Both of us woke up early. Tiffany went down to check on laundry and everything was still wet in dryer. Argh, added stress. The clothes were pretty wet so Tiffany started the dryer again while we decided on a plan. There was a laundromat down the street but we’d already paid to use this dryer, didn’t want to haul our wet things down the street, and didn’t know if it would really be any faster. The room was vacant for the evening so our host agreed to let us spread out the clothes on a drying rack to dry for the day and leave our luggage in the room. We left the clothes in the dryer while we went for a quick breakfast. We came back, spread out Tiffany’s clothes and got everything else packed. I had just a couple of things and with the help of the blow dryer was able to finish drying them and pack them.
We left the room and went to the Jewish quarter. Our main goal was to see the cemetery but we had to purchase a ticket which included a couple of the synagogues as well. There was an ambience of sorrow as you entered into the synagogue. There were thousands and thousands of names listed on the walls, entire neighborhoods of families that had been killed during WWII. The names were listed by the streets upon which they had lived. There was a list of the 24 concentration camps which took these precious lives. In the Jewish museum, there were artifacts used in the care of preparing a body for burial. The Jewish had a burial society. When someone was near death, this group would stay with the dying so they could confess their sins and say a final prayer. Upon death, the burial society would dig a grave, build a modest casket and prepare the shoud. According to Jewish law, a body was buried as soon as possible, usually on the day of death. After death, the body is covered with a sheet and laid on the floor. A candle was lit by their head. The main ritual was cleaning of the body. Males were cleaned by men, females by women. The body was cleaned with warm water into which an egg is mixed as a symbol of life. Special silver tools are used to remove all dirt from under the fingernails. Silver combs are used to arrange the hair. Once the cleaning has been done, the body is sprinkled with wine and a prayer is said. Then the body is dressed with underwear, a shirt, socks and a linen shroud with a belt. Men also wear a shawl with one of the fringes missing. The body is placed in the coffin and sprinkled with dirt from the Holy Land. There are no jewels or decorations placed in the casket. There must be no difference between the poor and the rich.
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| Klausen Synagoge |
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| Klausen Synagogue |
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Pinkas Synagogue
Memorial to Holocaust victims |
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| Pinkas Synagogue |
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| Friedl Dicker-Brandeis taught children in Terezin concentration camp art |
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| Children's portraits with their art |
As we entered the cemetery, it was so hurtful to see the tombstones knocked over and stacked right up against each other. Our tour guide had told us there was only a small area allowed for the Jewish burials over the centuries, bodies are buried on top of each other often 7 to 10 deep. There was a solemn quietness as people walked through the cemetery path. There were many Jewish families, males with the Jewish hat.
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| Jewish cemetery |
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| Jewish cemetery |
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| Jewish cemetery |
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| Jewish cemetery |
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| Jewish cemetery |
Afterwards we headed to the Palace for our tour. We thought we could get there easily by public transportation rather than the Hop On buses but wound up being on the opposite side of the palace. We did not make it to the tour site in time. We decided we would just have lunch at a McDonalds and then catch the purple line since each line took a different route and we had not seen that part of the city. We caught the bus and wound up going one stop and then stopped at a park so the driver and attendant could have lunch. This wasn’t exactly our plan but it turned out to be a nice stop. It was a shady park with a creative miniature golf course. I took several pictures of the creative holes to show my students. It was also the site of the ugliest building in Prague. Originally built to be a radio tower to intercept messages, it took so long to be built that it was no longer needed for that purpose. It now has a one room hotel at the top. Tiffany checked and it was available for this evening, at only $1,000 per night. After we got back on the purple line, we rode around awhile (long enough for us both to take a short snooze) then got off and walked back to our room. We got all our things packed and headed for the metro en route to the airport. Metro, bus, airport. We had arrived 3 hours early but better than running in at the last minute. We could not check our bags for 45 minutes. Tiffany was looking on her phone at transportation options in Amsterdam while I searched out the airport for dinner options.
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| Žižkov Television Tower |
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| Fun mini-golf course |
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| Another cemetery by the TV Tower |
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| Entrance into the TV Tower |
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| A mini-golf hole |
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| Doesn't hole 10 look fun? |
45 minutes later we got in line to check in. As the airline worker checked the tickets on Tiffany’s phone, she calmly told us our tickets were for tomorrow. Holy crap! We had to go to another area and see what we could do. There were 3 seats left on the flight tonight. We did not have a room to stay and had plans for a full day tomorrow because we would only be in Amsterdam for two days. Good news, bad news. We did get on the plane but had to buy new tickets ($444.00) which turned out to be cheaper than making a change with our present tickets. Tiffany tried to get a credit for what we had already spent but it was against airline policy. Unfortunately, it works the same in the United States and no amount of pleading was going to get us a better deal. We bit the bullet and bought new tickets. After we went back to check in our luggage, the girl working the check-in then told us our flight was an hour-and half late. Are you kidding? Well, our already late flight was now going to be after 10pm and we would not arrive until after midnight. We’re going to have to run on adrenaline for the next two days and the hype of home being right around the corner.
After our luggage was checked in, we went and got dinner. As we meandered back to our area, we saw our flight on the screen and it did not say anything about being late. We nearly cried. As we frantically walked to the gate, I saw an information booth and the worker told us the flight was in fact delayed. They had not put the flight was delayed until they knew how long it would be delayed--strange. Even though we were ready to leave as soon as possible, we were relieved we hadn’t missed the flight.
Technically our arrival was Monday, June 18 but since it was the end of this day, I’ll continue with arrival plans now. We arrived at about 12:30am. Although our room looked like it was right by a tram, we did not want to risk walking with luggage late at night in an unknown area. We opted to take an Uber which dropped us off right at the door and since it was raining lightly, we were glad. The room was at the Easy Hotel, which is similar to a nice hostel. The room is very small, New York style, but efficient, clean and comfortable. We quickly got ready for bed and crashed.
WALKING ACTIVITY: 7.8 miles; 17,417 steps; 10 floors; 80 degrees F
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