keri has a new best friend, until she doesn't

Welcome to Prague, or Praha. Our Sunday arrival at the train station had trouble written all over it. I managed to get our four comically large suitcases off the train onto the platform, only to see there were no escalators to get to the main train station lobby, where our pre-arranged ride was waiting for us, in front of the Burger King holding a sign with our name on it. As we considered how we were going to get four bags down the stairs in one trip, a very kind Czech gentleman asked if we were the family that had arranged for a ride. (Note: he has no sign and there is not a BK in sight.) (Note from Keri: The man showed me his phone and in the message, which was written in Czech, the words Burger and King were all I could read. Our train was delayed and I assumed he came looking for us.) Keri said yes, and she had a new best friend. He grabbed two suitcases and bounded down the stairs, started an extemporaneous tour at the train station, offered us to stop by an ATM better than the train station ones (suckers!), and loaded our bags in his van. As we were revved up and ready to go, he got a call, from the family he was supposed to pick up. They were waiting for him. And so, our heads hung low, we helped unload our bags onto the street as Owen and I went back into the station, walked to the Burger King, where we found someone holding a sign that read: Keri Eckstein. Welcome to Prague!

What do you mean they don't take Euros here?  We realized on the ride here that they don't use Euros, but something called a Czech koruna. That caused me to look up how many countries are EU members but have their own currency. Apparently, there are nine such places, including Denmark and Sweden, the last two stops on our tour. I understand, for a place like the United Kingdom, where national pride can overtake reason to cause you to insist on keeping your own currency, in clear contradiction to the very point of the EU. When you are a nation of 66 million with the seventh largest economy in the world, we'll cut you a little slack. But, the Czech Republic? With a population of 10.5 million (about as many people as live in Georgia) and a GDP outside the top 50 in the world, just what are you trying to prove, Czech Republic? Do you think Georgia could get away with its own currency, Peachtree Pounds, or something goofy like that. Sheesh. Not cool.

I came up with one possible answer when I tried to get some money from an ATM near our flat and discovered that the smallest possible amount I could get was the equivalent of $750 dollars. That is, in a country where things are relatively inexpensive, you cannot withdraw anything short of what is probably a month's salary in the Czech countryside, which you then have to spend in three and a half days. They know good and well you will never be able to spend anywhere close to that, but figure putting that many koruna in someone's wallet will help the local economy? Or is the plan you will forget to exchange the koruna back when you leave? Or you'll get screwed twice on the exchange rate? I really don't know. I do know that the exchange rate .044 dollars per krona is going to be tough to keep straight in my head.

Good eating in Praha. Prague more than made up for its lack of down escalators and inexplicable currency choices by having, we decided on our first night, a truly beautiful city, and some outstanding food, as we enjoyed our dinner at Pepenero, the best Italian food we have eaten on this trip, followed by some damn good gelato at Puro Gelato.

Prague Walking Tour. We began Monday with a three-hour walking tour that started in Wenceslas Square, where we met our tour guide, Jack, who began with a brief history of the Czech people -- barbarians, fought of the Huns, mixed with some other Slavic groups, exposed to Christianity in the 10th Century. After that, they spent the next several hundred years fending off Germans in the north and south, falling under control of the Habsburg dynasty (Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1526 and finally riding themselves of the Austrians in 1919. The Czechs then combined with their friendly neighbors, the Slovaks, to form Wisconsin Czechoslovakia, which lasted until 1993, when, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, they split into two countries.

Jack showed us a number of local landmarks, including a controversial statue of King Wenceslas hung upside down on a dead horse, the most popular Czech restaurant chain, and the Church of Our Lady of the Snows, which boasts the highest altar in Central or Eastern Europe. (both pictured above) (Note: DO NOT call Czechs eastern Europeans, as they want no association with the Russians.) The church was supposed to be the biggest in Prague, but the Carmelites ran out of money very early in the project and built less than half of what was planned. We saw the Powder Tower and Municipal House, where the modern country was born, and then walked into the Jewish Quarter, where Jack pointed out the several synagogues and Jewish cemetery and gave a very brief history of Jews in Prague. We finished by the Astronomical Clock, where Jack made several strong recommendations for local cuisine.

Czech Cuisine. Adventurous eaters that we are, we decided to give his one restaurant recommendation a shot. I was the one who went local with my order, opting for some sort of roast beef with dill sauce and roasted potatoes (the photo somehow makes it look better than it looked in real life). The meal was a good reminder why there is really no such thing as Czech restaurants or Czech cuisine, at least outside of this nation. Based on Jack's descriptions of local delicacies and the menu items I saw today, Czech cuisine includes a lot of boiled meats. Sure, they add spices to enhance the taste, but when boiled meat is the main building block, you have a culinary house of cards. Fortunately, as always, there was an excellent gelato place 0.2 km away. Pictured here is Keri, who has hit the mother lode with chocolate sorbet and a gluten-free waffle cone.

We walked to and over the Charles Bridge, a beautiful 14th Century bridge that is Prague's most iconic landmark. It is probably the most crowded, as well. Prague is always teeming with tourists, particularly in the summer. And it seemed like every EU nation was well represented in town today, as we navigated the mass of humanity to get safely across the Vitava River. We walked around a bit on the other side, where the kids found some gingerbread cookie shop and Keri two peeing statutes in front of the Kafka Museum. Prague: Something for Everyone!

Jewish Quarter. After a brief break at the flat, we ventured back out into the nearby Jewish Quarter, visiting the Old New Synagogue. Built in 1270 (!), it is Europe's oldest synagogue still in use. It is strange to see a synagogue built in the gothic style, as this one is, or one with a mechitza (separation between men and women for prayer) that has the women sitting on the other side of a solid wall outside the sanctuary, with holes cut in the wall to allow them to hear the prayers.

We next went to the Pinkas Synagogue, which was originally built in 1635. It is no longer used as a house of prayer, but instead as a memorial to the 78,000 Czech Jews (out of a total population of 90,000) who were murdered in the Holocaust. The synagogue has on its walls for each victim their name, place of residence, date of birth and death. The names cover every wall of the first room you enter. You then walk into a second larger room, only to find every space of wall there covered with names, in the same red and black ink. You walk upstairs to find a third room with several more walls of names. It is, like the Vietnam Memorial, extremely powerful by shedding light on each precious life that was taken, while at the same time helping translate to our limited brains what 78,000 lives might look like in scope.

The Pinkas Synagogue also has on the top floor a room filled with drawing and art projects done by Jewish children at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Utterly heartbreaking to see the drawings and paintings done by children younger than our own now at this "model" concentration camp.

Just outside the synagogue sits the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague. You have never seen anything like this. From 1450 or so until 1796, when the Jews were first allowed to leave the functional Jewish ghetto of Prague, every Jew who died in Prague was buried here. At some point, they ran out of horizontal space, so they started re-digging burial plots and placing second, and third and fourth bodies in the same plot. Fortunately, with only burial shrouds and time, the bodies decomposed rather quickly. Still . . . . The place is, at the same time ghoulish and beautiful. You really have to see it yourself.

Owen Has Always Liked Spicy Indian Food. Given Owen's new-found recollection that he "always liked Indian food," we once again wanted to give the man what he wants. After complaining that tonight's chicken tikka was too spicy (it wasn't), Keri and I offered him some of our Chicken Korma (it was). To his credit, he took a spoonful of spicy gravy and sat, staring at me for a good ten seconds before he was scrambling for water. After the pain subsided, he declared himself to be a life-long lover of spicy Indian. Fortunately, he'll get plenty more chances to prove that.