A Prague Weekend

The LCC'ers at the table
and the supporting cast.

Welcome!!  B.J. and I met the four First Pres LCC'ers (Language, Culture and Church) at the Prague airport and escorted them back to Letohrad this past Thursday.  The group included Heather Shortlidge, Jenn Dodd, Allison Taylor, and Rebecca Pearson.  They are here for a week of special presentations at the church. So..... we were able to make a dash back to Prague after our Friday morning school classes since we have this week off (except for school classes)!! Plans were to stay through Monday and sneak back on Tuesday morning...done.


However, there was an ulterior motive for going to Prague; B.J. is

The Dragonboats

a recent member of the Rotary Club of Parole in Annapolis and there is an English language Rotary Club in Prague.  This past Saturday was the annual Rotary Dragon Boat Charity Challenge as well as a scheduled Rotary meeting on Monday so since the stars were all lined up we thought it judicious we take the plunge.  The dragon boat races were held on a section of the Vltava river upstream of the city center.  It was more of a sprint than a race since most boats made the straight course in about a minute - we understand one of the Rotary entries made it under a minute - a notable achievement we were told. The boats are owned by a company but each team is responsible for the rest of the logistics and training.  I was very impressed with the coordination and tactics of some of the boats but the main reason was to have fun, eat, drink and raise some cash for charity.  There was an excellent turnout as several large companies and organizations sponsored teams for the races.

An unanticipated highlight was that we noticed a water taxi plying back and forth in the vicinity. As

It's good to be back on the water.

fate would have it, we wanted some exercise equipment located in a shop on the opposite side of the river.  So we had a dynamite sausage and beer at the race concessions and headed for the taxi landing.  Of note was that we purchased transportation tickets for three days for any metro, tram or bus line in the city.  As it turns out, the water taxi honored those tickets; another big plus for the mass transit systems for Europe in general and the Czech Republic in particular.


One item that caught our eye in an internet search for things to do

Lots of room for lots of people.

Cheers!!

was a Beer Festival just opening in Prague for a couple weeks.  Featuring 70 plus beers from various parts of the country, it was staged in a huge tent with several adjoining tents and an internal open courtyard (for smokers, we found out).  [P.S. There is a new law prohibiting smoking in public spaces just like in the US; it will be effective this summer in June, I think.]  We paid a small entrance fee and received a beer tracking card and away we went; you tallied the damage and paid on the way out.

The adventurous babes.

We have been to Prague several times in the past and have always noticed the massive telecommunications tower from a distance.  You can't miss the thing... it dominates the skyline on that side of town.  Since we were
staying in the Žižkov district, where the tower is located, we thought it would be a good idea to drop by and take a closer look.  The tower was constructed during the Soviet era and many think it somewhat an eyesore.  Most likely for that reason, there was an attempt to humorize the thing with a series of babies crawling up the outside... yea, babies.  You can see from the photos the babes are not the least bit shy and are quite fearless .... wonder what their parents think. As luck would have it, at the base of the tower is a Jewish cemetery.  It seems the cemetery was quite a bit larger until the Soviets flattened the area to build the tower; there were upwards to 20,000 graves.  The remaining (not sure the number) are quite old and very impressive. There are lots of beautiful trees which give the place a peaceful and serene feeling.  It is called the New Jewish Cemetery since it was established in 1890 to replace the 'old' Jewish cemetery located in another part of the city.

I know, but I could not resist continuing the humorous theme.
Notice the 'victim' tally on the door!

Lastly, we did manage to get a bit of business done.  On Monday, we met with Eva Grollova at the headquarters of the Diaconia ECCB.  You will recall in a previous blog we visited an ECCB Hospice and were interested in learning more about the supporting program.  It turns out Eva has been associated with the Diakonia since its reemergence in 1989 just prior to the Soviet departure (it existed before but that is a long story).  She is retired but is now a part-time colleague with the new director, Jan Soběslavský. Eva offered a world of information.  We spent a very fruitful morning discussing her personal history which shed quite a light on the Diaconia history through the tumultuous Soviet period of Czech history.

Shortly after that, we met with Ivana Adámková, a member of the ECCB congregation in Brandýs nas Labem, a town just in commuting distance of Prague.  This is the church of Petr Slama, on the faculty of the theological department of Charles University and well known to anyone associated with the Presbyterian/ECCB partnership.  He wanted to see if we could find some time to conduct a similar set of lectures there.  We met Ivana to flush out details for us to present in Brandýs during the period when the Czech VBS (English to the Church) is being conducted in Letohrad this July.  We are looking forward to another cultural exchange opportunity with their community.