We had a very fun and thoughtful day today. We planned our trip around finding a decent Parisian style bakery. After several miss turns, the kind where you are going exactly 180 the wrong way, we found a wonderful bakery owned by an expat. I had a ham and cheese croissant that just melted in my mouth with buttery flakes and hints of nutty Swiss cheese.
Once we secured our supply lines, we ventured into the Jewish quarters. We stopped at a little square that had a huge statue of Kafka on it. As some of you know, we have a little wild “pet” squirrel at home named “Righty”. We call him that because he must have fallen out of a tree and damaged his neck. He always looks to the left, our right, so we called him Righty. Watching Gayle and Linda photographing all the dramatic buildings with turrets, cherubs, and powerful hairy arm pitted men holding up entryway, I could easily rename them “Uppies”.
Beside where I sat was a menacing man all dressed in dusty black in front of a doorway. I saw the words “Tour” and figured he was a hawker selling tour packages. Once we gathered together again, we searched valiantly for the Spanish Synagogue. We walked around a church in the square and when we returned to Kafka we realized that the man standing in front of a door is a guard securing entry into the Spanish Synagogue. Quoting Kafka, “Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.”
Inside the church the walls and spires were a woven matte of green and gold. Circles and stars dipped in honey and embossed with golden amber. Kafka made us forever young with his words, “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
Later we walked though the thousand of drunken grave stones, leaning due to the dozens of layers of Jews buried in this location as it was the only location allowed by law for Jews to be buried at. Prayer stones and stones of respect top many of the closest markers. One young Jewish woman was picking up prayers from the dusty trail and replacing them under stones. These people have real understanding of dignity and respect for their history. I for one have great admiration for their ability to survive and thrive against enormous adversity. Inside one building that use to be a synagogue is the list of countless thousands Czech and Monrovian Jews killed in camps during WWII.
When we returned to our apartment, we suddenly realized that we only had one set of keys and the ones we had doesn’t seem to open the front door. Tired dogs, and a door barring “wine time” does not make for happy campers. Linda made the astute observation that one of the names on the entry buzzers sound English. We buzzed and begged our way in. When we go to our room, a lady stopped us in the hall and asked us about our problem. Her name was Pam and she an expat. We compared keys and she noticed that one of the portions of the key was broken off. She offered to get us another one made for us for free. We had a wonderful informative chat. She told us that something similar had happened to another American couple one evening. Her husband saw them as he was leaving and told her about it a short time later. She asked him if he let them in and helped them. No, I just saw them with their luggage. She ran down the steps, found them at the curb, invited them in, got them something to drink, and posted a note on the door. Using her phone, she text her husband and called him a “jerk”.
One and a half hours later, the landlady showed up and gave them the key. Since then we have had a number of text messages with her on a wide variety of subjects. We have an angel one
floor above. By the way, the key arrived the next morning by 8am.
We finished that day at Letna park, napping, gossiping about kissing youths and peeing dogs while lying on our picnic sheet. Linda finally go so board that she decided to take pictures of her foot, raised in the air, above some battlements and backlit by budding trees. If we every loose Linda in Czechland, this will make an interesting identify photo.
Press the Play (>) button beneath our video to see slides of our trip today!
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