lively Prague

One more Prague photo. This was Monday, as I was touristing on my own while Casey was in the conference. I wandered over to the Old Town square and got to the Astronomical Clock just at the new hour, as the apostles were doing their rotating thing in the windows above the clock face. Then I ambled over toward the Huss (religious reformer) statute, and I heard some noise--pipes, bells, etc. A bunch of stilt walkers were running around with some musicians and dancers waving banners and so forth. One of the dancers started rolling around on the ground and was IMMEDIATELY surrounded by people taking her picture. (What is WITH the tourists who stand directly under someone ON STILTS to take his picture?!) Anyway, they were shouting stuff in Czech, so I have no idea what it was all about, but eventually another group, in black and yellow and beating tribal drum-type things came in, and they danced together, then a red group did the same, and then some Brazilian-themed group came in and danced with all of them. Then there was a little parade around the square, with vehicles.

I found this scene especially cool, because the only other time anyone in my immediate family went to Prague was when my parents went there in ~1972 (for a physics conference, complete with KGB), while Czechoslovakia was under communist rule and presumably less of a lively tourist destination. In fact, not only was it communist at the time, but 1969 saw the Russian appointment of a Czech head of state whose purpose was to return Czechoslovakia to hard-line communism. During the 60s there had been some anti-communist music groups, protests, etc., and in 1968 Russia moved tanks into Prague, to save the Czech people from... themselves. So by the time my parents visited, it was again a punishable offense to dislike the communist ruling. It was even a punishable offense to know that someone else wanted to escape and not report their plan.

The architecture may have been the same, but the throngs of brazen tourists were not there before.

back home

Hi again. Casey and I just returned from The IAU General Assembly and sightseeing (mostly respectively) in Prague, where I took 340+ pictures and pulled a muscle walking and where it was decided that the solar system does not have nine planets after all. How odd that there isn't a Wikipedia entry on my pulled muscle yet.

Today's picture was taken on our first day in Prague (Saturday), in Lesser Town, at the base of the "hill" that Prague Castle sits on. The highlight of the city is the architecture, which has remained better preserved than in other large European cities through both world wars and communist occupation. The baroque buildings were most plentiful and impressive in their bounty, but I chose this photo to start things off, because my mom likes pink.

I hope to post a few more photos soon (I promise not more than a hundred), but this weekend is Uitmarkt in Amsterdam, so I might be a bit busy.

Dutch history lesson

For much of World War II, Germany occupied the Netherlands. The Dutch had hoped that they could remain neutral, as they had in the first World War, so their military was unprepared, and they could only resist Germany for four days before surrendering. (Their surrendering also spared Amsterdam from being bombed as heavily as Rotterdam.) The German occupation started in 1940 and lasted until the end of the war.

During the occupation, the Dutch government (including the royalty) fled to England, where they set up a government-in-exile and even broadcast news programs in Dutch on the BBC.

Since almost all of Germany's supplies came through the Netherlands, the country's rail lines were heavily bombed as the war went on. For the last year, the Dutch had very little food, if any. Friends of friends recall living on tulip bulbs and juice made from boiling beets for the last several months of the war.

When the war ended, the queen of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, decided not to move back into the palace (in The Hague) immediately. Instead, she found a more modest house nearby where she lived for several months, until the Dutch people began to forgive her for fleeing. (In contrast, the Danish royalty stayed in Denmark, and stories say that their king wore a Jewish star in protest. The Dutch thought and still do think very highly of this and of the strong Danish resistance, although to be fair to the Dutch, the Netherlands was more strategically located for Germany.) Anyway, the queen lived in this house from August 1, 1945, until May 1, 1946.

This house is now owned by Casey's sister's boyfriend's father, who invited us to stay there for a couple of nights while they (Casey's sister, her boyfriend, her daughter, and her daughter's best friend) were visiting last month. The house, technically in Scheveningen, is indeed not particularly ostentatious from the outside, but it is still very nice. The style is called "drie onder een kop" (three under one cap), which is sort of like a three-house town house. There's a small front yard and a garden in back, and by European standards it is very spacious, but it's true that there are larger mansions on the same street. And, yes, it's definitely smaller than the palace.

The photo for today was taken in the front foyer in the house. It's a series of photos of Queen Wilhelmina's daughter unveiling a plaque honoring the house. (Like all photos on this blog, clicking on the image takes you to a larger version.) The top right photo is recognizable as the front of the house.

tien

As promised, Amsterdam gay pride parade.

For those of us from Vassar, it's the homo hop on water, only during the day and with a greater diversity of spectators (and participants).

The parade consists of a series of boats. They're each playing their own music (most of them were playing some sort of techno). The boats start out at a dock near Centraal Station, and they go along Prinzengracht (past the Anne Frank House), turn left at the Amstel (away from our apartment, sadly), and finish at a dock on the other side of Centraal. We met up with some people from Casey's office (not an easy feat in itself) and watched for maybe 2 hours. I think we missed the beginning, but we stayed until the boats going by were smaller and much less enthusiastic, at which point people seemed to agree that the parade was over. Then we went to watch Superman IMAX.

This year's theme was "Rembrandt," to commemorate his 400th birthday. I chose this photo for today because I thought this was the float that did the best job with the theme, of the few that didn't ignore the theme altogether. There were a few others that had painting motifs, but this one was way cooler. It was a relatively large one, everyone on the boat was wearing black, and most were wearing the white collars and coordinating their dancing. And it had never occurred to me from looking at paintings just how well those collars bounce around when their wearers are dancing!

But I said "diversity," didn't I? There were people of all ages, in the audience and also on the boats. A man standing behind me put his daughter on his shoulders so that she could see. I think the most surprising thing for me was all the corporate boats. Several banks had boats in the parade (my favorite of those was ING's), and Shell Oil had a good one, too. There was a parade-provided banner on each of the corporate boats, which said "Personal Pride = Company Pride."

negen

G's in Dutch are pronounced with the gutteral "ch" sound.

Today's photo I took early this morning, biking from the pub to the late-night falafel place. The ad is for a Botero sculpture exhibit in The Hague, which we saw when we were there last month. At any rate, however good Casey claims hamburgers are at the end of a long night, I'm confident that falafel is at least as good. And certain Chicago people will be happy to know that Casey and I have been dubbed "new members of the core" as a result of our stamina. (Really the trick is to not drink very much--but perhaps I shouldn't be giving away our trade secrets.)

Now we're off to the gay pride parade along the canals, and then to Superman IMAX. Tomorrow Casey's ex-officemate will come from Turkey. He's staying with us for three weeks, until he can move into his apartment in Amsterdam. In theory I should finish unpacking my own stuff before he arrives. But I'd rather see the gay pride parade.

acht

Backtracking a bit...

Today's photo was taken a few blocks from our apartment, on the day that we signed the rental contract (over a month ago now!). For a few weeks, these flowers (hollyhocks?) were blooming all over the city. They're mostly gone now, but the roses are still blooming, along with plenty of other flowers.

This past Saturday, we went back to the Albert Cuypstraat market. Since this time it was a Saturday, it was much busier than the first time we went. The guy with the orange juice machine was there (one tasty ~6 oz cup for a euro), along with the stroopwafel guy (one large gooey stroopwafel for a euro, too). On a healthier note, we finally got some plants for our balcony -- one basil and one tiny trinitaria (or bougainvillea, if you're not talking about them in Puerto Rico). Now our balcony looks slightly less naked. Except for when the wind knocks over our puny plants and you can't see them from below anymore. Maybe next weekend we'll find some bigger pots.

"Seven" in Dutch is "zeven."