American in Prague

Yesterday I dropped off my uncle Bam at the airport after his four-day journey to Prague. Then I went to a park close to my apartment and read for a few hours. Afterwards, I slept continuously for about 13 hours. It was a great weekend.

My uncle Bam lives in Zurich and despite the fact that we've been on the same continent for a while, we haven't been able to see each other until now. Bam arrived on Friday with a suitcase full of Swiss chocolate and we hit the town. On Saturday we went to the castle which was much more interesting than the first time that I toured it about 2 years ago. Being here since August has taught me a great wealth of Czech history and now I really felt like I was visiting the world largest castle.  On my first visit to the castle I was merely happy and a little jet-lagged.

The weekend before this one I was just outside of the castle on the castle's main square with Oscar and two other colleagues watching Barack Obama speak publicly to the city. We were incredibly lucky to get within close distance of Obama. We overslept and arrived about an hour and a half later than we should have at our tram stop. The streets were then closed due to the passing of the motorcade and we enjoyed a quick breakfast while we waited for the tram to move again. Finally, it was in motion and we got up the hill to the castle faster than lightning. No other cars were allowed up the steepest parts so the tram was the only way to go. When we arrived, they were only allowing people with VIP tickets for the front. However, with about 20 minutes to showtime, they realized that the VIP area looked sparse and they let us and about 50 other people fill up the front viewing area. I felt a bit guilty passing the people that had been there since 6 and looking very tired, but they were probably just as happy to see Obama as we were. His speech felt honest and very sympathetic to Czech people. Everyone was impressed and there were only a few boos when he mentioned that the radar project is still going to happen, but could be dismantled if we can reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world. He said that this is his greatest goal in life: To rid the world of nuclear weapons. What a charmer!

The weather has been nothing but gorgeous for the last week and a half. As my uncle and I were looking for the torture chamber, we stumbled into the royal vineyards where they were having a wine celebration with all Czech wines. We sampled a few goodies and a few baddies, but the atmosphere and live music was what made sampling wine on castle vineyards while overlooking the beautiful city of Prague all the more magical.

On Saturday/Sunday we visited an amazing city in Moravia named Olomouc. The city was believed to have been founded by Julius Cesar and contained loads of fountains as well as impressive baroque castles and monuments. It is also a college town and we had free entrance in their modern art museum every sunday. Being that Easter is not a big holiday, (Easter Monday is the day of whipping ladies in exchange for eggs, pastries, and liquors), the museums and most places were open. There were two phenomenal galleries with the work of Michael Rittstein and Eduard Ovcacek. This is the link to their site: http://www.olmuart.cz/ or in English: http://www.olmuart.cz/?nl=en The city also has great nightlife, food and of course some pretty snazy micro-brews. It was definitely a diamond in the rough.

We are looking forward to Oscar's first American experience. He is going to Venezuela for 5 days before joining me in the states, but hopefully he can smuggle a few hammocks that we can use in our new flat in Prague. We will get our new place in July and hopefully right before I head over to California. I will also be in Indy for a few days to see a friend's wedding, (from the 15th-20th of July), and then back to California.

Now that Spring is here, our cabin bickering has turned into chipper Spring teasing! Long live Prague Spring!