The last few days.

On Monday, we went to the Municipal Library of Prague and attended a lecture at the Library at Nostic Palace. Yesterday, we had an outing to Liberec, about 90 km northeast of here, situated close to the German and Polish borders. The history of Liberec goes back to the 13th century but we were there to tour the Regional Scientific Library which also functions as a public library and provides services to all age groups and interests. It is housed in a gorgeous modern building built about 10 or so years ago. Next door to it is the Building of Reconciliation which houses a Jewish community centre and prayer room in the spot where the old Liberec synagogue used to stand which was burned down on November 9-10, 1938 in the Kristallnacht pogrom.

After lunch in a family run hotel in Český ráj (literally Czech paradise) we visited Prachovské skály in the region Jičín. We had an opportunity to walk up to the top of the sandstone rocks to see the spectacular view of the surrounding countryside.

The last person to join our group has arrived. She was ill last week but is glad to be here for the second week of the program and we are enjoying her company as she is getting to know Prague and the rest of us at the seminar. On Monday evening we had dinner in a very lovely vegetarian restaurant, Maitrea, and yesterday, three of us had a late dinner of appetizers at an Italian restaurant not far from the hotel. On the way back, we stopped in to see some of the interior of the spectacular Municipal House. We are planning to go to a concert there tonight if we are able to get tickets. Today, we'll be attending lectures at the National Technical Library, followed by an afternoon tour of the premises. Tomorrow, we have an early start at 6 am to go visit Kroměříž and tour the Archbishop’s Chateau's Library, followed by wine tasting at the Chateau's wine cellars.

I seem to be having difficulty with getting this post to recognize that I have reset the clock on my computer, so just for the record, this is Wednesday morning, May 30th. As has been the case most days here, I woke up before 5 am, but I don't mind because it gives me a chance to get an early start to the day. Now, it is almost time for breakfast. And, if you are reading this, then happy birthday Katherine! P.S. As heard in one of our tours: In Europe, people think that 100 km is a long distance. In North America, people think that 100 years is a long history.

A connection to the National Library.

Yesterday we visited the National Library and the Strahov Monastery Library. We could choose one of three libraries to visit on yesterday morning's outing and although I initially wanted to see the new Faculty of Arts Library I changed my mind and went to see the National Library. We were given an interesting talk on the history of the library and also a tour of the historic buildings in which it is housed. The highlight for me was searching the catalogue and finding that they held both father's book "Jazyk, kultúra a hlbinná psychológia" and several of mother's publications including "Správnou výživou k dobrému vysvedčeniu" which loosely translated means "With good nutrition to good grades," a booklet my mother wrote in 1955.

Last week in Bratislava ...

Last week in Bratislava, I saw Zdenka Trvalcova perform French retro. She was in Prague last Tuesday night at a club called Popocafepetl so a couple of my new friends from the seminar and I decided to go.

I thought I could find my way to the club because it was along the same route that we had taken in the morning to visit the Czech Parliament. Turns out all I remembered correctly was the metro part and I didn't remember how to get from the metro stop to the right street car. After unsuccessfully trying to find the no. 22 street car stop, we decided to walk. We were more or less going in the right direction but were having trouble finding the bridge we needed to cross. I asked for directions a couple of times but the streets are so convoluted here that it was still taking us a while to get to the river. By now it was getting close to 8 pm when the concert was supposed to start so when I saw a taxi by the curb, I asked him how much to get us there. "150 crowns," he said. The price was reasonable so we piled in. He was a polite, sympathetic young man, we had a nice little chat about where we were from and he told us that he had a relative in North America but that he had not yet visited there. Anyway, he found the club without a problem, we paid, gave him a bit of a tip and found our way into the club. It looked like a typical former wine cellar, dark and dungeon-like. There were young people at the entrance to take our money, with just a few customers sitting at the tables. The band was on the stage milling about, getting ready. We found a table and sat there for a little while just enjoying the atmosphere and checking out the offerings. We ordered drinks and nachos with salsa and sour cream. The salsa turned out to be sweet and sour sauce.

The performance started at 8:30 and didn't disappoint. The club filled up and a number of people brought their chairs up to the front, to be nearer the stage. Zdenka mesmerized this audience with her voice and performance, just as she had the audience in Bratislava. At one point, she told a story about the song they were about to perform. She said that the last time they played it was at midnight at one of the town squares. As they were playing, the police pulled up and told them that they were disturbing the peace. But they were also curious about the kind of music they were playing. A member of the band explained that it was French retro. "What's that?" a policeman asked. "Well, we can play some for you, quietly," they said. "This song needs a bit more accordion," one of the policemen said after they started to play, and "Could you play some Edith Piaf?" Anyway, the band extended an invitation to the policemen to come and hear them here at the club but we don't know whether they actually showed up.

No time! No sleep! No elevator!

Here I am in the lobby of the hotel (no internet access in my room) at 6:51 am on Friday, May 25th, 2012, at the end of the first week of the Prague Summer Seminar. I've been up again since before 5 am, don't seem to be able to sleep much here. There is the noise from the street, there is the light coming in the room and there is my "I can't sleep in" physiology. The street wakes up quite early here, by 5 am the trams are zipping by in the square outside my window. It also goes to bed quite late, I think the garbage collection happens late in the evening and the night life here in general seems to go on into the wee hours.

This morning we start relatively late, at 9:30 am with a visit the the Faculty of Arts Library and in the afternoon, we will visit the Strahov Monastery followed by a guided tour of the Strahov Library.

I am way behind on my "reportage" but here are a few notes.

On Monday evening we had a three hour walking tour of the old town and dinner and boat tour on the Vltava river. On Tuesday morning, we went to see the Parliament and had a tour of and a lecture about the Parliamentary Library. The highlight was being shown the guest book of the Parliamentary Library that includes signatures of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first President of Czechoslovakia, then a signature of Alexander Dubček and also Václav Havel. I was practically in tears. We were all also asked to sign the guest book

The Czechs have done great job of digitizing historical documents, there is about a thousand years' worth available online and the project includes documents from other neighbouring nations.

The afternoon was spent touring the oldest building of Charles University, the Carolinum and also included a couple of talks on the history of the Czech nation. On Tuesday, we also dropped into the public reading room of the American Embassy where we had an interesting impromptu talk from the librarian there. He was brimming with enthusiasm for the work they are doing and was happy to talk to us about it.

Wednesday was a full day of lectures at the school. Again very interesting. We had lunch on site ad after a couple more lectures in the afternoon, we visited the Libri Prohibiti library and were told about Samizdat, literally meaning "self published." During the time of Communist censorship, people wrote or translated many works that could not not be published otherwise. A translation into Slovak of the Lord of the rings was one of the books we were shown.

Yesterday we had a wonderful trip to Klášter Zlatá Koruna and Český Krumlov. On the way there we passed by a place called Příbram where my father spent three years as a political prisoner forced to work in the uranium mines.

From five star to no star.

Yesterday, I arrived at my hotel in Prague. The bus ride over was hellish, both because the roads were really bad and because of the overwhelming heat. It was 28 degrees Celsius outside but much warmer in the bus. Of course, I was overdressed thinking I would be cold from the air-conditioning but instead I was just about passing out from the heat. At some point, the woman sitting next to me asked the driver to turn up the air and he did, but just marginally. After an hour and a half of this, we stopped in Brno, I went to the washroom, poured cold water on my head, got my t-shirt wet in various places and returned to the bus. There I found out that the air-conditioning was working better at the front of the bus so I moved and the rest of the trip was better.

I took a cab from the bus station to the hotel. It is in the centre of the city but it is more of a hostel than a hotel, no amenities, not even a kettle in the room to make tea or coffee. I met most of the people involved in the program last night including several faculty members from Charles University.

After the introductory session, we walked over to a restaurant/pub nearby to have a meal. The pub was getting ready to show the Slovakia-Russia gold medal hockey game; they pulled down a couple of screens for people to watch the game on. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, Slovakia scored the first goal and everyone cheered. I was happy to hear the Czechs cheering for the Slovaks. Unfortunately, Slovakia eventually lost the game. But a silver medal in a world championship is a pretty good accomplishment.

Even though it is as basic as it gets, the hotel seems pretty popular. Wireless internet is only available in the lobby, we have no access to the internet in the rooms. The lobby is where I am sitting right now surrounded by a large group of people speaking I am not sure what language.

Today was free to do as we wished. I mostly conserved my energy. I talked to a couple of people who were around, I walked the neighbourhood a bit, found one of the main squares and took a couple of trips to the shopping mall next door to pick up a few things. I took it easy because the program starts in about half an hour with a 3 hour guided walking tour of the old town followed by dinner on a boat on the Vltava river. Tomorrow, we start at 8:45.

Wine-tasting in Svätý Jur, Thursday May 17th, 2012

On Thursday evening, my nephew and his wife came by my hotel sometime between 6 and 7 in the evening. The plan was to go to Svätý Jur to visit A.'s parents. There had been a glitch, however. That afternoon Slovakia was playing Canada in the hockey championship and Slovakia was losing, the score was 3 to 2 for Canada. When my niece was making the arrangements, her father asked "And where is she from?" "Canada" she said. "I don't know" he said, shaking his head, "I don't think she can come."

In the meantime, my nephew had been working on a plumbing job which turned out to be much bigger than he anticipated. As soon as he fixed what he thought was causing the problem, he discovered a much bigger problem that was causing the first. R. and A. had planned to pick me up at 3 but arrived at least three hours later. By then Slovakia had won the game and my niece's father magnanimously declared "Yes, yes, she can come!"

For my nephew and his wife's two grown sons, I had brought several hockey jerseys and T-shirts, each with a big logo of Canada across the front. As I was showing these to my nephew, we got the idea that each of us would wear one to Svätý Jur. So we donned our Canada shirts and off we went. A.'s father got a good chuckle out of our outfits when we arrived.

After stopping at the house and having some cake and tea, we went wine-tasting. I tried each of the 10 or so different wines, from white to red and an ice wine in between. They were all excellent. I didn't have a headache the following morning, which speaks to the quality of the wine here. Afterwards, we strolled through the beautiful town and saw the church where the "kids" got married. All in all, an enjoyable evening.

Visiting with relatives - May 16th, 2012

I had a wonderful day yesterday visiting with relatives present and past. My cousins offered to meet me at the cemetery Slávičie údolie where various members of the family are buried. I ordered another taxi to take me to the cemetery and was driven there in style in another shiny sleek black Mercedes-Benz.

I waited at the main entrance for a little while because I was early. There at the gate I saw, in quick succession, three young, mangy looking cats. I felt bad for the little creatures because they were clearly not getting enough to eat and I wondered whether they were having to fend for themselves.

The weather was not the most pleasant, it was windy, overcast and cool so I went into the flower shop to ask if the lady who had been having a smoke at the entrance and was clearly the main occupant would mind if I waited inside. Well, the shrug of her shoulders and expression on her face told me that she would mind so I walked around and waited outside and took a few pictures. Then I decided to wait further away from the gate, closer to the main road and it was a good thing because my cousins who were also early spotted me and recognized me even though we had not seen each other in 20 years. Another cousin joined us shortly and then we all walked through the cemetery to the place where my maternal grandparents, uncles, cousin and my mother all rest in peace together. It is a beautiful, peaceful spot, with lots of trees and fresh air. After visiting several other graves in the cemetery to light candles and say hello to relatives who are also interred there, we took the street car to a restaurant in Karlova Ves to have lunch. Karlova Ves has a special significance for me because in the summer we used to go swimming in the Danube as well as camping there.

I had a new experience on the street car, as we got on, one very polite and well brought up young woman stood up to give up her seat for me. I appreciated it but it made me feel old.

After lunch we took the street car to my cousin's apartment where we had coffee and cake and looked at old family photographs. Then, my cousin Ivan, whom I met for the first time since childhood, took me home on the trolleybus.

I really enjoyed spending time with my cousins, sharing family stories.