I got up at 9:30am, tired from the partying the night before. I ate the free breakfast and took a shower. I went back up stairs to wake up Jon as we were supposed to check out by 10:00am. By the time, Jon had gotten up and we had stowed our bags in the baggage room it was 10:30am.
The hostel had recommended the free Prague tours that met in the Old Town Square. We exited the hostel and started walking around the snow covered square. There were a ton of tour groups trying to draw visitors. We walked past the clock tower and saw the free tour group at the southern end of the square. It was a large group of mostly students and our tour guide was in her late 20's although you could tell she had had a hard life under communism. She was very nice and spoke English well with a strong Czech accent. The tour was very informational as we learned a lot about the city. We ended up walking a huge loop passing many interesting sights. I enjoyed the performance art statue of a man riding on an upside down horse, symbolizing Czech political reforms.
The tour went for a good 2 and a half hours and we ended in the Old Jewish Quarter. The tour was free but they did ask for tips. Jon and I each gave a hundred crowns. We asked two girls from the tour to take our picture in front of a statue of Franz Kafka and ended up talking to them for a while. They were from Seattle and studying abroad in Cadiz, Spain. We said goodbye and then before beginning to explore the "Jewish Museum of Prague," which consisted of the entire Old Jewish Quarter of the city, we went to H&M clothing stores to find Jon a pair of wool socks. The wool socks definitely helped Jon's feet, which had been consistently numb since the beginning of the trip.
The Jewish Quarter in Prague was the best Jewish historical place I had seen outside of Jerusalem. Prague has 5 ancient synagogues, all in remarkable condition considering the terrible history of persecution against the Jewish population of Europe. I bought a 24 hour, all-access pass that allowed entrance to all of the synagogues, the old Jewish graveyard, and art galleries. I was happy to pay the extra money and really would have paid whatever price. I had been supporting so many churches and mosques during my travels in Europe, I thought it would be cool to support something that is a large part of my heritage.
The first synagogue I went in was the incredibly beautiful "Spanish Synagogue." With beautiful decoration and architecture, it rivaled any of the other religious buildings I had seen. From the Spanish synagogue I went to tour the smaller Klausen synagogue. Inside the two-story synagogue were all 80,000 names of the Prague Jews killed in the Holocaust. Very moving, powerful and terribly sad. I then walked around the building to the entrance of the Old Jewish Cemetery. Silent and cold with the falling snow resting gently on the ancient tombstone, I walked quietly a long the winding path.
On our way back to the hostel, it was snowing a ton. I was glad though, as I've never experienced a real winter and I feel its a better, "more real," Prague experience.
At the hostel, we cooked some more spaghetti and then spent a long time on the computer trying to decided where we would be going. My original plan was to visit Budapest and Vienna, but after looking at times and prices of the trains, it was going to be so expensive. Jon suggested Poland, but I wasn't really sure. It hadn't been high on "my countries to visit" list. Then he suggested that we go see Auschwitz and I started to think differently. I had wanted to visit Auschwitz at some point during this year abroad but I hadn't planned on visiting it during this trip and I didn't think that there was anyone else in the program who would want to go. If Jon was interested, I would definitely consider it. We decided to wait before making a final decision and first figure out where we would be sleeping. We had received a couple of couchsurfing replies and decided to call a 26 year old Dutch grad student who seemed cool from his profile. He said it was fine for us to come and gave us directions to his house. We grabbed our bags from the hostel and got on the metro heading toward "Dejivk."
What probably appeared to be quite a sketchy encounter, we met Gerard, a tall, skinney well-dressed Dutch kid, in the metro station. Walking back to his house, we introduced ourselves. Couchsurfing is crazy. Here I was about to spend the night in the house of someone who I had never met and had only called 20 minutes before from a random profile on the Internet. Crazy. Faith in Humanity. It was snowing and cold, but we quickly made it back to his apartment from the metro stop. The apartment was very nice, with spacious rooms and wood floors.
He gave us something to drink and we chit chatted about Prague, travel, our own backgrounds, and where we should go in the coming days. At 9:00pm his Czech roommate came back from vacation and we talked to her once she got settled in. They spoke English at home as Gerard didn't know any Czech. The instruction at the Czech university he was studying at was all in English.
Gerard invited us to come with him and his roommate to a local jazz club. We took the tram over and went downstairs to the underground haunt. Jon and I bought the drinks to show our gratitude for being able to host us for the night. There wasn't enough room to sit down, but we had a nice evening talking to Gerard and seeing Prague from a more local perspective.
Better than what we had anticipated of sleeping on the floor as is with most couchsurfing experiences, we were fortunate to have our own beds as they had an extra room available with a bed and futon. Before going to bed, Jon said that we should go to Poland. I said we should sleep on it.
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