defenestrations

8512 we started with a brief history of the Czech lands on this day, with discussion on how classes will go an whatnot, then we broke for lunch, me and a few other guys, Chris the TA included, wandered our way into a restaurant, i had Elk Goulash with Potato Dumplings, it was fantastic. I have never had elk before, it tasted like lamb, it was cooked to hell in the goulash so it wasnt tough or anything like other game meats i have had, with the dinner i had a from the tap pilsner urquell which was significantly better than the bottles in the States, or the bottles here. we had a cultural misshap at this restaurant, we were told by one of our local guides not to tip very much, as in round up to the nearest hundred and that is good, so we payed like 1210, for a 1700 CZK meal, and she chased after us claiming we didnt pay enough...so i gave her an additional 200, and we left confused, i dunno if she though she could get more our of us due to our being american, i mean she clearly did get more money, of if we underpaid, or what, but whatever, a 70USD lunch for 5 people including drinks isnt that bad. we then went on a walking tour with another local guide. these are my notes from the tour, along with some addendum and pictures.

this is the current German Embassy, in sept of 89, east germans were coming to prague, to request political asylum at the west german embassy. This was one of the precipitating events leading to the november protests by czech students. this was in the embassy area, which we wandered through on our way to the top of the hill The area on top of the hill, used to be a normal portion of the village, however there was a conflagration in the late 1500s, and a series of aristocratic families kicked the poor people out and built their palaces.

Prague castle is the longest continuously operating seat of government in central europe, the kings of bohemia, various holy roman and austro-hungarian emperors, the czechoslovak republic of 1918 president, communist, modern czech presidents, all of them have ruled from this castle The hapsburgs were primarily responsible for the enlarging of the castle to what it is today, prior to this, the castle looked the same from its first conversion over to aristo homes in the 9th century, Front of cathedral is neogothic, as it was started in the 1300s, and not completed till the 1920s

i love it is big and imposing and catholic Windows of the cathedral: designed by 20th century artist, because there are no original windows, one of which designed by a famous modern czech artist, depicts early christiantiy in bohemia, including the patron-saint of the czech republic. And Cyril and Mathodius who brought christianity to moravia. Defenstration window!!!

really the only time you get to talk about defenestration is in prague, the famous one is when the protestant bohemians were upset with their newly appointed Catholic king, so they threw his advisers out the window, they landed in a pile of shit, and survived, but its the thought that counts right?

we saw some other stuff on the tour, but it wasnt quite as interesting, and im short on time, so Ill talk about the rest of the day, we had a light dinner at a place near our dorm, and me and my roomate got a litre (yup a litre) of local beer for 60CZK or 3USD, it was awesome, i think we will make this place our local quick spot as the food and beer was cheap, and for the oral history bit we will need to get done later. eventually we went to a bar with a group (in my opinion which was too large) and then wandered around to another one, we ent up at a tourist trap irish pub, overall an ok night.

Final Reflections

21612 So now that im a few weeks out i have had time to think about the whole trip. life isnt a series of experiences, its the sum of our experiences. and this trip has contributed significantly to the summation of my life. seeing all the different people and places, experiencing all of the different histories and cultures (and foods) was great. and this entire venture was similar enough to my trip last year, and in line with my studies enough to make t all the richer. pointing out similarities, and discussing the contrasts; both throughout the blog, and in class, with the Balkans helped me to better understand the effect of history on both places. the dialogue has cemented my hopes of putting my education to use, in Eastern and Central Europe, just as the region was the focal point for conflict in the last century, i think it will be throughout this century, and i hope to be engaged in the middle of it. on top of all the scholastic stuff i inevitably made friends over the course of the dialogue, and i hope that despite me being done with Northeastern, i hope that some sort of relationship survives between myself and the regulars i hung out with. considering i still, even only 2 weeks out, continue to regularly talk to a handful of them, i think this is a realistic hope.

early reflections

6712 had the final today, two essays, i wrote them up in about an hour and a half. i am confident in my answers, any stress i have is based upon who is doing the grading, we have an English teacher here as a TA, and i am worried he will knock off points for not liking the way i write. the questions basically had us go through the initial development of communism in the Czech Republic and the rest of Eastern/Central Europe, and the second question was the post-communist development of the Czech republic and one of its neighbors. after class i took another sweet nap, before heading off for the end of dialogue boat ride. the boat ride was fun, not only were (most) of us students there, but there were a few of our lecturers and tour guides. the boat took us up the river (so northwestish) and through a lock, and then back down the river some. about a 2 hr trip, i was enthralled in conversation with the clique of girls i hang out with for much of the time, (though the tank fell asleep at various points, apparently not appreciating not only our final moments together, but also our final moments together in such a beautiful city as Prague, she claims she felt), and enjoying the scenery, so i did not follow through on any discussion with the guest lectures. the end of the boat ride also meant our last interaction with Harlow over the course of the trip, and likely my last physical encounter with him ever. we shook hands and said our goodbyes, ill probably follow this blogpost up with an email to him, i hope to use him as a reference for my grad program applications in the not so distant future i suppose there should be some reflecting going on now that we are near the end. i will surely have better stuff after my hours of flight time, but ill put some ideas out there now. overall this was a great trip, the various excursions (barring the long walk) were engaging and educational, i have actually been to most of the locations we wandered through, but i was still enthralled at every turn. the various lectures, and guides that went with us to these places were all very knowledgeable, and for the most part engaging. my feelings are torn as to the variety of students on the trip, my last dialogue was filled with international affairs, or poli sci, or history kids, so to be here with different majors, the bios, the journalists, the comms, made it a different experience. their lack of knowledge about the region made the discussions were a little more broad than i would have really liked. but it also gave me a chance to reexamine my outlook and knowledge on all this stuff when they (namely the troop of ladies) turned to me in an aside to ask something or other.

teaching is a reward unto itself

6612 yet another day of interview presentations, some of the girls from the gaggle i hang out with were freaking out about talking infront of us, they subsequently did well, later in the evening they were freaking out about the final tomorrow, so i walked through everything with the whole gaggle (covertly doing my own studying while schooling them). anyways more on this later. after the class i went to eat with some catz, unfortunately it was a none-too-exciting dish of four cheese gnocchi, so nothing epic on the food front. found my way home, and took a nap. the Big One woke me up to go buy beer for her dad, she wanted someone to point out what was local, cause im an expert i guess? anyways, i end up getting some stuff to bring home for tastings as well. my pops always laments "once you got old enough to be cool, you moved out" so i figure i can at least bring some good beers back with me from the whole "being cool/moving out" process. i then wandered around Prague a lil by myself, trying to chase down a good vinoteka, that carried the craft local made Czech Absinthe, again to share with my Best Friend For Life. after all this a section of our dialogue went to the Ballet, it was at the Státní Opera ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_State_Opera ). first off, small world category; i ran into a girl from my capstone class. we walked into the foyer, and hesitated deciding as to which direction to take to our nosebleeds, and she spotted me as she was waiting at the ticket counter, she is backpacking round Europe now that shes all graduated. it was a rendition of Cinderella. i have been to very few ballets in the course of my existence, so i really have nothing to gauge against, it was interesting, there were a few points where i noted the male dancers (a set of aristos in the ballroom scene) were off, but for the most part it seemed pretty good. everyone was also a little disappointed by the dress Cinderella was wearing throughout said ballroom scene, she was supposed to be like resplendent, and make everyone else look as the Big One put it "like the didnt even get dressed that morning". the walk home from the theater we got to chat with Harlow himself, that was fun, (not a moment of asskissery, i say this with the utmost sincerity) he is a cool guy, even when ignoring his seemingly endless pool of knowledge, im glad he runs this dialogue, as ive had my heart set on this one since learning of the Dialogue program, his ways have certainly exacerbated my enjoyment of the trip. upon the completion of said walk, much of the troop of girls gathered in the hallway to go over the exam. i am reassured now after going over everything with them, i guess that whole "you cant know till you teach" adage has some veracity to it.

caviar and free speech

6512 today we had a few more interview presentations, but the primary activity of the day was the excursion to the Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty facilities. first off the place offers 21 different broadcast services in 28 different languages. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty ) while it was originally funded by the CIA to broadcast to the Eastern Bloc, nowadays they work to broadcast radio/tv/webservices to various places around the world, predominantly reporting the news in these countries, as they are generally not liberal with and limited freedom of press/speech. The service covered Central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia. Though communism fell, and the US wanted to cut the program, the Czech president, Havel invited the program to Prague because he thought it would still be necessary to fight censorship and tyranny in the newly "free" Europe, also it was cheaper than Munich, and much more appetizing to the US. Things have actually gotten worse in Russia in the past ten years (not surprisingly) Putin has closed many of the news bureaus, and all but 2 of the broadcast stations in Russia have been closed. This is the headquarters, there are 350 journalists here, plus supporting staff the Director of Azerbaijani service came to speak to us my notes from the discussion follow: They have generally unrestricted internet however only around 20% of the population makes use of the internet on at least a weekly basis, but international broadcasters for radio/tv have been kicked out. The government actively tries to control the flow of information, particularly inflow of international news, and heavy censorship of domestic news. he pointed out that human rights and corruption are serious issues, no free elections, rubber-stamp parliament, entire country is run by single family. He first started working for the Russian service of Radio Free Europe, then he went to DC to work in the Radio liberty offices, almost right out of college. He has recently been promoted to the managerial position for the Azerbaijani bureau due to his background and "consistent laudworthy behavior" (as he put it). He believes Radio liberty is important, because there would be no expression of alternative sources, the media is controlled by the state, He further believes that Radio Liberty is important, because the Azerbaijani people get to see that the US is doing good things, helping them out, providing unbiased news, that the US is worried about more than just security and energy. he explained that whenever he goes back to Azerbaijan, he is followed, which is fine, because he has nothing to hide, he maintains transparency, the police will not find that he is doing anything wrong the harder they scrutinize, the more ridiculous they look when coming up with nothing of note. the building itself was very cool, new and modern, and reminded me a bit of the parliament building in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was heavy security and a no photo policy, so you will still be left with only your imagination. i really liked this visit, this was much more like my previous dialogue, going and talking to members of the government and civil society. here we have been speaking to mostly academics, which is certainly interesting, but it is nice to get a glimpse of the application of these concepts we talk about. after class n some chill out time, the girls and i found our way to an (expensive) Czech place for dinner, i split a plate of fried cheese and french fries with the tank, and had a 1/4 of roasted southern bohemian duck, with both potato and bread dumplings, the Budvar beer i had with it cleaned up well. came out to the mest expensive meal so far, but i certainly consumed 20USD worth of food and drink.

that paper thing

for grading purposes, this will have been previously read for those of you with nothing to do, and which to hear about my discussion with Professor Hnát, read on Oral History: A Young Economists’ Perspective Pavel Hnát, was the man I chose to interview for our oral history bit. As it turns out a number of other characters from our dialogue had a similar idea, so there will likely be similar write-ups to come. Mr. Hnát lectured us on Monday, May 28th, particularly on the transformation of Czechoslovakia from a command economy, to a free market economy, and the subsequent discussion we had with him followed on this nicely. Pavel Hnát received his masters in International Trade, and a PhD in European Studies, today he is a professor of economics, and from what I could ascertain various sub-studies therein. He was eight years old at the time of the Velvet Revolution, Hnát admitted to us that he does not remember specific instances of the Revolution but he can certainly recall the palpable excitement of his parents and peers. Much of the after-lecture interview tied in neatly with the lecture itself, this may have been for our benefit, but I believe that this was because he has since framed the Revolution within his area of expertise, transition economics. Mr. Hnát focused on the necessity of the transformation in both his lecture and the discussion he had with us. He further broke down the way in which Czechoslovakia went about this transformation; via redefinition of the state, such as reorganization of the state organs, and its interaction with the rest of the world within the auspices of globalization, political transformation, namely liberalization, and most importantly for Pavel Hnát’s examples, the economic transformation. I got the feeling that Professor Hnát is an ardent neo-liberal economist, and I believe that this is integral to our understanding his understanding of the Czechoslovak transition to liberal democracy. He discussed the ideas of Shock Therapy and The Washington Consensus (both theories firmly in the neo-liberalist camp) at length, claiming that Czechoslovak successfully navigated their transition due to the appropriate implementation of these practices. His positive explanation of the restitution process, and the Voucher Privatization endeavors served as examples of why Czechoslovakia in contrast to its neighbors like Poland and Hungary, so quickly and less-painfully transformed itself into a free market economy. His stance was made more obvious to me through his discussion of the EU and its various other organs, he believes in the intra-EU free trade, and porous border, but as we found out later he also believes the EU is effectively a neo-mercantilist empire, pushing exports while limiting imports, and centrally controlling capital movement, and in the case of the Euro working to centralize currency decisions across a multi-state system. Hnát felt optimistic about the Czech Republic joining the EU, but was concurrently worried about the currency issues of the Euro itself, and its effect on the Czech economy. We also discussed the more personal aspects of this transition with Professor Hnát, even at his age, he was optimistic about the Revolution, and he said this was probably a result of his parents’ enthusiasm for change as well. He claims his family generally does not discuss politics, but ensures us that his parents and his views on the Revolution and subsequent transformation has been for the best, he did note that the divide would become more apparent with the generation before his parents. Mr. Hnát cited that his grandparents had more issue with the Revolution than he or his parents, namely because they “back in the day” chose communism voluntarily, and witnessed firsthand the fascism of the 1930s, and believed in the early rhetoric of the Communists. He went on to explain that while they still may be nostalgic for the promises of communism, and their distaste for sudden change, it has not been a significant issue dividing his family. His family faced significant economic difficulties at the time of transition, which he admits were attributed to the shock therapy undertaken by the new Czechoslovak government, however, he and his family certainly benefitted overall. He recalled the housing restitution system as being the most personal hardship to him and his friends. He says that he and his parents are most excited about the opportunities which have been opened by the Revolution. He is glad for not only the opportunities since afforded him, but also future generations; he gives his students as an example. Many of the students he teaches take at least a semester abroad, going all over the world to gain not only academic knowledge but the many experiences kids (like us!) garner through interaction with those different from ourselves. We asked after a few more comments on the EU, and Czech opinion on globalization, he said that though everyone will disparage the multinational corporations like IKEA and Tesco, but they still shop there (much like the Americans and Wal-Mart). Hnát also described to us the path by which he believes the Czech Republic will further succeed in the global community, namely the Czech government needs to invest in Hi-tech industries, as well as logistical and telecom development, noting that the Czech Republic has neither the populace, nor the resources to compete with the likes of China, or their more neighborly Ukraine or Poland. The interview was interesting, especially because I had had a glimpse into his professional life beforehand the discussion. Knowing that Pavel Hnát was an economist helped me to better understand the stories that he was telling as well the lenses through which he views the Revolution and subsequent transformation. I was very interested in everything he had to say, and I feel that I got a better interview out of him than I would have a “common” Czech citizen because of his background as an academic. That being said I recognize that he has a different viewpoint than many “lay” Czech people, he recognized the necessity of the shock therapy, he believed, as I do, that the five years of financial difficulty that resulted in following the Washington Consensus, were better than the continuing difficulties neighboring ex-Communist countries are facing to this day. Again I have to voice my appreciation for this assignment, the open ended nature of the project has helped us to make it our own, I know I got much more out of my interview than I would have had I been required to follow more stringent guidelines.

sanctioned whining

4612 class today was dedicated to the presentations for our oral history, and it was dominated by my groups presentation. as it went a half dozen of us wound up sitting down and talking to Pavel Hnát, the econ professor that lectured us last week. we divided the presentation fairly easily, each of us discussing points that interested us specifically. i spoke on the general feelings people had on the transition, the guy we spoke to was an academic meaning he had a little more insight into what was happening in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic than lots of people. but he had interesting stuff to talk about. overall i think our presentation went pretty well, (ill post my writeup as an addendum: day 29a, it is by no means a necessary reading to this dialogue), a girl who spoke with one of our tour guides presented after us. she focused more on the personal story, which was very interesting. i like that this assignment was so open ended, in that we could focus on who, and what we wanted. her presentation was interesting, and im sure she enjoyed the narrative more than she would have enjoyed the dry talk of command to free market transitional econ that i was into. i look forward to hearing about other peoples presentations in the coming days. we also got a chance to discuss our opinion on the dialogue overall with Harlow, it was nice to air our grievances and pile our lauds. also later this afternoon, ill go hunting for booty to bring home.

a glorious 12 hours of sleep

3612 i know i have said we didnt do much before, but today, we really did absolutely nothing. i slept in till noon for the first time in over 4 weeks, i woke up, the girls (minus the injury-prone lil girl) happened to be going to the american-dineresque Bohemia Bagel for breakfast, i tagged along. had myself a fried egg, bacon and swiss bagel sandwich, i asked what kind of bagels they had, and the waitress straight up told us she doesnt know exactly which ones they have, i asked if they had onion bagels, and she acknowledged me. ultimately the bagel that i got was unidentifiable, maybe it was spinach? anyways it was tasty. after this i went home, watched the latest Underworld movie, that was awful, and then napped more. after the nap i wandered aimlessly around our immediate neighborhood, i got a pasta dinner and came back home, wrote up the writeup for the oral history presentation, and despite my best efforts, got dragged out to the jazz bar we frequent. there i had a beer, and sat around till other people got as tired as i was, and had an excuse to excuse myself. i do feel a little guilty that i did nothing, but then again, this is the first day in 30 days where i got to do what i wanted. i had wanted to go to the communism museum, the one that is above the McDonalds, across from the casino, but it would likely be closed on a sunday, and i was exhausted from the previous weeks of adventure. maybe ill go later this week, i also need to chase down some authentic Bohemian style absinthe to compare to the Swiss/French style i have back home.

a long walk

2612 so on our first weekend in Prague, we had a scheduled "genuine Czech weekend experience" it was, in all honesty, unpleasant. i really try to appreciate all the organized activities on these things, but this was really not all that great. we hopped on a train and rode out to the countryside, we made our way to another chateau. this bit was cool, the place was built during the 16th century by some German Protestant family in an Italian Renaissance style, and when the Thirty Years War came to an end, considering what side they fell on, they were forced to sell their property, it end up in the hands of the Lubkowics family ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobkowicz ). the place was pretty impressive, it had all kindsa art n curios in there, more than like 65,000 books, including 500+ year old books, one of which about astronomy was pretty cool, there was also a room dedicated to all the hunting that the princely family did over the years, with antlers and skins and bones of all kinds of exotic animals. unfortunately photos were strictly forbidden so i havent any. the chateau was pretty cool, much like all the others in the region but interesting in its own right. aaaaaaand then walked a bunch, and then walked more totaling to somewhere around 90 minutes of walking between rough country and small towns, till we got to a Biker rally-like thing, which we walked through to get to a scummy pond. this pond was absolutely brimming with tadpoles, there were areas that were black with them, it was kinda unsettling. after sitting around this pond/grassy area for 45 minutes, we walked another 60 minutes to another train station to get home. i would have really preferred to have a day in Prague, or at least a more directed day in the country. i think that morale would have been greatly improved had we been promised food, like on the Dialogues dime. i recognize the budget was kept low, but walking us around all day through country most of us werent to keen on anyways, and not really giving us time to get food/drink, meant we were rather grumpy by the end. again i appreciate the effort put forth for us by the program, and our guide, but i really did not like wandering around and doing nothing all day, there are 3-4 musuems in Prague i could have hit, and would have enjoyed so much more. i am likely to fall asleep soon, tomorrow is a free day, hopefully i stumble into something worthwhile.

a lil lacking

1612 i have started to get a lil lax with my blog posts, but thats cause not much of note has happened, i feel a lil bad that the most exciting part of the day for me was going to a club in the eve, but thats whats up. ill give you a rundown anyways woke up for class, which was very interesting today, we had a guest lecturer from Charles University? (i think he was in the Faculty of Philosophy for Charles) and he walked us through the political philosophy/economy/social commentary written by Václav Havel, the Power of the Powerless ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel ). the lecture was very interesting, i havent had an opportunity to think about politics from a philosophical point of view since like second year, so i enjoyed it. the lecturer walked us through a little of the historical context of the essay, and Havel's life, and then jumped into asking questions like "what is a lie?" and "why is the truth better?" so that was fun, mentally exhausting, but hey, these exercises are as essentially as squats and pullups. i feel like a good number of the catz in our group didnt appreciate the lecture, as they are lame majors like communications and biology. in the evening we had tickets to see a dance performance at the newer stage in Prague ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterna_Magika ). it was titled Graffiti, and even now as writing this (26 hrs later) im not entirely sure what i saw. the production was spectacular, there were dancers on stage, doing interpretive? dance, some kind of modern stuff that was a lil confusing, impressive, the balance, and body control was certainly spectacular, but i wasnt always sure what was going on, and then, on top of that (literally and figuratively) there were more images, in that over the entire stage was an angled mirror surface, and to compliment this there was a screen parallel with the floor, which had all kinds of images on it. so as a member of the audience you could see what was on that screen via the mirrors, and we saw what was happening on the floor with the appropriate lighting. it was crazy, kinda sensory overload, not disenjoyable, just alot, i may have a Eureka moment and figure out what was going on in the coming days, but for right now, it was cool seeing dancing and pictures n music, but im not entirely sure what was going on. after class i took the free time to nap, we havent had much time to ourselves so far on this dialogue, so i slept, i didnt have any particularly interesting dinner, and eventually we went out. we went to a club that had a series of DJs coming through, one of them being Porter Robinson ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_J3WWYp8Gc ) who is a big deal (and quite a bit younger than me, i guess im getting old) the show was good, there were lots of people, myself and a number of catz had a swell time. tomorrows post will be more substantive, i promise

ranty

31512 after our morning class we had a tour hosted by a survivor of the work camp we were scheduled to visit, František Zahrádka (from now on, this man will be refered to as "he" a he was telling us stories). first we stopped in Příbram, a small town which housed the museum to the Third Czechoslovak resistance. the First being, the free czech legions fighting the Hapsburgs, via the Italian and French Armies, the Second fought the Nazis, and the Third resistance, were the communist resistance movement, only officially recognized in 2011 though the small museum we walked through dates back to 92. He worked with the resistance smuggling the czech RAF pilots out of the country to help them avoid the persecution by the new communist regime, cause you know, obvioulsy if they worked with the RAF (training Israeli pilots they were against the commies). He worked closely with american agents in Germany to achieve this. Real fear of WWIII breaking out as communism rolls through eastern europe, the situation in berlin particularly. Because of this many of the dissidents and resistance members, did not care for the length of sentence, they figured the war would start and they would be freed eventually by the victorious West anyways. He was 19 when he was shipped to the labor camp, where he was sentenced to 20 years of his life. The only reason he didnt recieve the death penalty was because the year before the government passed a law forbidding the execution of any under age of 20. He ultimately only spent 13 yrs in the camps. After his sentence was served, with his parents dead, he had no where to go, so he signed on with the uranium mining outfit which he worked for as a prisoner, as a qualified electrician. He worked till retirement at this mine.

While there were many who actively resisted, and were "punished", there were people who didnt cooperate with the communists, who were punished in the same fashion so the inmates in the forced labor camps were very different. The Germans actually did the original surveying noting there was uranium here. The Soviets were desperate to get the uranium to develop their one nuke program, and they subsequently pushed the czech communisnts to get the land. The Nazis had plans to reclaim the uranium, and started lying down the infrastructure necessary, but never got around to it as the war ended. In 1947 the russians brought in German POWs to do the work. By 1949, the German POWs were returned to Germany, and the labor was replaced with Czech subversives. Random facts about the camp: These mines produced very rich uranium veins, but the area also had silver and lead deposits. Some of the shafts went down to 1800m. Housed 1800-2000 inmates. it is a little disjointed, these were notes i took as he spoke to us (via a Charles University history professor translation), being a cool old guy, his stories and information came out a little haphazard, id prefer to keep it as is. He really wanted to note that there were good people, guards and civilian workers that did small things to make life easier, a scrap of food here, or a letter smuggled there, and from this pool of good people, there were those that went beyond and helped inmates to escape as well. this camp was very different from the Nazi labor camps, i didnt feel that collective guilt that was imposed in the facility yesterday, this guy lived through this, for a number of years, and he told us stories of his friends being shot before his eyes, or being beaten to within an inch of his life. but he seems to have come to terms with it, the Communist system which abused him and his people so, is over and done, and while i will never forget, he doesnt strive to remember. i know that sounds weird, but i feel like he isnt dwelling on the tragedies of the past, its something he acknowledges, and conveys to us (future generations) as bad, but he believes that like he did, we will do what we can to prevent anything like that from happening again. whereas in the Holocaust memorial stuff, i feel like i am just being emotionally berated, i mean, both of my grandparents were members of the US military through WWII, they actively endeavored against the Nazis in some way or another, i have no genealogical connection to the Holocaust (victim or victimizer) but i end up walking away from these places often times feeling guilty. and i chalk that up to the memorial/museum not being done well, i have mentioned a few that were well done, and i notice now that it is because i walk away sobered certainly, but also learned, not just feeling shitty. this kinda came up in class as well, we talked about Lidice and the concentration camp visits, and people mentioned how powerful it was to see that, and i brought up the point that the Lidice was a really good example for us, Lidice wasnt just the Nazis killing Jews (again not to lessen the tragedy of the systematic destruction of an entire people), it was a reprisal against the Czech people. WWII specifically, but accross history, there are countless accounts of tragedy visited upon a people for some reason (be it "legitimate" or not). i feel like we get caught up on the Holocaust alot, but then forget the historical genocide of the Irish, Native Americans, Albanians, and the Muhajir to name a few. basically, im sayin the world is a shitty place, memorials are good, but they most come with at least objectivity, and hopefully forgiveness.

complete the circle

30512 we woke up early, hoped on a minibus to head over to Teresienstadt, and Lidice, which were a ghetto, and concentration camp during World War II. but first we stopped at a cemetery, and the crematorium which was used to dispose of the bodies from the camp. the cemetery area is split up, the city cemetery, which is in active use, the memorial to the Soviets who died liberating Czechoslovakia, and finally the largest area, the mass grave for the victims of the holocaust. the crematorium which we wandered through was rather unimpressive considering the number of bodies that went through it. after this we went into the city-fort proper, the city had existed for a number of years before it was converted into a classic 18th century star fortress, named Terezín after Maria Theresa (who also appears previously in this blog). the city was pretty cool, though it felt a bit empty, i mean, it was turned into a Jewish ghetto by the SS after the Nazis rolled into Czechoslovakia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terez%C3%ADn_concentration_camp ), so not surprisingly the population was devastated, but then some ten years ago it suffered a pretty nasty flood, driving the people out once again. the guide that walked us through all this stuff was very knowledgeable, and had second hand accounts (first hand to her) of people who lived through the ghetto here, and the Lidice bit which will come up later. the guide told us about how the SS put on a show for the Red Cross that came through to inspect these Jewish resettlement camps, the SS did such a good job, that the Red Cross deemed it a happy place, and that there is clearly nothing fishy going on with the disappearance of millions of Jews...in 1944. the place had an old Austro-Hungarian barrack, turned holding pen for Jewish families, turned musuem that was pretty interesting. the section that i liked the most was the art, visual art produced by the inmates? victims? prisoners? people in the ghetto. my favorite being Bedřich Fritta ( https://www.google.cz/search?q=Bed%C5%99ich+Fritta&hl=cs&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=w3p&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=g3nGT8HfDcTC0QXI8NT3BQ&ved=0CFoQsAQ&biw=1600&bih=704 ). he was a caricaturist prior to his internment, and then he was put to work making propaganda, and he did more satire in his free time. we then wandered into the little fortress, where we learned that the entire city was turned into a fort because it seemed to serve as a good defensive position against the Prussians, cause you know, they were rather aggressive, and the Czech lands were right there, the little fortress was the garrison when it was a fort. The town in total was built for 7000 people including the garrison. In the 1940s the whole city was turned into a Jewish ghetto, housing at the most 58000 people. The forttown was chosen because it could easily be converted to a ghetto, also it was near appropriate railways to get the supplies in and the people out to the death camps up in Poland and Eastern Germany. at the small fortress was used as a prison for Czech prisoners, political dissidents, intellectuals, and homosexuals, generally unsavory characters like that, and an SS barracks. At one point the prison housed 1500 prisoners. as cool as all this WWII and holocaust stuff is, i was honestly more excited by the fact that cell 1 of this little fortress housed Gavrilo Princip. I dont mean to belittle the tragedies visited upon the people of the ghetto, or the other prisoners of the fortress, or the massacre at Lidice (which again, ill get to in a second), but the fact that the man that put much of the violence of the 20th century into motion was housed here is really cool. I have been to the place where he shot Franz Ferdinand, ive seen the car Ferdinand was riding in, the now bloody jacket he was wearing, as well as the pistol that shot him. so this kind of completed the circle for me, Princip was held here till his death as he was too young to be executed.

we then watched a film which was a mashup of real footage from Terezín before the war, the reality of the ghetto, and the German made propaganda, it was neat seeing all of it side by side, and to top it off, we viewed the film sitting the theater that was used to entertain the SS guards. Lidice Nazi reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich ). he rolled into Czechoslovakia in September of 41, as the Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, immediately quashed any Czech resistance, as ordered to do so by Hitler, within his first month, over 1500 Czechs were arrested. He was infact one of the chief architects of the Final Solution. The Czech government in exile hatches the plan to assassinate said Heydrich ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid ), dropping Czech soldiers into the region, with poor results. Finally in December, they dropped 2 catz in, they met up with the what elements of the local resistance that still around. They planned to kill him in his car on his way to airport to Berlin. They hit him, almost botched the job what with one of their operatives' Sten gun failing, but they wounded him with an AT grenade, which ultimately led to his death. Reprisals kicked in, rumors flew as to what the Nazis were gunna do. Hitler calls for the death of 10000 Czechs, ultimately they settled on completely eliminating this town of Lidice, because there was some thin strand of connection(according to our guide an unconnected letter from lover to lover) between the operative which killed Heydrich and the city. All men over 16 were lined up and shot, all the women went to a concentration camp, and a few of the children were chosen as good Aryan stock, the rest were shipped off to other concentration camps. now all that survives of the city is a large park with the foundation of the town church trace out in stones, along with a memorial to all the children killed during the massacre. the museum to Lidice was very well done, with various bits of archival and documentary footage, it was another one of those experiences that conveys wholly the experience and feelings, without beating the hell out of you emotionally. the whole day didnt lend itself to picture taking too much, hence the lack there of. we are visiting a Communist work camp tomorrow, i will likely have more to say regarding my "feelings" and "reflections" with the contrasting bit tomorrow, and after some of this has sunk in a little deeper. until then enjoy the wiki links.

slow days

29512 squat, we did squat today, we had class and thats about it. the class didnt fall into my area of interest, but i see the pertinence to the history. the class was led by a Charles University professor that had a rather eclectic collection of degrees under his belt, but he gave us the rundown of the History of the Jewish people in central Europe from the early modern to modern times. much of the stuff we went through we had gotten bits and pieces of on our wanderings and guided tours through the Jewish sections of the cities we have been to, the special clothes they had to wear to be marked out, the development and institutionalization of the ghettos, the kings always relying on the Jews for revenue. he also talked about how the thirty years war and the development of the nation-state made being a Jew harder, cause of the rise of nationalism, and the abolition of the autonomy the Jewish communities had. by the modern era, monarchs began to realize they could better exploit the Jewish population by letting them take up new professions and go to school n whatnot, but things didnt necessarily get better. The discussion kinda petered out before getting past 1900, so we didn’t talk about the modern nationalism and racism stuff, but then again, that is something we (I atleast) have gotten lots of before. after said class, i went home and napped, for like 3 hours, woke up, ate a lil bit, a handful of us wanted to go find food at a place that was closed again, we then walked back to our neighborhood to try a place that wasnt taking anymore costumers, so i came home, and did this, will work on my paper now. tomorrow we are seeing stuff, so there will be pictures and discussion n whatnot.

capstone flashbacks

28512 slow day, good for recovery after the weekend of travel. class today was led by a guest lecturer, who i then spoke to after class for the oral history presentation thing we gotta do later. he was an economist, undergrad for econ, masters in international trade, and PhD in European Studies, he knew what he was talking about. his lecture was probably the longest one so far, and i was willing to sit there for double that time and listen to him discuss the transition of the economy. i mean, my Capstone was about more of the political and governance transition so the econ side was interesting. i must note, the guy was an ardent Keynesian neo-liberal economist, a big proponent of the Washington consensus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_consensus ). which certainly isnt a bad thing, i think a big reason he was so happy with neo-liberalism is because it worked so well for his country. he pointed out that alot of times, transitional and developing economies dont follow all the rules set forth by the Washington Consensus, they half-ass it, and its bites them in said ass. he pointed out that the proposed Shock Therapy worked for the Czech Republic, the first few years after communism were awful, significant inflation, unemployment, restitution issues, some manipulation and abuse of the system took place, but it was all limited to the first 2-3 years. after that they were on the upswing as transitioning into the global market, they had successfully navigated through the transitional phase from a command economy to free market, and the issues through the late 90s, and 00s, were results of globalization. he pointed out that Hungary and Poland had such issues because they didnt jump in head first, they sat in the shallow end and waded in, hence they are still having economic issues (and of course being an economist, all political and social issues are thus engendered) to this day. on a personal front he said that he is very happy with the transition, in that it has afforded himself, and his students m any opportunities for learning and experience. the free market in the Czech Republic today, will help them tomorrow, smart people wont be relegated to janitorial positions as "potential enemies of the state" they will be extolled, and help to improve the nation as a whole. after that we had pancakes, real murican pancakes, with sausage patties, and bacon, and maple syrup, and an irish coffee, for dinner, it was fantastic, as you can imagine, such a heavy meal kinda made me tired, i read my happy fun time scifi book, did some laundry and perused the internets. i think ima meeting some catz for a beer or two, and then bed. i plan to finish my write up for the Under a Cruel Star assignment tomorrow afternoon. sorry for the bland update.

more rich people money-pits

plenty of travel today, 530ish kilometers of bus ride, though of course we couldnt pass the trip without stopping for something or other. we stopped at what was described as a castle, though i immediately noted it was more of a chateau. it was the Lednice Chateau, which i just accidentally deleted my notes for, so we will see what i can remember. it was built some time in the 1200s, and was rather shortly after its construction handed over to the House of Lichtenstein ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princely_Family_of_Liechtenstein ). the various princes of the Lichtenstein house (being very rich) were avid hunters, traveling to Africa, Asia, and in the 17th and 18th centuries to the Americas to hunt exotic game. so all over the place were antlers, and heads, and bird and stuffed stuff.

this is a banner from the battle of Austerlitz, you know the battle were Napoleon beat the shit out of Tsar Alexander I and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II

the fancy staircase is actually all from ONE tree, unfortunately its not carved from a single tree, but all the pieces of wood came from the same tree, it took 3 artisans 5 years to finish it (or 5 artisans 3 years, im not sure i deleted the notes, same amount of man-hours though so whatever)

that last picture, of the greenhouse is pretty cool, cause the guide mentioned that the greenhouse involved a whole bunch of new technologies (again dont remember specifics, and the internet is kinda lacking) for the time it was built in the early 1800s. other than that we got back to prague, a few of us went to a shitty restaurant, and paid waaaayyy too much, like, a half litre of Pilsner Urquel, (which normally goes for 25-35 CZK) was 89, and the chicken burger which i wanted, but they didnt have it, but then they wanted more money, and then, i dont know what happened, but i ent up paying like 15USD for a shitty meal, i went home, did some laundry, wrote this, and now wanna go to sleep. laters

poor business model

26512 first full day in Budapest, the only thing we really did was the Museum of Terror. first off, i need to communicate how excited i was to go to this, as the first time i came through Budapest, it was Easter, and the place was closed. anyways, the museum was very cool, it was very very well done. like ive been to a good handful of museums dealing with such heavy topics, and some time you come out very sobered, like almost feeling like a collective human guilt for letting this happen, while other times youll end up confused, like the museums were disingenuous or something. this had neither, i got done, and it seems like the Hungarians have a good handle on their rather ugly history. so Hungary, after WWI became its own country for the first time in a while, and subsequently they lost plenty land to Croatia, and Romania, and Italy and whatnot, and they, like the rest of the losers of WWI were generally upset, and then the depression hit and it got worse, and eventually by the breakout of WWII fascism was lookin pretty sweet. they sided with the Nazis, and by '44 after the Nazis rolled into Hungary, their own National Socialist party, the Arrow-Cross party ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_Cross_Party ) popped up. and the museum went over how they did all kinds of awful things to their own people. then the museum went into how Soviet Communism rolled in, and did even more terrible shit. as the communists were in power alot longer more of the museum was dedicated to that. they also in the basement recreated the various kinds of cells used for torture, and confession extraction, and murder and whatnot, so that was crazy. i dunno, i cant really describe, there was lots of information on everything, but it was definitely something you need to see, to wander around the cells used (though this building only had holding, and maybe mild confession extraction cells, rather than the killing n stuff), was sobering. after the museum we wandered around a lil. we followed one of the girls, who had been here before, with family in the area, and we got a lil turned around, walking an unnecessary 1000m or so, i was cool, but one of the other girls in the group was lame (like literally lame, too sick to be wandering aimlessly), eventually we found our way to the fancy indoor multi-story market ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Market_Hall_%28Budapest%29 ) over by the green bridge ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Bridge_%28Budapest%29 ). that was cool, had some fried dough, covered in nutella and fried bananas, it had more than enough calories to last me the day, and it was equally delicious. after the food, we hopped the tram (we really, truly wanted to pay, but the machine was broke) and got ourselves home. most of the group wanted to head to the baths, which is apparently the thing to do in Budapest, and then me and one of the girlies (the one whose foot i mended), had a romantic (haha) dinner at the only restaurant in the area that was OPEN, apparently Budapest shuts down round 3pm on a Saturday, cause you know, no one wants to go out to dinner, or shopping in the mid-afternoon of a damn Saturday. got to bed early, read some books, and sleeped hard

another few nights on the Danube

25512 so last night we did end up going out, to a very characterful club, the place was originally some kind of bunker, or bomb shelter cut into the mountain, the place was full of blasting club music and lasers and smoke and all the disorienting things normally found in such establishments. some catz went elsewhere after a while, but i made my way home with one of the girls, who stumbled onto something unpleasant toe first, requiring my expert first aid/improvisational skills to patch her up right. i didnt really talk about the hotel yesterday, but it dawned on me that something was off. it reminded me of a lot of the hotels down South, in the Balkans, like they were the crown jewel hotel, like 15+ years ago, and nothing much has been done since then to spruce it up. anyways got up, and hopped in the bus for the ride to Budapest. for the first half me and one of the girls chatted, till the back half showed up, and i passed out, sleeping very hard. i woke up after we were already in the city, so i missed the Roman ruins that are allegedly visible. after getting to our tiny hotel, we dumped our stuff, and wandered around the immediate neighborhood. we are in a residential neighborhood, which kinda sucks, cause we are far away from everything, and actual residents dont seem to be too fond of tourists. after this we went on a rather long bus and walking tour of some of Budapest. we wandered through the big castle that overlooks much of the city, Stephen I who was king in the latter portions of the 10th century, looked upon the hill, and decided it was time for a castle, thus spawned the beginning of Budavári Palota ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buda_Castle ). it was built up further at various points throughout Hungarian history.

Holy trinity square, you can see the plague column built in the 18th century to commemorate those that have died of the plague, every city we have been through, all of them looking about the same. Mathias church, main parish church, first was built after Tartars left, it was later rebuilt in a Gothic style, and renamed after the king Mathias. When the Turks rolled in, they tore out all the frescoes and statues, and when the Turks were kicked out, it was rebuilt as a church in baroque style. It acted as a coronation church for a handful of Hungarian kings. This was covered in scaffolding last time i was here. This view is from the citadel built in the 19th century as a military outpost, built by the Hapsburgs after the Hungarian revolution in 1848. It was built on top of the hill to better control the rebellious Hungarians.

Parliament building. Is new, considering Budapest is only recently the capital of Hungary, many of the buildings, including this one, were built to commemorate the 1000 year anniversary of the Austro-Hungarian kingdom in 1896. And as such they put a bunch of symbolism in here, with shit being 96 ft tall, or having 96 steps.

Original crown, of Hungary, Stephen I got it from the pope, crowned on Christmas of 1000, it is made up of parts gifted from the byzantine emperor, and pieces made locally.

During WWII the Regalia was taken west through Austria and Germany by the Crown guard, and eventually handed over to the US, cause they knew what the Commies would do with it if they got their hands on it. the US kept it in Fort Knox for a buncha years and returned it in 1978 (cool point: i met the Foreign Service Officer that worked as Chief of Staff at the Embassy at the time of this event). The Hungarian parliament was bicameral, hence the 2 symmetrical wings in the original design. But nowadays, its unicameral, so one wing is used for the primary parliamenting, while the other side is for tourists to gape at, and international conferences n such. All of it is furnished in slavonian oak. a you can see in the pic (that will be posted eventually) the place is pretty awesome (in the most literal sense of the term), everything is covered in marble or gold, or fancy scrollworked wood. There are currently 386 members of parliament, and only 4 parties, with a 5% minimum, right now the young democrats have an unprecedented 2/3 majority. which is kinda shitty cause having a 2/3 majority means the party (who is kinda Right) can force through any legislation they want, and the opposition can seldom do anything about it. the building is infact the third largest parliament building in the world, behind the one in Buenos Aires (stick around and youll see that one too) and the one in London. im tired now, tomorrow, i should have the where-with-all to give you some description and comparison of the city to the other cities we have been to. also, we are hitting the museum of terror tomorrow, so thats exciting. I must also note, that this pics were gotten from a friend with a very nice camera, though she is big into "sky" and apparently the "sky was pretty yesterday" so...

foot prints of Napoleon

24512 Bratislava is tiny. like we hit all of the major things in town, on a 20 minute walking tour, we saw the main square, the main square, named Main Square, we say the St. Martins Cathedral

this church serves as the Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Bratislava, it was actually the coronation church for a bunch of years, including the reign of Maria Theresa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa ) on the top there, though you cant see it very well is a scaled up model of the Hungarian crown it weighs some multi hundred kilos, sits on a 2m square bronze pillow, and has over 9 kilos of gold leaf covering it. other than that, there isnt much to see here, apparently (according to wikipedia) only like 20ish% of the visitors of Bratislava stay more than one night, its a small town, welcoming, not too expensive, very quaint, but you could prolly exhaust the city in a day and a have worth of touristing. myself and a few others went to dinner with our TA Malcolm, the beer historian. we went to a brewpub that has won gold awards or some such for the last couple years. i had their bratislavský ležiak which is a lighter lager, it was delicious along with some spicy fried chicken wings, i know chicken wings arent nearly as exotic as some of the other stuff ive had, but it was genuinely spicy, which was good, cause that is generally lacking in the rest of Europe. prior to getting to Bratislava we stopped in hrad Devín. which is a castle outside the city. the castle started as a settlement in the dark ages, and then the Romans rolled in and made it a real fort, and bout the time of the Hungarian kingdom developing in the 1200s, it turned into a right and proper castle. and it stood dominating the area till Napoleon rolled in and dominated it, turning it into the ruins it is today.

other than that, most of the day was burned by travel, it took us a solid 5.5 hrs to get here, not too much knowledge to drop. ill have more stuff to talk about tomorrow in Budapest.

Not so green fairy

23512 I am pretty sure today is like the midpoint of the trip, it passed by rather unremarkably. woke up again later due to the lack of Czech language class, which is cool, but then the sun rises here absurdly early (like 5 am), and there are very few curtains in this region of the world capable of doing anything but looking like crappy lace. anyways the discussion was some more intro on Hungary, im excited cause its a REAL old city, with Roman-time ruins stuff, while i dont immediately recall seeing any last time around, im sure they were there (being as the Romans pre-date my international travels by a few years). the class was then picked up by our English major-PhD student guy discussion of the Under A Cruel Star Book. he kinda fell into the trap of being an english student, he analyzed the bejeezus out of the text, pulling meaning and metaphor, and symbolism and reasoning out of everything, like during his leading of the discussion i thought "shiet, (colloquial term i use all to frequently in my inner monologues) i read this book very wrong". and to make it doubly concerning, he will be the one grading the papers. so i have resolved to dig deep into my educational archives, and dredge up the know-how on writing about literature, i mean, this is a personal account, it actually happened, but it reads very much like a story. in the past 4 years i have been reading thousands of pages a week for history and poli-sci type classes, all of which very cut and dry, not really open to interpretation, so whenever i read anything else (namely sci-fi) i read it for consumption, i dont want to think and absorb and analyze and reach, i want explosions and boobs and aliens and FTL and then more explosions. so i kinda read this as another of my sci-fi stories, (again not to diminish the reality of this woman experience, but it was fantastical). ill peruse through it again to write up a good paper about how this book provides a micro example of the appeal of communism to a post-war Europe, and particularly post-war-European-Jewery. that was the class after which i went home to nap, cause you know, sleep is awesome. we went here

a good number of us enjoyed the symphony. it was Leif Ove Andsnes, who is i guess some kinda bigshot composer? and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra? i dunno, its what it says on the ticket. i dont know nearly enough about symphonies to tell you whether they were good or not, i enjoyed it. the music was pleasant, and the musicians seemed to be into it and know what they are doing, my limited concert experience on the trumpet didnt help me much. though i did notice a classic brass in a symphony moment, when the two trumpetlike (i nor my buddy could identify the instrument, it had the 3 keys, and the bell and whatnot, but it was like longer, like 3/4 size valve trombone. anyways, when everyone was applauding and whatnot, and the violinists were bowing, and the conductor was waving his flowers, the brass players in back were chillin, caring very little, so little infact, that he took the occasion to empty his spitvalve. it was awesome. anyways, after that some of the troop wanted to try absinthe, and we found a place nearby, i did not try any, as i had not done my research yet. not that i am afeared of the hallucinations and all that, cause i know damn well absinthe isnt supposed to do that (i could go into a huge diatribe about why people who think that are wrong). i have a distillery in Milwaukee that produces pre-ban style absinthe, and now that i have researched it is of the French/Swiss type, so you can do the whole icewater dropping over a sugar cube into the fancy glass to get the Ouzo effect and blah de blah. but apparently historically bohemian absinthe is different, in that it has less anise, so it doesnt go all milky like that, so thats where the fire thing came from, it was a gimmick thought up in the 90s. ANYWAYS, i have found a few local made absinthes, i just gotta find a place that sells em now. others continued out for a drink at another bar, i bailed and went home before they found a place (and now they got home somewhat disappointed with the evenings turn of events, i guess i do make the party). tomorrow to Bratislava, fingers crossed for good internetz

GEWD DAY

22512 without the Czech language class we got to sleep in a lil bit, which was welcomed, as myself and much of the clique went out last night, had a good, albeit late night. class today was mainly discussion of the film we watched yesterday, and some preliminary briefing on Hungary by Harlow, and then a discussion on the reading led by TA Malcolm. after the class we hopped on the train, travelled like 30km south, to Karlštejn. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl %C5%A1tejn_Castle )

so this castle Karlštejn was built in 1348 by not surprisingly Charles IV ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IV,_Holy_Roman_Emperor ), considering he built like everything in Prague, and you know, it had his name and everything. So this cat was the Holy Roman Emperor for a while, and at that, it was when the Holy Roman Empire was like the most powerful state in Europe, he was second only to the Pope in Rome. the castle was a (medieval) days travel outside Prague making it close enough to get to easily, but far enough to be safe from all those urban peasant uprisings, Charles IV had it built for his summer home, the castle also acted as his primary treasury for safekeeping of the imperial regalia, and relics, so the fingerbones of saints, to keep the stuff safe outside the city, it was also used to a lesser extent to weather out revolutions and plagues and whatnot. pictured below: various relics, including THE head of the dragon which St. George killed ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George ).

So i dunno if you are aware of this, but the Holy Roman Emperor is actually elected, not just divine right of kings type stuff, there are 7 electors, met to appoint the new holy roman emperor, 3 archbishops, and 4 princes, with the prince of Bohemia being the most prominent. after said electing, he went to Rome to be crowned by the Pope. interesting note in siege defense, all the stairs have a left turn when going down, to make them easier to defend, as you can imagine most people were right handed, so the defenders would run up the stairs, and harried the attackers on their way up while their sword arm was pinned against the wall. after this castle tour with the cool (i say cool cause he was the one that told the story in the ossuary about how "when you couldnt make it to the Holy Land to kill Muslims, you would find heretics to kill in your neighborhood, also you would kill some Jews" i loved the sarcasm) Czech history professor we made our way back home at some food, and i plan on an early night of reading my sci fi, and sleeping. the title is cause i learned the management company to my Boston apartment has issued my reimbursement check for the security deposit and whatnot, AND i got to fill out a survey about my co-op advisor