Prague Trip

I don't think I've talked about Prague yet, so bear with me here as I get out my old notes and travel logs... My [ex] roommate Martin, a scholar / politician / writer from Prague, met up with me at the train station in Prague. He had completed a semester of writing for his doctorate in History (of some sort) at the University of Düsseldorf and also happened to be my roommate during that time. We got along well, because we both enjoyed coffee conversations and playing soccer. It was Saturday morning with perfect sunny weather and he collected me at the station so I could arrive safe and sound. I felt a little bad making him crawl out of bed when I was sure he had been up late studying or solving the world's problems, but I was mostly just thinking about how badly I wanted to use his shower and drop some weight off my shoulders. The night before, I "slept" under a tree in Dresden so I wasn't feeling very fresh. He lives an easy 15 minutes away with the subway on the outskirts of the city center in a Soviet-built apartment complex, originally used only for visiting soldiers. The building is simple and minimalist, allowing the inhabitants to dress it up with colorful curtains, furniture and knick knacks. The place is actually rented by his girlfriend who has lived there her whole life. It was very homey and domesticated, but the first thing that struck me was there were no family pictures, even though his girlfriend used to live there with her family for 20+ years. Anyway, we had a morning tea then took off to the city. Martin took me to the main touristy sites first, which we breezed through quite swiftly, because there were just so many darn tourists; way more than any other city I've been to. When we had some elbow room I would gawk at some particular buildings while Martin explained the history behind them. It was pretty awesome to have him there especially with all these significant monasteries, nunneries, churches, synagogues, cemeteries, parks, etc. He even pointed out the irony of having all these religious structures when Prague has one of the highest percentages of atheists in the world.
But some of his favorite places were away from all the public hotspots, hidden away from the tourists. One particularly special place was this small courtyard garden. There were only a few pairs of people there strolling in private conversation along the neatly landscaped paths. It's a place where you can pluck an apple from a tree and test your intellectual counterpart or apprentice with philosophies and theories until it turns into a recap of last week's Bears game (or "quatschen" in German).
One of the churches that stood out from the rest, which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of, had a church within a church. The entrance seemed like it would lead to the typical Baroque sanctuary, but instead it was an outdoor courtyard with a small brick structure in the middle. This was a humble medieval church big enough to hold 20 people with a tiny alter and crucifix on the far wall. But beyond the courtyard, the doors opened up to the newer not-so-humble place of worship. This was the grand-daddy of Baroque sanctuaries, decked out with statues crawling all over the colorful walls and columns, and just to add to the ambiance, there was this monk singing classical music with one of the prettiest man voices I've ever heard. I think he was an alto - somewhere in the high range of manly singing (I almost bought his CD).
Martin and I took several coffee or beer breaks during our walking, because we were hitting some pretty rough cobblestone trails and the sun was getting hot. I tried three different beers and they were all better than most of the beers in Germany, and cheaper! I was even impressed by the legendary Budweiser so I bought a souvenir mug. For food we ate at a traditional Czech restaurant for a very good price. I had tender beef with light, puffy dumplings and a rich sauce, very yummy! At the end of the day, we made our way to Martin's parents' apartment, where he grew up. This place was near the heart of the city in an authentic residential area for the typical Praguer. His parents were gone for the weekend, which meant we could crash there without disturbing the peace of the empty nesters. Again, I was intrigued by the various objects in the apartment: most were artifacts, paintings, books, and little figurines and sculptures, but still no family pictures. I guess it would be fair to say that many families in Prague probably don't have the same priorities I am used to. I remember Martin giving me one of his statistics about the low birth rate, low rate of marriage and high rate of divorce in the Czech Republic. There could be a correlation there, but I think the most relevant influences had to be during the control of the Soviet Union. Everyday life was so much different for these people, and that became quite apparent to me the next day when Martin took me down memory lane...