Well that was the theory. In reality we're a bit punch drunk right now.
Yesterday was full of good stuff. The morning was a walking tour of Praha (Prague). Seems a bit odd to do it the final day in town instead of the first, but I guess that's how the scheduling cookie crumbled. Our guide, Dasha, was a very nice, very knowledgable lady. The best tour guide in Prague, David said, and she did a great job.
We saw a lot more of the city. Duh. First stop was Prague Castle. On the way, we passed by the Parliament houses. We looked at the Senate in detail.
Within the Senate house is a great courtyard and garden that was used in the filming of Amadeus (It was set in Vienna but filmed in Prague...makes sense right?).
Very nice.
The castle itself is on the west side of the Moldau, on a hill overlooking the city.
The President's offices are in there, as well as other national offices, up these stairs.
It is guarded by an honorary guard corps of the Czech Army. They stand watch at the gates; the guard changes every hour. These guys are locked-on in their military bearing.
They reminded me of the guards at Buckingham Palace. But the Czech uniform is better.
Also inside the palace area is the cathedral: gothic, of course.
I'm not a fan of gothic. All those spikes, nooks, and crannies are painful to look at for me. I much prefer baroque: it's more simple, and thus more elegant. Or rather, its forms are more organic and natural. Gothic always seems abrupt, almost discordant, while baroque flows. Not sure if that makes sense.
On the way down the hill, we passed one of the areas where Kafka lived, then came to a city vineyard. There's a nice little cafe/wine bar in the vineyard and a great view of the city.
We passed the WWII memorial next. Simple. I liked it.
Back across a bridge, we came to the concert hall. I didn't know this before coming here, bit Mozart lived in Prague for a while. The debut for Don Giovani happened in this town, and he wrote several other pieces here. Anyway, the concert hall is quite nice. The statues on the balcony ringing the building are all famous composers. Fitting.
Looking downstream from the bridge, one can see the site where a huge statue of Stalin once stood. It was torn down in the 60s after Kruschev publicly called out his multiple crimes (well after his death of course). Not that Kruschev was a good guy himself or anything. In place of the statue, the Czechs erected a huge metronome: a mechanism that keeps time for musicians. You can see it on the hill across the river here.
That sounds like a MUCH better use of space than a 30 meter tribute to a monstrous, murderous tyrant and follower of a bankrupt ideology which needs to be purged from all human memory. But that's just my opinion. Call me silly.
After that, we toured through the Jewish quarter and the new city to Wenceslas Square (previously pictured in the post of my initial flight into Prague last week), site of all the demonstrations that led to the fall of communism back in 1989. There are a couple university buildings near the square that Dasha wanted to show us, then a quick jaunt later, it was off to lunch. Venison Goulash. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....good stuff!
Dasha left us after lunch to go about her merry way. We went on to the Museum of Communism. It's small, but it does a great job of recording and explaining the terrors of the communist regime. Places like this are important, because while everyone SHOULD know that socialism/communism is inherently immoral, even evil, and completely bereft of any shred of economic viability, there are lots who, whether from ignorance and naïveté or from admiration of and desire for unbridled power, continue to embrace Marx's teachings, no matter how thoroughly history has discredited those teachings. Abject failure every place socialism or communism has been tried, no matter how complete the implementation, should alone be enough to forever cast this philosophy into the dustbin of history. But displays of the inevitable result of the kinds governmental controls socialism and communism seek to implement are needed as another reminder since there are many of Lenin's "useful idiots" who refuse to think or to learn the lessons of history, who think that somehow it will all work this time, with the right person in charge, the right clever regulation, you name it. This of course is a lie, and one made all the worse for its obviousness, given even a very few moments of contemplation.
Not that I have strong feelings on this matter.
We met up again at 6:30 for a final dinner. Again, really good stuff.
We said our fair-wells to David and Gertraud and gave them a thank-you present.
They also had departing gifts for us, so that was fun.
Dinner done, Tim, Jessica, Bonnie, and I hurried over to the old town square for the world cup 3rd place match between Germany and Uruguay. We got there a few minutes before halftime. There was a huge screen erected, showing the match, and the square was full of people watching.
I'm pretty sure Vienna had a similar setup going on, but we never made it out to see it. We heard the roar of the crowd when Germany lost in the semi-final game, though. You may recall we got back to Vienna from our country excursion just in time for that to happen. Well Germany didn't lose this time. Uruguay put up a good fight, but in the end, they came up short. It came down to the wire though. Good match. It was wicked cool watching in the square. Obviously.
The rest of the night we spent getting ready to leave and hanging out. The taxi was late this morning, and too small. The hotel front desk told the cab company there were four of us. With bags. But the guy showed up in a little sedan, with a bunch of boxes already in his trunk. We made it work, though, and got to the airport in plenty of time to make our flight.
So that's that. As I finish this, I'm at 34,000 ft, heading west over Ireland. The journey is almost complete. I have to write a paper by Saturday, detailing what I learned on the trip, then that's all she wrote for this course. That just leaves one more, Strategic Management, in the fall and the MBA is done, with a focus in international business. It'll be good to be done.
More to follow upon arrival at home. I have lots of pictures (over 750) and some videos, to upload, and a few more things to share here before I close out this particular chapter.
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