Day 16 (Mon) - Prague [Czech]

Hostel life can fun pretty fun - last night I spent alternately putting up with a dour, older grumpy, very unattractive German woman I nicknamed "The Frau," and flirting and telling ghost stories to 4 excitable Brazilian girls. The smaller co-ed dorm rooms can be pretty interesting. And no, nothing happened, unless it was between the girls and the Frau, after I left in the morning.

Later, I met up with my new friends from Salzburg for lunch. We bought tickets for one of Prague's famous Black Light Theaters later in the day and then went to tour the Jewish Ghetto.

Apparently, some time ago, one of the Popes (I think there were two or three at this time) decided that since the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, so they could no longer live in the same parts of the city as Christians. So all the Jews of Prague moved to a muddy, low-lying and frequently flooded section of town. The conditions were really quite terrible, plus they had to wear identification (like a bright yellow hat, or a star of david on their back), had to be back by a curfew time or they would be punished, and could not work, except for money lending.

Well, the Jews embraced their situation and built a fabulous little community that includes several of the oldest Jewish synagogues in Europe. One of which bears the handwritten names of the ~70,000 Czech Jews killed during WWII.

The most interesting part of the Ghetto is the cemetary. Here, bodies are buried one on top of the other, for up to 12 levels. Since there was limited space, and Jewish tradition holds that bodies should not be moved once buried, when the graveyard filled up, they just added about 6' of soil, and started over again. The gravestones were moved to the top level. Sometimes if an important person was buried, his or her body would not be covered with another.

The end result is a fantastic landscape of a multi-level graveyard with thousands of ancient tombstones lying helter-skelter, in varying degrees of wear and fading. Some think that ~100,000 people are buried in this little area, and from the craziness of the tombstones, its easy to believe.

We finished off the evening with a very confusing, and pretty much terrible show at the Black Light Theater. The show was some sort of combination of black light, theater, and film, but was dated horribly by the 70's style cinematography (thinik Kubric on acid) and made less interesting by the unenthusiastic acting of the participants; both real and celluloid versions.

We made up for it by gorging ourselves at dinner with some Bavarian Goulash, tasty pasta, and stroganoff (not your mother's stroganoff), eating it all family style.