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Dresden...An Experience.

So impulsively this weekend my roommates and I decided that we'd like to take a day trip to Dresden, as we had the entire weekend free from scheduled events. Most apartments took longer trips, but we've been planning some bigger trips and I wanted to save my money. We got really inexpensive round trip tickets ($26) on Friday and left this morning (Saturday) at 8:40.

The day began pretty epic-ly, when we were within 30 seconds of missing our train and had to sprint and jump on it practically as it was leaving. We though this would be the most traumatic experience of the day...we were wrong.

The two hour train ride went smoothly with a little last minute brushing up on our German and quick naps. When we arrived, however, we were greeted with a train station full of police in full riot gear. Initially we thought that Germany might be stepping up border control...again, we were wrong. Our program directors told us that a passport wasn't really necessary in traveling between Germany and the Czech republic. They were so, so, so wrong! Luckily we didn't listen to them and all had our passports.

We exited the train station and there were still more riot police EVERYWHERE. One greeted me with a customary "Guten tag," one of the few words in my German arsenal, so of course I responded enthusiastically with a return "Guten tag." Upon this greeting we were surrounded by riot police yelling in German, pretttttttty intimidating. To this, I started saying "English? English???? Englishhhhhh!??!?!" and they backed off and laughed a little and checked our passports.

At this point we were pretty confused and I couldn't stop laughing hysterically at the sheer ridiculous-ness of our position, stuck in Dresden until the end of the day, with no language skills (other than "Ich bin in der Bibliothek") and completely ignorant to what was going on. Beyond these obstacles, it was freezing. Like, so freezing that at the end of the day when we returned to Prague, I felt like I was coming home to a tropical paradise. We figured the best plan of action was to get to a cafe and figure out what the hell was going on. To do this we text our Czech buddy, Petr, a message that might be summarized as "What the F is going down in Dresden today? We're surrounded by riot police." To this text, he responded, verbatim "Holy shit! Apparently the neo-Nazis are marching through town today. Make sure you look non-aligned (no anti-fascist chants, etc) and you should be fine."

So we go to Germany on a day trip and walk into the center of a Neo-Nazi gathering. What. The. Hell. (sorry about the language, but this is literally what was going through our minds).

At this point we're all a little spooked, but figure we have to see what's going down. We walk back towards the train station where the fascist groups are gathering and hear some Nazi guy screaming in German about something (horrible, I'm sure). This is sobering and gross and horrible and awful and the tension in the air is palpable. There are hundreds of Neo-Nazi's wearing all black and carrying Third Reich banners and flags standing around cheering (see horrible far away picture above). This is something I never thought I would see.

We decide that we should peace out before stuff gets really bad and we get lost in a crowd or worse. It's freezing so we walk around a bit, halfheartedly taking pictures, before we decide to go to the Staatliche Kunstsammlugen (Dresden State Art Museum). The museum is gorgeous and filled with all sorts of amazing paintings, like Vermeer's and Raphael's and Titian's, but its pretty hard to concentrate when you hear drums banging outside, in what we assumed was some sort of Nazi gathering. We stayed at the museum for about two hours, but eventually decided to brave the cold and the fascists to go walk around again.

When we left we were immediately in the center of some sort of black clad crowd listening to a concert with an angry sounding German metal band, complete with the electric flute. This accident, however, was a godsend as we had ended up in the middle of the counter demonstration to the Nazi march (see the picture with red banners). We stayed for awhile, taking pictures and listening to the band, but soon started walking back towards the train station, as we had decided to leave a bit early due to obvious unforeseen conflicts.

As we walked back, however, we basically walked directly across the line between the anti-facists and the Nazis; this was obvious as we walked into a group of boot-wearing skinheads blasting traditional German music out of a black van and waving skull-covered flags around. At this point we tried to hightail it out of there, but were soon surrounded by riot police AGAIN yelling at us in German. By this point we had seen hundreds of different groups of police wearing different uniforms and all wielding tear gas and night sticks, but it wasn't until now that we were completely surrounded and unable to get out. I tried to explain that we were tourists and we needed to go to the train station but they were having none of it, so we basically ran away and navigated an alternate route to the train station.

I should mention that ALL day people had mistaken me for one of the agitators (hopefully the counter-fascists). I was stopped no less than three times by the police while all my roommates were able to walk by unnoticed. We decided this was because I look German (people in Prague speak to me in German constantly) which was obnoxious. I sincerely hope they didn't think I was a Nazi. Gross.

Finally, we managed to make it back to the train station, which, of course, was surrounded by dozens of card carrying Nazis. Walking through crowds of violent a-holes with backwards moral attitudes was really scary and foul, but when we finally made it to the train it was such a relief.

During the day I really never felt unsafe, because the crowds were well controlled. The experience was sobering, however, because although similar attitudes exist in the US they're not as close to the surface. Also, it was a little ridiculous that we had such a stereotypical German experience; I'm willing to give the country another chance, though, because I still really want to go to Berlin but maybe in the spring when its less cold. At the end of the day I was really, really happy to get back to regularly grumpy Czech people, instead of violently racist, grumpy German people.

P.S.

A better picture of the roommates to prove to certain mothers that I was not "falling down drunk."

Cesky Krumlov...aka the Dirty K

So this weekend our entire group took a trip to Cesky Krumlov, a small town about three hours outside of Praha proper. The town is pretty picturesque and is home to a huge castle and lots of tourist-y type attractions.

We drove there on a big bus, pretty uneventful, lots of sleeping as we had to wake up at about 7AM (always a bummer). When we got there we immediately checked into our pensions (small, bed and breakfast type hotels, except unlike the B&Bs in New England, these buildings are older than our country) and got lunch. Then we took a long (long, long) tour of the castle and the village, which would have been amazing, save for the fact that it was snowing. Really, really snowing. And because our program is so amazing we got to take a private tour of the castle, when normally the castle isn't open in the winter. It isn't open because its cold. Very f-ing cold.

Regardless, the tour was really interesting, when I wasn't thinking about how, if I were inclined, I might break off a toe and eat it as a popsicle (should have worn those boots, Mom). The castle holds one of the only intact Baroque theaters in Europe, complete with costumes and sets and everything. Very neat. We then headed to a cozy coffee shop for a lecture about the town by our Floridian tour guide (ha!).

After the tour a few of us went to a really strange underground dungeon restaurant for (expensive) beer and then headed over to the official dinner which was (surprise, surprise) at a beer hall. The dinner was AMAZING, the food might have been the best I've had so far. Then after our mandatory and free beer, a gypsy band played for us and we all danced and drank until midnight when everybody promptly went back to the pensions and fell asleep, maybe the earliest I've been to bed since I've been here. The dancing, debauchery was quite fun because our program directors were dancing and drinking with the best of us, pretty hilarious. Also, there are two 50+ year old women on our trip who mayyyy have made out with our tour guide (hence, the Dirty K). Regardless, one of the best nights I've had so far. The picture is of all my roommates, not a great one of me, but cute of them...

The next day we had about 6 hours free to wander the city, so a few of us checked out the local church, which was beautiful, and went to the Fairytale Museum aka creepy puppets museum. Very cool, very creepy. Then we went and had some pastries that we followed up with a HUGE Czech lunch. I think I've never been so full, particularly because I had a HUGE HUGE HUGE chicken steak covered in ham and cheese and creamy broccoli (see picture below). Phew! Then, alas, we left the Dirty K to return to Praha. Extremely fun trip that I probably wouldn't have gone on without the guidance of the program.

On an unrelated note, yesterday I went to a HUGE ska show with my Czech roommate, Petr, and a few of his friends. It was really, really fun, and just like ska shows in America except the band was Spanish, so...they spoke Spanish. I wasn't the only one who didn't understand them, though, as when they asked "Are there any American Latinos in the house?" the whole stadium cheered. Definitely some anti-American sentiment, as they're a pretty leftist band. One song was all about how they didn't like President Bush, and I was like "time to take that one out of the line-up, guys." Even though I was a little afraid to reveal my nationality, the show was a great time...Check out Ska P below...

Getting sick and classes

[above] some new Czech friends and I painting in our living room circa 6AM...living the life

I officially have the flu, which was expected since our Czech roommate has been sick the entire time we've been here. Luckily its pretty mild so I'm able to be up and doing stuff, just feeling pretty crummy.

Update on classes:
Politics: Pretty basic, just general overview of Central European history, which includes Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The teacher is veryy European, mostly just lectures, but is really intelligent and old school, so I'm diggin it. He's pretty famous here and is on TV often, apparently, so that's also cool.

Art and Architecture: Amazing class. Our first assignment is to draw a building in Prague, which is great. Focusing on 18th through 20th century art. Our teacher's name is Otto, which is pretty awesome by itself.

Film: So far we've just watched one film and haven't met our prof yet, so I have no clue about this one. The film was pretty great though, a German, 30s erotic flick (with no subtitles). Pretty racy for our first day of class.

Czech Language: I think you get the picture on this one. My teacher, however, is amazing. He's taken us on a tour of the city and played guitar for us, as well as trying (desperately) to teach us to speak.

Resistance and Dissent: I've only had one class in this but...perhaps the most boring thing I've ever experienced. Hopefully this picks up or I'm going to be resisting and dissenting pretty soon.

Otherwise, things are pretty chill, this weekend should be fun, am going to see a few concerts and of course, Cesky Krumlov. Will post pictures from that...hope everyone is doing great stateside!