level.

The upward view from the main level.

We had to wait about forty-five minutes before our tour started, so we had some lunch and the kids ran around the courtyard. They were loud and crazy, but not particularly obnoxious, although some of the castle staff had to tell them to stop climbing up the walls.

Abby, Joe and Linda.

Joe got tired. Actually, by this time in our trip, Joe was often tired. I realize now he was just as tired as the rest of us. But he always trudged on--a good, steady little traveler, nearly always with a happy disposition. Thank heaven for that.

The tour was completely uninteresting to five of the six of us, and the other one of us was too distracted by the other five's behavior to get to listen to much of what the tour guide had to say. But the guide was a sweet young girl who tried to draw the kids in by letting them be "the key keeper" and lock and unlock the doors between the rooms. Abby loved it.

Joe was loud and goofy and I couldn't get him to hold still. The king's bed was a beautiful piece.

One of the best parts of our trip to Karlstejn was the blacksmith right outside the front gate. It was a little tourist shop, and while it sold many more things (cheap trinkets, particularly) than the smith made himself, the kids had fun buying little swords with jewel-encrusted handles. It was there that I got my one real souvenir of Europe: a bell. I've always thought it would be fun to have a dinner bell out on the porch to call the kids, and this one was plenty loud with a simple and lovely design. I was excited to have something for myself to bring home.

Terezin: One of the most important things for me to see during this European tour was an internment or extermination camp. My master's thesis required extensive readings in trauma theory, cultural memory, and the use of narrative (i.e. writing one's stories) in mitigating and coping with trauma. Holocaust literature and experience were the foundation of these ideas, so I studied the memoirs of Holocaust survivors as I was writing my thesis about African women and their own narrations of personal trauma. I knew I that in visiting a concentration camp I didn't want to take my kids (maybe Mary and Isaac could have handled it), and Ed declined to go, so I went alone and was glad to have time to absorb the experience at my own pace. It was sobering, of course, but I'm grateful I went.

I took a day to myself and went about an hour north of Prague to visit Terezin, a centuries-old village that during WWII became a ghetto and internment camp for Jews from all over the Czech Republic. From Terezin, Jews would be shipped to places like Auschwitz. Before the German occupation, the fortress outside town had been used as a military barracks and a work/prison camp for political prisoners, and the village had been a thriving community. Hitler forced the original residents to leave the town and crammed tens of thousands of Jews into a village meant for hundreds, building substandard barracks for housing. Propaganda films were created and shipped around the empire showing Terezin as a happy community of Jews, never mentioning the disease, lack of food and hygiene, not to mention being stripped of their human rights.

A massive and imposing sculpture at one end of the Jewish graveyard. The bits of color around the rocks at the base are prayers and mementos left by visitors.

This fortress was built in the late 1700s and turned into a prison camp shortly afterward. It was an ideal place for the Germans to house their work camp.

Before WWII, however, this prison housed a very famous criminal: Gavrilo Princip, the man who assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand, precipitating the start of World War I. Princip attempted to commit suicide when he was caught but his cyanide capsule was past its sell-by date. Because on the day of the assassination he was one day shy of twenty years old, he couldn't be given the death penalty and was sentenced to the maximum penalty of twenty years in the Terezin prison. Treated badly and kept in horrible conditions, he died less that four years later. Today, Serbian nationalists keep a memorial in the cell Princip inhabited at Terezin.

This is the entry courtyard into the internment camp. Prisoners were processed in the offices on the left, then proceeded toward the end of the walk to the archway. 

I've heard this quotation many times ("Work makes you free"), and thought that would make a great quote for my kids when they were whining about their Saturday chores. I hadn't realized it was posted at the entrance of every German WWII work camp, so I'm sure now that I will never use it on my kids.

These beds would hold eight people across in each of the five sections, on each of the three levels, totaling 120 per room. The room only extends about a meter and a half to the left of the photo, and there was one sink for all of them to share.

These newer barracks were built later in the war, and at one end of the courtyard was a stage for public executions. 

These newer barracks had larger rooms, which simply meant they were proportionally more overcrowded. At one point this room housed approximately five hundred men.

This room was built in anticipation of visits by Red Cross inspectors, so that the world would think the camp was treating its prisoners humanely. The inspectors never came, and the camp guards kept this room locked. It was never used by any of the prisoners, who rarely if ever were allowed to bathe or wash themselves. To me, this room highlights the inhumanity of these camps. Jews were allowed nothing good, even when it was available at no inconvenience to their captors.

The village of Terezin today is a sad and depressing place. Many of the barrack buildings from the ghetto period remain and are run-down. I drove around the small town in just a few minutes and the state of things was horribly sad. There are currently local residents, but I can't imagine trying to live there today with the specters of the past haunting this space.

Peeling paint and dark, uninspired architecture contribute to the sadness of this town's history.

The city walls surrounding the town are still mostly intact, bordered by beautiful farmland. 

Terezin was the reason for my day out, but despite the sadness of its history, I enjoyed very much my day away from the kids and husband to regroup. I listened to loud sing-along feminist country music and marveled at the beautiful countryside. As I was leaving Terezin, I wasn't quite ready to return to the family yet, and in the distance I saw an intriguing, solitary hill topped with towers.

Wouldn't you be intrigued by those two turrets off in the distance? What king or lord held that mountain? For how long? Who owns it now?

I decided to investigate, so I wandered on side roads until I got close enough to stop in a village and ask a lovely young mother strolling her baby for directions. She pointed me to a small road out of town, up a hill--a road that soon became a dirt track through a sheep pasture. The trees and buses slowly began to close in on either side, and the trail became narrower and steeper. I also noticed the fields that appeared through the bushes on either side were becoming slightly mist-covered.

A family of deer running through a field.

The towers through the encroaching dusk.

My Google map registered this trail/track/road, but after sliding sideways into a small thicket, and realizing the trail at the top of a small rise I struggled to navigate would be even worse, I decided I shouldn't push my luck too far. Besides, it was getting dark and I didn't even know where I was. Yes, I had a $0 deductible on my car insurance, but let's be reasonable. It took some of my fanciest driving to avoid the brambles of the thicket as I slid back and forth trying to right myself on the trail, but thanks to heartfelt prayer I eventually got back on the "road" and headed down the mountain. I was a little worried the grass on the track would be slippery and I would slide headfirst into something less forgiving than my little thicket, but gratefully I kept righted and pointed straight all the way back to the village. I still haven't told Ed about my little adventure, I think mostly because the solitariness of that day was precious. I guess he's bound to find out now.

The closest I could get to my towers. If it had been earlier in the day I would have left the car and hiked to the top.

So there you have it: three weeks in Prague. Ed worked very hard, long hours each day, while the kids and I mostly just wanted to go home. But it's a beautiful country and I would like to go back again. There were so many things I didn't get to explore.