But then again, it's New Jersey. How could I not?
More (not making fun of New Jersey) after the jump. This one's a long post.
The Beer Factory was good fun- you sit down, they bring you mugs, and you pour yourself beer from the four taps on the table. There's a monitor that shows how many litres of beer you've poured, and there's a big screen at the front of the room that shows how many mugs worth of beer your table has drank. As each table drinks more beer, their tally goes up, and the tables are listed in order of who has drank the most. If you're like some of the kids at my table, you turn it into a competition, and end up drinking about 14 litres of beer for 6 people. In our defense, our table and the table next to us joined forces toward the end.
13 would be my table.
By the end of the night the DJ had played such classic bands as Backstreet Boys and LFO. At one point, two girls from another table started dancing together, some sort of swing, and I decided I wanted to as well. I did a little bit of cha-cha with one of the guys at my table, but we'd had a little more beer than we realized and danced pretty terribly. We decided to just end it with a dip, which adds a bit of panache to any crappy dancing. He actually dipped me twice. Once, I hit my head on his knee, and on the second one, I threw my leg up in the air for added emphasis.
You poured your own beer (obviously) which I had never done before. I think I did a pretty good job.
Beautiful, right?
My tour of the Jewish Town was marred a little bit by rain, but still fascinating. My tour guide was a professor from Charles University, and told of some very cute stories.
We saw the Maisel Synagogue, which was the private synagogue of a rabbi from Prague. Unfortunately, most of the famous synagogues in Prague are now museums because there was no use for them, as the Jewish population decreased dramatically following WWII.
Maisel Synagogue.
We also passed the Golem Restaurant, and later, the tombstone of the Rabbi who created the golem- Rabbi Loew.
We went to the Old New Synagogue, which is the Old New Synagogue because it was the New Synagogue, but then a newer one was built. The Golem is, supposedly, still in the attic, but nobody is allowed in the attic to check. According to our tour guide, two people have been allowed/made it into the attic: the first was a rabbi in either the 1800s or the 18th Century that snuck in, and came out with his hair on end and some words of advice- "Never try to wake the Golem", and the second was a reporter in either the late 19th Century or the early 1900s (I'm not so good with remembering dates), who was allowed in the attic and ended his article by saying that if the Golem was in the closet, he was in the stones of the attic floor, holding them up, but there was no way of telling for sure.
The guide took us to the Holocaust memorial, which has the names, date of birth, and date of death, listed by location and last name, of every person from the Czech Republic who was killed in the Holocaust. The entire building is filled wall to ceiling with names, and it's incredibly chilling. Even more chilling is the fact that I found a last name that I recognized as a last name from my family. I don't know if it's the family I had that was actually Czech, but it's still eerie.
The synagogue that housed the Holocaust memorial also had the Jewish graveyard in front of it. At points in the graveyard, it looks like people were buried in hills. It turns out that the Jews were given only a tiny patch of land to bury their dead, and as a result, they had to bury their dead on top of their dead. They were forced to put a little ground on top of the existing graves, and keep burying. Our tour guide did tell us a funny story, though. In Judaism, you aren't allowed to speak ill of the dead, so you have to write nice things on their tombstone. On one tombstone, it apparently only says that the lady was very rich, so our guide told us a joke about a rabbi who had to give the eulogy for a man. It turns out the man had been a pretty bad guy, so the rabbi was at a loss for words. Finally, it came time to give his speech, so he walked up and said "....his brother was worse".
Random Fact: In either the 15th Century or the 1500s (sorry!), the King declared that the Jews were his property. While this isn't ideal phrasing, it was actually much better than it seems. As property of the King, Jews and their property couldn't be harmed. The punishment for harming a Jew or their property could be death.
We also visited the Spanish Synagogue yesterday. There's a Kafka-based statue right next to it. The building isn't used as a Synagogue anymore- it's a concert hall. The inside, however, is nothing short of stunning:
Apparently, the synagogue was built as an apology for burning down the old one. Klassy.
Tesco: Insane. 5 floors, and they have almost everything. Except flip flops. Whatever.
Tonight, I went out for dinner to the Louis Armstrong Restaurant. Hint: don't go.
Creepy Satchmo was Creepy.
I honestly have no idea how Louis Armstrong became affiliated with any restaurant in Prague, and I have no idea why they played Frank Sinatra and Edith Piaf but no Louis Armstrong. I have no idea why all their pasta is ridiculously sweet, either. They had really weird decorations too.
Random.
One person in our group said the decor reminded them of the well/cave basement from Silence of the Lambs. If that doesn't put you in a good mood, I don't know what will.
Maybe that?
When one of the kids I was eating with accused New York of being a [expletive] hole, I accused him of being from New Jersey. The other kid from the same place as me echoed my sentiments. And there you have it! Louis Armstrong and making fun of Jersey!
Spanish Synagogue Image from: http://jbuff.com/shul%20prague%20spanish_synagogue.htm
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